Day 6, Saturday, June 3, 2023
Packing, Brunch, Packing, Fjord Sites, Canaletto.
We were faced with a dilemma today: We could only take one large bag per person to Denali with us, and our third bag would go directly to the hotel in Anchorage for our final night in Alaska. We could take our carryons with us on the train to Denali, but all the bags would be trucked to their destination. So we pulled everything out of drawers and closets and had a massive sorting party. We do/don’t need this item for the next three days. In retrospect, I don’t think we said “oh, shit” about not having something we wanted or needed during our time in Denali. But it caused some minor stress over the final day.
There was a very nice brunch in the Main Dining Room. We had also received an invitation from the Pinnacle Grill maître d’ for lunch, to make up to us the problems of our first night dinner. My bad: I didn’t put that invitation in my calendar. When we saw the Alaska brunch, we enthusiastically decided to eat there. When it was over and we were walking back to our suite, I realized my error. We stopped by the Pinnacle Grill and apologized profusely to the maître d’ and thanked her for her generosity. We’ll catch up with her the next time we’re on the Noordam.
There are many other things we did that day, but I don’t remember them. I’m pretty sure this was the day I had an appointment with the acupuncturist in the spa, seeking relief for the pain in my right knee. The result was good, and lasted for a couple of days.[Now, six or seven weeks later, I’ve seen the ortho doc at the Cleveland Clinic’s Youngstown Ortho office, received a cortisone injection, and begun physical therapy to try to strengthen the muscles in that knee and get some relief.]
If I had read my Daily Program that morning, I would have realized that there was narration in the Crow’s Nest telling us about what we were seeing in College Fjord. When we went up later in the afternoon and saw all the recently vacated chairs lined up in the Crow’s Nest, we realized what we had missed. And now I understand even more clearly why cruisers opt for this itinerary year after year—there’s more to see on one trip than the human brain can take in. When my travel agent, George, gets back from his vacation, I’ll be calling him and booking another Alaska cruise in June of 2025 on the Westerdam.
Jas and I like dining in the Canaletto restaurant on our last night before disembarkation. It’s our private tradition to cap off a lovely and relaxing vacation. We had a very similar dinner to what we had at the end of our Eastern Caribbean cruise last January.
Aferwards, back to the room for the last minute tucking of things into suitcases and carryons for our move from ship to train in the morning.
