ALASKA – 09/2019

DAY 1: Sat Aug 31 - Depart Vancouver

1. Holland America’s Vancouver Port Guide

2. First Things First

KEY to Everything

3. DAY 1 Onboard: Board Holland America’s ms Nieuw Amsterdam and Sail Away

4. TRIP Map Overview

DAY 2: Sun Sept 1 - Cruising the Inside Passage

1. DAY 2 Onboard

2. Scenic Cruising

3. America’s Test Kitchen

…where we made creamy smooth ‘Restaurant-Style Hummus’, learned a great trick for removing tiny bones from a fish fillet, and how to bake salmon—start at a very high temperature (500F), and immediately turn down the oven (275F to 300F) —10 minutes (maybe!)

4. EXC Talk: Pacific Giants — Iconic Whales of the NorthWest

Holland America’s Explorations Central™ (EXC®), talks and presentations combine storytelling, expert commentary, and multi-media audio and video to provide background relevant to the places that will be visited during the cruise. On average there is at least one exc talk every day, more during days at sea. We attended the ‘Pacific Giants’ talk and video presentation and found it a great backgrounder for the whale watching we enjoyed effortlessly onboard.

DAY 3: Mon Sept 2 - Tracy Arm Inlet and Juneau, Alaska

1. DAY 3 Onboard

2. Holland America’s Port Guide to Juneau, Alaska

3. Juneau Map

4. Exploring Juneau on foot

5. St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church

7. Visiting the Wickersham House

8. Shopping for Matryoshka Dolls at Juneau’s House of Russia

DAY 4: Tues Sept 3 - Skagway, Alaska

1. DAY 4 Onboard

2. Holland America’s Port Guide to Skagway

3. Excursion: The White Pass & Yukon Route Railway — White Pass Summit Scenic Railroad

4. Lunch at the Historic Skagway Inn, Restaurant and Bar

5. GOODNIGHT from the ms Nieuw Amsterdam

DAY 5: Wed Sept 4 - Glacier Bay, Alaska

1. DAY 5 Onboard

2. Cruising Glacier Bay National Park — Brochures and maps

3. “Fewer than a dozen” rivers of ice — smaller tidewater glaciers “sequestered at the heads of their inlets in the upper bay”…flowing from “tall coastal mountains to the sea and [calving] great shards of ice that bejewel cold waters with diamond-like bergs.” Witnesses to change, a living lesson in resilience.