A Feast For Your Senses: Fuel for your sense of wonder and sense of humor: Alaska

Today is the day we say goodbye to these past 8 days seeing Alaska on land and move on to our next part of the trip, a 7 day southbound inside passage cruise on the Grand Princess. I definitely recommend doing the land tour first because you get all of the unpack/pack nearly every day travel between cities on a bus/train out of the way first. Then once on the ship, you unpack once and have a much more comfortable ride to each city from now on. The fact that we get free laundry with our cabin category was an added perk so it was like being on a back to back cruise but only having to pack enough clothes for one leg.

When it comes to traveling to Whittier (at least for us coming from Kenai) is that it's a lot more of a timing issue than just leaving enough time to allot for heavy traffic. You've heard of a one truck stop town, Whittier is a one cruise port town where essentially everyone who works for the port lives in a single giant dormitory style building. To get into Whittier, multiple lanes of traffic all line up at a one way tunnel that traffic coming out of Whittier also uses. To accomplish this, the tunnel operates on a timer system. Buses like ours get priority in the first traffic lane and we were assigned a 12:30PM time that we had to be at the tunnel for our turn. Our guide Lori was very adamant that everyone in our group be packed up and on the bus by a certain time to ensure we made it to the tunnel by 12:30PM. This was one of the few moments where Lori had to be strict with timing. Don't be one of those last minute stragglers on this day!

Lori had allotted enough time between leaving Kenai and arriving at the tunnel to stop off at an area off the main road so everyone had the chance to see a glacier and a creek with salmon jumping upstream.

Everyone was enamored with what was dubbed the Beverly Hillbillies camper in the parking lot:

As much as she might have liked to, our guide Lori would not be following us onto the ship. Once she got us to the port, she'd be heading back to wait for the next group of lucky souls doing the land portion. We took the time on this last stop to thank her and pose for a picture together.

We all piled back on the bus and made our way to the tunnel entrance. There was an electronic message ticker as well as traffic lights alerting drivers that the tunnel was currently only open to traffic leaving Whittier at the moment. Some drivers even took to standing outside their cars expecting a longer wait.

And like, well, clockwork, right at 12:30PM our lane of tour buses was allowed to take our turn driving through the tunnel. It is an enclosed tunnel and very dark so Lori insisted that no one use flash photography while they were driving through so as not to distract the driver.

Once out of the tunnel and back into the sunlight, we immediately spot our new home for the next 7 days, the Grand Princess. I don't believe Whittier can have more than one ship in port at a time so no issues with finding the right terminal or battling too many crowds.

I don't know if it was by design or a happy coincidence since we were the first to get through the tunnel but our group was literally the first people at the terminal to check in. The bus pulled right up to the front door of the terminal and both Lori and our bus driver coordinated with the porters to transfer our checked luggage for us. No having to drag it anywhere ourselves. It was funny when we walked in the building to no line whatsoever and stood there trying to figure out if we were allowed to check in yet. The check in agents started waving us over and explained that we were the first cruisers to arrive. In most cases, if you do get to check in early, you most likely will then have to sit and wait in the terminal for longer until they allow you to board. Whether it was due to being the only ship here or the fact that it's already 12:30PM, we were allowed to board right away after being checked in. As it was, roaming the ship for those first few hours onboard felt so weird because it was so quiet and deserted.

After dropping off our carry on luggage in our cabin, we headed over to Alfredo's Pizzeria for some lunch. On ships that have Alfredo's as a separate venue, this is a great spot to avoid the crowds and still get a sit down service relaxing meal. It also surprises a lot of cruisers to learn that this venue onboard is not an extra cost like the other specialty restaurants. If your ship doesn't have it's own Alfredo's Pizzeria venue, check out the normally upcharge specialty restaurant called Sabatinni's around lunchtime. On sea days, they sometimes use the same space to offer an Alfredo's Pizzeria lunch free of charge.

With a nearly empty ship and not a lot of activities scheduled (hence why Alaska cruises usually have a late afternoon/evening muster and subsequent sailaway) I took the time to wander the open promenade deck snapping pictures of Whittier.

The dormitory style building:

One of the nice touches I love about Princess is that not only do most ships have this open promenade deck that lets you walk completely around the ship but they offer nice deck chairs (seated and loungers) and wooden benches to stop and relax. Great spot for a quiet rest away from the pool deck noise and people watch or in our case, glacier watch.