We docked early – around 6am – but we didn’t get off early. Because we had to make arrangements to get to Anchorage when the cruise ends.
Normally getting from the cruise terminal to the hotel is not difficult. But this cruise terminates in Whittier AK. As I have learned, Whittier is a tiny port. It was built as a secret naval base in World War II and hasn’t developed much since then. Almost the entire population lives in a single large building. There are no taxis. And it is 63 miles from Anchorage where we will spend three days.
I assumed that there would be many ways to get from Whittier to Anchorage. But I was wrong. Trains in Alaska don’t start service until mid-May, so that option was not available. The first private bus company that I called informed me that they don’t start operations until the first Monday in May – a week too late for us. The second one I called was fully booked. The only remaining option was to take the $100 per person bus transfer from the ship to the Anchorage airport.
But, as I found out when I booked the transfer, they wanted to send our luggage on a truck rather than the bus. When I told Marlene about that she hit the ceiling. So back down to the Guest Services desk to express our displeasure. He told us that the baggage arrangements were a “convenience” as it was a long walk from the ship to the bus. We said we did not want to be separated from our luggage. He shrugged. Our choice.
I hope we don’t have to walk a mile on broken glass.
While struggling to figure out how to get to Anchorage I spoke to a fellow passenger who had already booked the bus. He said he was going to rent a car at the airport and it wasn’t expensive. So I started thinking about how much nicer the nearly 4 days in Anchorage would be if we had a car. A little investigation showed that I could get a car for 4 days for under $200, insurance included. I booked it.
Finally, after a couple of hours the travel arrangements were completed. We consumed a small breakfast, then left the ship to explore Skagway.
There isn’t much to explore. It is a linear town of about 7 blocks. The shops are depressingly similar. There must be 20 jewelers. So we saw a lot of the same stuff.
At least the weather was better than Juneau’s. Around 50 degrees and partly sunny. With snow-capped mountains in all directions. Not a bad place to spend a few hours. But I don’t think I would like to live here.
Skagway has a railroad. It is strictly a tourist railroad now, but originally carried prospectors who arrived by ship to the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush.
The snow blower car on display at the station is probably not used much now, but snow is definitely a problem for this railroad. The track goes high into the mountains and an avalanche can cover the track. We learned that when the ship was delayed departing Skagway by the late return of an excursion on the train – a delay caused by an avalanche.
There was a second reason for the delayed departure: the collapse of a passenger who was on the late train. He fell on the ramp to the pier. Doctors rushed to him and worked on him, giving CPR, for 33 minutes. He was taken on the ship, but it is unclear if he survived – we got conflicting reports from crew members. We think he probably died as 33 minutes of CPR is a very long time for a heart to be stopped.
There was another death earlier in the cruise, after Guatemala. A man suffered a pulmonary embolism and was taken off the ship as it passed near Cabo San Lucas. But he died before he reached the hospital.
It is nearly inevitable that at least one of the 2,000+ not-very-fit, mostly elderly passengers would die on a 25-night cruise.
I blogged a bit before dinner. At dinner we chatted with a retired New York City teacher who was married to a Filipino woman 35 years his junior. Interesting guy, beautiful wife and father of the two oldest of the 7 children on board – 14 and 10.
After dinner we rushed to catch the show – only the second full-scale production of the cruise. This one was, in a word, spectacular. It had dancers – a dozen or more – a magician who had some baffling tricks, including elevating a woman on jets of water, and the wonderful Ukranian acrobats that we had seen earlier in the cruise. A very fine show.
After the show we once again spent some time in the casino. And once again lost some money.