I’ve spent some enjoyable time over the last several years watching the bears’ live cam at Brooks Falls, in Katmai National Park in Alaska. I’ve liked that a lot and always had a yen to go there and see it in person. I never seriously thought we would ever do that, but this year Princess Cruises surprised me with a short cruise tour that had a one day outing to watch the bears at Brooks fish salmon out of the river. So, we went.
The Land Portion
This involved flying to Anchorage for two nights at the Captain Cook Hotel. The morning following our arrival we were picked up at the hotel and taken to the airport on a small bus. We got on a small propeller plane to King Salmon and then got on a floatplane that took us to Brooks Lodge.
When you get to Brooks Lodge to view the bears, you have to go to “bear school” where they give you instructions and advice for handling any bear encounters. Then you head out on the trail toward the Falls Platform. It’s interesting to see that the trail has many bear crossing that cross it as the bears go to the river. We were either lucky enough or unlucky enough, depending on how you look at it, not to encounter any bears on the trail. The trail is good. It’s pretty much level and smooth. You come to a raised boardwalk and go through a gate to that. You come to another gate where there’s a ranger with a sign-up sheet. You get your name down on the sheet to wait for your turn at the Falls Platform. When it’s your turn, you get 30 minutes at the viewing platform. We only had to wait 15 or 20 minutes, and we spent most of that time at the lower Riffles Platform where you can look upstream and see the bears at the falls.
The successful fisher bear above and the one below that’s sticking her paw into the water are, of course, the same bear. She was smaller than the others we saw, and she had some real technique going on. She would stick her paw down into the water, as below, creating a channel of calmer water. The salmon would come right up that channel into her mouth. It’s amazing to watch them eat the salmon. Bite. Bite. Bite gone.
More to come!
The Cruise Portion
When we switched planes in Seattle on the way to Anchorage, I had an email from Princess in my inbox. They’d given us a free cabin upgrade! We went all the way from an obstructed ocean view to a mini-suite with a large balcony. The balcony was covered, which is always nice especially in Alaska where it rains a lot. Very pleasant surprise and thank you, Princess!
We were on the Grand Princess, which is an older, smaller ship. We like the Grand a lot and it was especially nice on this trip since the Grand can go through the Inside Passage. The larger, newer ships can’t do that.
We had two glacier viewing days on this cruise: Hubbard Glacier for my birthday and Glacier Bay the day after. The weather was reasonable, so viewing was good. We saw very little calving, but that’s a “you get what you get” item.
Below is Hubbard Glacier. It’s a rare bird these days, since it’s advancing while most, if not all, the others are retreating.
Below is the Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay. Glaciers carry large amounts of dirt down with them as the flow, which is what gives this one its stripey appearance.
Below is the Margerie Glacier. The ship is some amount of miles away from it, as it is in the one above. Cruise ships don’t go that close, since it’s dangerous to do so.
Princess has in the past, and maybe in the future on some ships, done a “most traveled guest luncheon.” That one never entered my mind, since compared to so many others we have few days at sea. Well, we made the cut for the luncheon! It was held in the Crown Grill on the last day at sea. I think it’s about forty people, divided into small tables with a ship’s officer at each. Our officer was Yolandi, and she was really nice. The food was great! We had tuna tartare, black ravioli, and some kind of delicious, multi-layer mousse thing for dessert. We got our picture taken with the captain and were given a nice 8 X 10 print that I have no idea what to do with.
Later that afternoon, as we were chugging through the Inside Passage, we encountered a pod of orcas. This was the closest we’ve ever seen orcas, and those guys put on quite a display. It was almost like they were showing off for the big, noisy thing in the water. They were jumping and rolling. Really special.
Debarkation day at the end of a cruise is never pleasant, but the Port of Vancouver and YVR airport have worked out something that makes it much better. They offer a “direct to the airport” thingy whereby if you meet the qualifications, you go right from the ship onto a bus that takes you directly to the airport. You pick up your luggage at the airport, and that was much better than hassling around with it at the cruise terminal. Not as nice as Seattle’s Port Valet, but still much better.
