Open Jaw Senior Writer Jim Byers recently returned from a seven-day Alaska Cruise on the Holland America Eurodam. Here’s his take on the ship and the excursions offered.
THE SHIP
My wife had a nice verandah balcony room (4137 to be precise) with a good-sized balcony and lots of cupboard space. The Eurodam was launched in 2008. It’s been refurbished but could use more power outlets, especially next to the beds for phones and other electronics. We borrowed an extension cord from the ship soon after checking in and put it under our bed and then ran it over to an outlet by the desk. When we came back from lunch one of the crew members had secured the cord to the floor with duct tape so wouldn’t trip on it. It was a little thing, but it was indicative of the excellent service we had during our cruise.
Breakfast was occasionally crowded at the Lido buffet but there was a vast selection to satisfy almost any traveller. If you want a more refined breakfast experience, try The Dining Room. Lunches were quite good, again with tremendous variety, and dinners in The Dining Room were very good. I would’ve thought the Alaska Brunch would have giant platters of fresh crab. I didn’t see that, but we did enjoy crab and salmon cakes, lemon-blueberry pancakes and reindeer sausage. If you’re a foodie, you’ll probably want to upgrade to the specialty restaurants for a few meals. Canaletto featured fabulous pasta with calamari, mussels and perfect scallops, as well as outstanding veal meatballs with sage. At Tamarind, we enjoyed more tasty seafood and noodle dishes, including fabulous Thai Citrus Scallops. We had flavourful, tender steaks and umami-rich mushroom soup at the Pinnacle Steak House.
We loved the evening entertainment. The Billboard Onboard lounge featured a man and a woman playing popular tunes on the piano, and offered very nice cocktails. For folks looking for some dancing and energy, the band who played at the Rolling Stone Lounge was on our cruise was out of this world good. The female singer had no trouble belting out Janis Joplin tunes, and that’s not an easy task. They also had a young guy who couldn’t have weighed 100 pounds crooning Marvin Gaye, Al Green and other great tunes, and the band was smoking hot. We must have gone four or five times, and we were never disappointed. (Well, okay, they didn’t do as much old time rock and roll as I like, and they said they couldn’t play The Beatles “Twist and Shout,” but I forgive them.)
I enjoy a nice cocktail lounge or a quiet bar as much as a rowdy concert, and we found a couple very nice options. The Pinnacle Bar was small but sophisticated and served a nice margarita with yuzu, while the Tamarind Bar was smooth and stylish and offered a great variety of mixed drinks.
There weren’t a lot of Broadway-style shows on offer, but the Alaska show on day two provided an excellent preview of what was to come. The cruise director was smooth and fast on her feet, but not smarmy. I took in an indigenous Alaska experience mid-way through the trip, with a great storyteller from the Tlingit Nation, Fred Fullmer, who talked about growing up in the area and played wonderful native American music. Fullmer told us locals would climb insanely steep cliffs to gather wool from goats to make thick blankets, also climb for gull eggs. The area was home to everything from wild rice, wild potatoes salmon berries and blueberries. “If you starve in Glacier Bay you’re lazy,” he said with a smile. Fullmer said it used to be illegal for local natives to gather for potlatch ceremonies, but now native languages are taught in Alaska schools. He also noted that the U.S Parks Service let locals build a long house on a nearby island. “I love this area,” he said. “I love southeast Alaska. This is my home.”
The outdoor pool wasn’t heated, which makes for a brisk experience on an Alaska cruise. But the indoor pool was heated, and there were both indoor and outdoor hot tubs. I didn’t get a massage, but my wife enjoyed hers. I did take a few hours to enjoy the steam rooms and day beds and the hydro-pool, which was very relaxing. Not a huge spa, but nice.
There are tons of activities every day, including arts and crafts, pickleball on the sports court, music trivia nights, air hockey tournaments for teens, Royal Dutch tea in the dining room, movies, flower-arranging classes, beer-tasting and much more. Of course, there’s also a casino.
The Crows’ Nest is a great spot for reading, playing a board game or working on a jigsaw puzzle. The coffee shop baristas made wonderful cappuccino.
I was told to expect an older crowd. I thought the average age on board was probably around 62 or 64. There were travellers who appeared to be in their 80’s, but also a few families and several small kids. The Loft is a room for teens with pinball, video games and more. The ship also has a kids’ club called Club HAL.
JIM’S TIP: Take a ride up to the Crows’ Nest on Deck 10. Look for the skee ball game on the starboard side, then look for the unmarked exit near by. Open the door and take the stairs to deck 11 for fabulous views.
HOME BASE, EXCURSIONS AND SCENERY
Our first chance to explore anything on land was in Juneau. It’s pretty commercial, but we enjoyed poking our heads into the bar at the Alaskan Hotel (tons of funky atmosphere) and had a brief look around the small but pretty state capitol building. It was drizzling the day we were in town and we couldn’t see Mendenhall Glacier, which I hear is beautiful. But we walked on easy path to the base of thundering Nugget Falls, where a powerful stream of water tumbles down a dark cliff. Very much worth the 20-minute walk each way from the parking lot.
We had a nice-whale watching tour in the waters north and west of Juneau the next day. There was a bit too much silly commentary for my mind, and the ship was a tad crowded, but there was free, hot coffee, hot chocolate and donut holes, plus drinks and snacks for sale. We spotted dozens of humpback whales, including a pair of resident specimens called Barnacle and Abalone, and admired pretty islands with forests of thick green pines.
I didn’t get to go as I was busy interviewing Chef Malinal on the ship, but my friends and my wife said they loved the Birds, Bears and Barnacles tour in Sitka. They got to admire eagles, owls and other birds up close, as well as black and brown bears from just a few feet away. I had a few minutes in the morning to scamper around Sitka and check out some shops, as well as a fine, small museum that examined local history.
We missed Mendenhall Glacier due to the weather, but it was mostly clear and relatively warm when we visited Glacier Bay and Margerie Glacier. Seeing it from the water was pur magic; the highlight of our trip and one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The glacier used to be a great deal larger, but you can still admire its pale blue ice racked with deep crevasses and streaks of black. The glacier swirls south and then turns north toward the Canadian border as it advances into the Fairweather Mountains. I stood transfixed for nearly an hour as I watched small bits of the glacier tumble into the icy water. We were told only two large cruise vessels get to visit this part of Glacier Bay each day, so we were lucky. On our way back south, I spotted a lone otter floating on its back, eyes to the sky and seemingly without a care in the world.
Our friends did a “Deadliest Catch” excursion to see what it’s like on an Alaska fishing boat and said they had a very nice time. They also spotted a pod of orcas.
My wife and I quite enjoyed our excursion to Totem Bight State Park in Ketchikan, where you can examine intricate totems and check out the replica of a local native American structure that would have housed several families. We also spotted a couple bald eagles floating on invisible currents, and one perched atop a tall totem.
Excursions are great, but simply enjoying the views from our balcony or from one of the open decks was a wonderful experience. I woke up early several mornings to watch the sun coming up over rugged Alaska mountains. I had never thought about an Alaskan sunset, but several we witnessed were quite pretty.
The weather in late August was quite good. Aside from a bit of rain in Juneau, we had mostly sunny skies daytime high temperatures that ranged from roughly 16 to 23C.
Our cruise was in an and out of Seattle, which is a fabulous city to explore. The cruise line put us up at the Palihotel Seattle, which is less than 100 metres from the city’s Pike Place Market. to my mind, it's one of the top public markets in North America. Our hotel room wasn’t large, but it was stylish and super convenient. The lobby area has a hugely Instagram-worthy relaxation area, and the attached coffee shop/restaurant served up a fantastic coffee latte, as one might expect in Seattle. For breakfast on the day of our departure, I lined up at a funky, nearby spot called “Biscuit Bitch” and noshed on a great biscuit with eggs, bacon and biscuit gravy.
