Day 16 - Sunday - 09/08/24 - Juneau

 Today on this return trip to Juneau, we arrived very early and the ship was cleared around 6:30am, but we didn't get up until 8am.  We met my cousin, Janet,  who took us to her church, Chapel by the Lake.  Afterwards we visited the site where Janet's mom and also her twin sister are interred.  Afterwards we treated her to a COSTCO dog at what is probably the smallest COSTCO we've ever visited.  We were back on the ship by 1:45pm to attend the 2pm presentation by Libby Riddles, the first woman champion of the Iditarod.  She's a polished speaker and good presenter. She also had merchandise for sale which we purchased a couple of items.


Afterwards Gloeta gave a terrific presentation on large whales and large bears.  She's a delight to listen to and is very animated in her presentations.  She'll also be doing whale watching commentary after we leave the Gasteneau Channel following our 4pm departure.


Before we attended a 6:30pm Captain's Circle cocktail party in the Vista Lounge for high loyalty Princess guests, we ate a light LIDO dinnner.  At the cocktail party, the Future Cruise Consultant Director presented the cruise statistics with the number of first time cruisers (1757) being over 1/2 the total guests of 2528.


Here's the tabulation that was presented:


1,757 first time cruisers (very high!)

338 Gold

139 Ruby

145 Platinum

94 Elite


Captain Steven Lewis also shared his thanks and thoughts for a bit before a raffle of 3 bottles of Champaign was given out.  


The entertainment tonight was a husband - wife duo of Annalyse and Ryan who performed their first ever performance on a Princess Ship.  They were quite good with good chemistry between them.  This was followed by a comedian, Orlando Baxter, from Massachusetts.  He's a former teacher who was challenged by one of his students to pursue his passion for being a comedian.  So he did.  He was pretty funny.



We grabbed a late night snack in the buffet before adjourning to our stateroom.  While watching the WAKE show (a show which promotes the activities for the following day and Keven, the CD, reads submitted comment cards which are generally shout outs for good service.  He made special note of a dad joke I submitted saying it was the best of this cruise.  If you want to know what it was, you'll need to contact me via email, facebook, or a reply in this blog.  It's not a crude or offensive joke, but it is very funny and it's my personal creation from this trip from when we were in the Yukon.


Tomorrow we're in Ketchikan for a short stop from 10am to 5:30.  It's our last port of call this cruise.

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