Our first day on the ship was a “sea day”, cruising the inside passage en route to Alaska.

We both slept in until 9, and woke to overcast skies.

My front of ship “experiment” is officially a bust. Even Ted says he can feel the ship’s motion, but I’ve taken a Kwell and am frankly miserable waiting for it to kick in.

By 11:30 my now completely empty stomach (except for a second Kwell – the first didn’t survive) was ready for food, so we headed to brunch in the main restaurant, where we were seated with Susan and Michael (Mick) from Australia, and had a lovely chat. I’m now even more excited to visit Australia in 2025!

---

After brunch, we took in one of HAL’s “EXC.Talk” lectures, where amateur naturalist Natalie Tan gave us an introduction to wildlife photography and hints about which locations on our route offer the best sightings.

Since there were no excursions, today was a great day to take in the scenery from various vantage points onboard, explore the ship, and prep this week’s blog entries. While drinking lattés in The Crow’s Nest, we saw several spouts indicating the presence of humpback whales, causing the “fireworks phenomenon”: oooooh! aaaaaah! Ted was on the seaview deck during spouting, but decided very quickly that spouts are not exciting enough to photograph.

What I decided was worth photographing was the towel “puppy” with it’s chocolate eyes that appeared on our bed after the room had been tidied.

---

Dinner tonight was in our one included specialty restaurant. There are 5 on this ship, with various per person up-charges (in USD): Canaletto ($29), Nami Sushi (totally á la carte pricing), Rudi’s Sel de Mer ($55), Tamarind ($35), and the Pinnacle Grill ($46, which we chose).

Dinner was good (although in our opinion no better than Viking’s main dining room in terms of presentation or service. We had a second night of steaks being cooked beyond our medium-rare request, although being USDA Prime they were still beautifully tender even at medium. My only real disappointment was a very dry chocolate soufflé, and my accompanying Drambuie arriving after the bill.

Speaking of bills, even though we’re on a pre-paid drink package (which automatically adds an 18% tip to all drinks), in addition to having our room card scanned each time we order any kind of drink anywhere on the ship, we are always asked to review and sign a physical paper receipt with a line to add an additional tip.

It’s other little touches we’re also noticing, like cloth tablecloths that show all their folding creases. On the Sky I was fascinated to watch the wait staff using a small tool and spritzer to ensure that every cloth was completely smooth. I guess that’s what paying double to cruise gets you!

---

After dinner, it was time for a live show: “MOVE, A Wave of Sight, Sound and Motion” by The Step One Dance Company. The 9:00 p.m. show was their second performance of the night. Normally we’d try to attend the first show, but the specialty dining venues don’t have the really early seating times. Sadly, as the ship began to rock and roll (and creak and rattle) again, the only place I could go was back to bed, with another Kwells.

Even Ted felt a bit off. In our 160-plus days of cruising, tonight’s were the roughest seas we’ve felt. Part of that is undoubtedly due to our cabin location, but we were swaying even midship leaving the restaurant, and the motion in theatre at the bow 5 floors below us must have created challenges for the dancers.

We’ll be glad to reach Juneau and our first glaciers around noon tomorrow.