Alaskan Cruise Journal # 5

Thursday May 24th 3:35 pm

Yesterday afternoon we continued our whale watching in the company of Steve and Justine. After that we got some drinks and hung around on the Sun Deck just chatting. Sarah and I adjourned to grab some hottub time and then we went back to the room to relax. After joining Steve and Justine for dinner, Sarah and I went up to Skywalker's which is the ship's nightclub. It was 80's hour but the spirit of the 80's was nowhere to be seen. The place was dead and they were playing crappy music. (I know most 80's music is crap but this stuff was from the bottom of the crap barrel) No wonder no one hangs out there. Of course, Alaskan cruise crowds are not the partying type but I guarantee if I had been the DJ there would have been more opportunities for booty shakin'. After a drink we went back to the room and hit the sack.

Today we got up at 7 am (ouch), ate b'fast and went into Ketchikan for shopping. We had to be back on board by 11:30 am so it was a short-lived port. Ketchikan was nothing but a touristy, souvenir-filled shopping stop...so that's what we did.

Back on board, we played ping-pong pitifully, lunched at Chez Buffet, perused the Erte's at the "Art Auction." We are currently sitting on the Sun Deck (overcast today) relaxing, reading and journaling. Not much else to report. It's a lazy day.

Thursday May 24th 3:50 pm

A whale just breached on the starboard side, flipping his tail back and forth as if waving at us as we pass. I've lost count of how many whales we've seen but I never get tired of it.

Afterthoughts: Ketchikan was by far the most colorful Alaskan town we visited. I saw some of the locals and they did seem like an "interesting" bunch to say the least. Basically the whole section of town down by the waterfront is an endless array of jewelry stores and souvenir shops.

Let me talk about the Princess Cruise Art Auction. On the ship they have a "Fine Arts Gallery" filled with some of the cheesiest "art" you've ever laid eyes on. They did, however, have a few items by some real artists like Picasso, Chagall, Miro, Erte, Peter Max and Jim Dine. Every afternoon they would haul the good, bad and ugly to a room and have an auction. Apparently this is one of the many ways Princess augments their income on the ship. I wish I could describe some of the art to you. A lot of it was awful semi-naked women, relief sculptures of windsurfers and people kissing and so many bad landscapes I thought for a moment that I was viewing the remedial class from Thomas Kincaid high school. Also interpersed throughout the ship was a lot of crap hanging on the walls. Every once in a while you'd see a good one but it wasn't often.

The entertainment was questionable too. I mentioned Willy Tyler. They also had some world-reknowned singer named Brandi Carlisle that no one's ever heard of, a magician named Gaetano, and every afternoon in the main lobby this quartet of hot chicks played classical music on their violins and such. My suggestion for them would have been to perform in bikinis and call themselves The String Bikinis. Catchy, huh? Steve and Justine went to see Gaetano and they said it was basically a strip show (performed by his assistant) while he did magic around her. They also said he was pretty inappropriate with an older lady from the audience. They weren't impressed. I knew better than to go. I hate magicians. Of course, if I'd know there was a stripper...just kidding.

So, with that in mind, here is my suggestion for a new catch phrase for Princess. "Good service, okay food, cheesy entertainment and bad art."

Naw, I guess they won't go for it.

PS: I'm mostly kidding around. We had a wonderful time...even if I did miss the gay magician and his stripper.