Friday 20th September 2019
Woke up this morning, our final full day onboard. We were due to be crossing Haida Gawaii today towards Vancouver Island. Last time we did this was on our first full day onboard, and there was some movement. So today we decided to get up late, have some room service breakfast and just relax through the morning.
In the end I need not have worried. It was dead calm throughout the crossing, however it was a real pea souper. The fog was heavy so every 2 minutes what you heard on deck was “baaaaaarrrrrppppp”. There was no view, no looking at sunshine etc, just fog, glary fog. I was ok with this as it allowed me to sit in bed for a bit working on the trip report.
Around 930am I got myself up and moving to go for some laps around the deck before heading to my first activity of the day, Ask the Captain. Unfortunately they don’t offer tours behind the scenes apparently (which is wrong because I heard people did it in the end). They offered the chance to sit in the main stage and ask the Captain questions about the ship and Holland America. When it started unfortunately the Captain was unable to attend as he was required on the bridge due to the fog. So they sent the Staff Captain instead (the executive officer essentially).
It was a good talk, covering some stuff that I never would have thought to ask, and some information that would come in handy later. After the tour Heidi went and picked up our photos from the gallery and we both got ready for our lunch today. We were invited to the Mariner Society lunch for all returning cruisers. Some people got some medallions for excessive days at sea. It was a relatively good lunch but we never got our tiles, so that was dissapointing.
After lunch we journeyed around to a few different activities like America’s Test Kitchen, I also did an animal towel folding demonstration and also a talk about women in Alaska. My favorite activity that afternoon was Team trivia which we ended up winning on a tie break. The winning question, well that was how many people in a lifeboat onboard the ship. An answer we got from the talk that morning! Score!
After heading up to the Neptune Lounge for a small afternoon tea we headed back to the room to begin the long process of packing our bags. This was as though we were making the trip come to an end, but we also spent some time on the Balcony as we cruised through past Vancouver Island. This part this afternoon had parts of islands and mainland so close together it was maybe two ship widths, and we were not the first ship in line. We followed the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry through the area. It was so beautiful even the whales and seals were out playing. It was such a fun afternoon, that it made packing feel almost tolerable.
Dinner tonight for one final time was in the dining room in the same area we had been eating in, at the same table as the night before. I had pre ordered a usual to ensure they didn’t put any garlic in my dinner, but Heidi was still choosing from the menu. Dinner was fun as there was the occasional possible whale sighting out the window, and a couple of tables of Aussie’s half way across the dining room begging for the windows to be opened. Fun times! 3 courses, coffee and an adventurous ice cream flavor later, we headed off to some after dinner entertainment.
First up on the entertainment choices tonight was Billboard Onboard. This is the piano bar onboard with dueling pianos. It was an “icons” selection but it felt more request like. The best one was an american singing John Farnham & Paul Allen. I was so impressed with that!! The show went for about 45 minutes which was perfect as we were heading to another show due to start 15 minutes after that, so we would be right on time. The second show we were going to was the final Main Stage show which was a mixed variety show of a short show of the Aussie comedian and the Illusionist as well.
It was a really good show, the comedian was on the ball in my opinion and the illusionist had some good, single person stuff including the show finishing escape from a straight jacket. A fantastic show to end a fantastic night. We strolled back to our room after the show not wanting the night to come to an end. But we needed to pack up the last of our clothes as we had to have our bags outside the door by midnight.