Roosevelt Island Tram

Not necessarily a tourist attraction, but the views make it one. For the mere cost of a subway or bus ride, you can enjoy a scenic view of the east side of Manhattan and East River.

At the busy foot of the Queensborough Bridge, you can find the tram station. On the NYC grid, it can be found at 2nd Ave and 60th Street.  The quick trip, which runs parallel to the bridge, takes only a few minutes. Your travel mates will range from tourists to locals who use it as a regular mode of transit.  When going to Roosevelt Island you are actually traveling intra-borough, as it is still part of Manhattan.

Once on the island, you can either turn around immediately and take the next tram back or explore this relatively unknown gem.  I would recommend exploring the Franklin Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park at the southern tip of the island. The easy walk is slightly less than a mile from the tram and offers great views of Manhattan and Queens.

As you near the park, you can view ruins of a smallpox hospital which operated from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. It is fenced off and the outer walls are held up  by supports. The park at the far end is logically dedicated to the life and memory of FDR.  Enjoy the park and the view that few tourists nor locals ever experience.

 Here is a You tube video of my trip on the tram.     https://youtu.be/PUFSDJ5rLVw

Cruising

Cruising

You can tell from other posts that we got to Alaska via a cruise. This was our first cruise, so I have nothing to compare it to other than what we have read online or heard from friends about cruising. We took the Princess Star on the Alaska Inner Passage round trip out of Seattle.

Our friends, very experienced cruisers, wanted us to join them on an Alaskan cruise they were planning. Alaska was always on my bucket list, so we jumped at it. We heard about the food volume, liquor, activities, shows, nightlife gambling and other fun associated with cruising. The only thing we were not enthusiastic about was the gambling, but everything else seemed positive and desirable.

We booked through their travel agent and got a deal which included a balcony and drink package. Our room was located port side and between midship and stern. Overall we had a great time. Any missteps we experienced were minor and inconsequential. I will break this all down into the following sections: food, drink package, entertainment and customer service.

Food 

Pretty much you could eat something any time of day, just as you heard or experienced. If something, looked good, I ate it. I didn’t gain any weight on this cruise in spite of the volume I ate since we took the stairs 90% of the time.  Alaska cruises attract many seniors, therefore the elevators are well used.  Often it was up or down at least four flights from our room on the Baja deck to the Promenade deck.  I am also an Eastern time zone early riser, so in the Pacific and Alaska time zones, I was up and ready at 4am walking the ship.

We ate dinner at the Main Dining Room (MDR) a few times with the friends we travelled with. It was the only time we were able to sit down together as a group for the most part. Overall, the food was uninspiring and service was ok at best. You could order as much as you wanted and I usually asked for two creme brûlée, which was the best thing they served. I went in with high hopes of a great meal, but always left disappointed. The best part was the dinner conversation and laughs with our friends!

The International Cafe, located in the main atrium area, offered sandwiches, salads, specialty coffees and pastries. Rarely did I pass this place and didn’t get something if there was not a line. It is open 24/7, so no line at 4 am!  

I had a decent hamburger at the Trident Grill, the only gripe is that the line moves slow, but that is due to the fact that each meal is cooked to order.  So nothing hangs out in a warming tray, except maybe the fries. Next door is Prego Pizza, another place I  ate something on every pass! The pies were not great, but much better than expected.  I suspect Dave Portnoy of Barstool would have given a 5.4 rating.

We probably were most satisfied with the Horizon Court buffet. They often served some sort of special ethnic food, which required regular replenishing, so it didn’t overlook or dry out. My favorite was samosa night and hit that up three times!  This was also our breakfast place of choice. We never went to a dining room for breakfast. A standard buffet where some food gets over cooked or dried out, but that is expected. You could get omelets cooked to order. The fruit selection was very good.  I am sure the whole buffet concept will be changing though, but wanted to share our experience before the pandemic chaos.

Drink Package

Alcohol, soda and specialty coffees.....up to 15 per day.   We never were able to hit the max on any day, although on a sea day I tried, by starting with a pina colada at 9am.  I have never consumed this much alcohol over the course of a week, but never felt tipsy.  There was always the suspicion that the booze is watered down, but who knows.  I pretty much would work my way through the Crooners menu.  I think I tried at least a dozen different mixed drinks as well as a few varieties of Alaska Brewing Company beers.  Fifteen drinks on any day is a lot, trust me.  You are not supposed to share, but I am sure it happens.

Entertainment 

Yes, there is something for everyone.  I will mostly focus on what we attended and enjoyed. The only game we played was trivia, which we did as a group of three.  It was something to do and was actually fun although the hosts try a little too hard to be funny.    We saw comedian Derrick Cameron perform twice.  He was very good and offered a good, clean show which would have appealed to anyone.  Off stage he was just as friendly as he seemed on stage.  

Cabin 

We had a basic cabin with a balcony, which is necessary for an Alaska cruise.  It was a little smaller than a Microtel room and the bathroom was like a closet as you can expect.  The room steward was pleasant, although not as attentive to details as one might have expected.  Not sure that the room was vacuumed daily.

Overall, I expect that we will be going on another Alaska cruise.  Not sure we will cruise to other places though such as the Caribbean.  One final suggestion though, since I am an early morning person......explore the ship when others are asleep.  We live on the east coast, so I was wide awake at 3 or 4 am local time.  Seeing the ship when no one was around was great. It also allowed me to take in the sunrise from different perspectives.

Seattle

Seattle

Seattle is where many cruise ships start their Alaska journey, which is what brought us here. We wanted a little more than just an overnight since neither of us have ever been here before.  

Like every day on this particular vacation, we had perfect sunny weather.  We took a Lyft from the Sea-Tac Airport to the Hyatt Regency on Howell Street, just a few blocks from the Pike Place Market. After a nice dinner of happy hour appetizers at Dragonfish Asian Cafe on Pine Street, we took the light rail to T-Mobile Park for a Mariners baseball game. Although we paid for the light rail tickets, I am not sure if we used them correctly as far as validating them.  The stations and trains were relatively clean and appeared safe.  We never felt threatened in any way.  That is important to note as Seattle has a reputation for having a large and aggressive homeless population.   

The rail station is essentially across the street from the stadium, but a very indirect walk.  Seattle was clearly infiltrated by Blue Jays fans for this homestand which we learned was not unusual.  We spent a lot of time walking around the stadium and  enjoyed the small, but nice, Mariners Hall of Fame.  The featured player  was Edgar Martinez, a recent inductee into the Baseball  Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Since the weather was great, there was no need for them to deploy the stadium roof, although that would have been great to witness.  We were exhausted after being up for nearly twenty hours and only managed to stay six innings, as did others in our travel group.

We intended to make the most of our only full day in Seattle. Thanks to the time change, I was up and raring to go by 4 am, but remained in bed until 5:30 when I ventured out to get Starbucks, of course!  I walked the deserted streets for a bit before picking up a latte for my wife and dark roast for myself.

At 7am or so, we started walking down to the waterfront and walked around the Pike Place Market area.  We had a coffee at the original Starbucks location.  There was no line this early, but an hour or so later it was down the street.  We looked for a breakfast place, but ended up grazing and grabbing regular and gluten free pastries at Three Girls Bakery and Cinnamon Works on Pike Place. 

We met up with others in our travel group and walked the area a bit. My wife and I took the monorail from Westgate to the Space Needle area.   I had already purchased a combination ticket for the Space Needle and Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum before leaving home, so that morning we took in the Chihuly.  I had never heard of this artist before, but this museum was something my wife wanted to see and I am glad she told me about it.

After an hour or so at the Chihuly we walked a few sunny blocks to Agave  Cocina and Tequilas.  We dined al fresco in this very nice Mexican cafe on Republican Street in the Queen Anne neighborhood.   On our walk back to the Pike Place area, we detoured and enjoyed the Olympic Sculpture Park.  It was ok, as we are not big ones for modern sculptures, but the views of the water were nice.  

We met back with our friends and  enjoyed a second ride on the monorail back to the Space Needle for our reserved trip to the top.  We were told to enjoy the view at sunset, which is why we chose this time later In the day.  This was followed by dinner at Assaggio Ristorante on 4th.  This was an old style, but moderately upscale Italian place.  We usually don’t eat at Italian places since I grew up on this fare, but those in our party seemed to like it.

The next day, embarkation day, allowed just a morning in Seattle.  We hit the streets early once again and sought a good place for all of us to eat a good breakfast. After a good breakfast at the  Seatown Market Diner on Western, we did a little more window shopping  and return to get our ride to Pier 91 for our cruise.

Juneau and Mendenhall Glacier

Juneau, Alaska, August 2019

Here is the first edition of the blog.  I won’t be posting these in any particular order or importance.  As I start getting the feel for a certain place I enjoyed visiting, I will write a post.

We didn’t really take in much of the actual city of Juneau since this was mainly our excursion heavy port on the cruise.   With only ten hours, many at night, we were able to fit in two of their major attractions which were purchased through the Princess Cruise and the vendor booths at the cruise slips.  As you will see, the focus was the Mendenhall Glacier.

Soon after disembarking, we boarded the van to the Temsco Heliport for our trip to the Mendenhall Glacier.  This was a Princess excursion which we paid for months in advance (approx $350 each).   Many excursions didn’t interest us so we put most of our eggs in this one basket.  

Our van driver got us to the heliport quickly and also shared some information about Juneau, especially the challenges that residents face as a city only accessible by sea or air.  The Temsco staff gave us a safety briefing and set us up with spiked boots so we could walk safely on the glacier. 

The 10 to 15 minute ride was absolutely exhilarating and the pilot also provided information which we heard on the headsets. We had a clear and sunny day which made for excellent photos.  The landing was soft as you can expect from a helicopter and were warmly greeted by glacier staff. We were fortunate to have a very engaging and fun college- aged guide.   We had a chance to sample the glacier steam water and I opted to do the glacier push up to drink it. With my best push up form, I dropped my face in the stream a swallowed a clean and cold mouthful of glacier water. Be careful if trying this, as the ice is sharp and can cut your hands if you don’t wear gloves or some other protection. The thirty minutes on the glacier seemed like five minutes, the helicopter ride seemed even shorter!

After a short walk Franklin Street, we purchased a round trip, for $40 each, to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. The tardiness of the bus caused us to rush once we got there, but we were able to get a nice view of the glacier from below this time, as well as Nugget Falls.  We walked the two mile round trip to the base of the falls, which was magnificent, but had to miss the view from the visitor center since we needed to catch the last bus back to downtown.  Tip: give yourself enough time and arrange your own ride. 

Although we were in port until 10 pm, we got back on the ship around 7pm since the evening hours in the downtown area didn’t offer much more than restaurants and shops aimed at tourists.

First Blogpost!

We are not big time travelers like Rick Steves or Arthur Frommer, but we do take a trip from time to time.  Before we go, we thoroughly research the location such as where to eat, how to get around and what to see.  Of course, plans change as we often try to get tips from locals while we are there!  

This first edition will focus on the port city of Ketchikan, Alaska.  We arrived in Ketchikan via a large commercial cruise ship, the Star Princess.  A future blogpost will be about our first cruising experience. Ketchikan’s waterfront is really no different than many others such as Skagway and Juneau, all of which I will be writing about. Numerous tour companies are there to greet you to take you on excursions ranging from boat tours to guided van tours to lumberjack shows. There are plenty of shops ranging from a few operated by locals to the regular cruise line owned Alaska souvenir shops and jewelry stores, all trying to get a piece of your tourism dollar.

None of the cruise excursions appealed to us and we opted to just walk around Ketchikan and take it all in.  Most of the most interesting sites were free or a nominal cost.  Let me start with the nominal cost activities.  The Totem Heritage Center was small and only a $6 admission charge.  Overall the museum was pretty basic and focused on educating about the meaning and history of the totems.  What really made the $6 a steal was the young docent who was making baskets out of thin strips of cedar. She enthusiastically answered all our questions about her craft, the region and life in Alaska. 

The other low cost activity we enjoyed was the quick funicular trip for Creek Street up to the Cape Fox Lodge.  I think it was $6 round trip for two. It was almost like a large elevator which travelled on an angle instead of vertical. We walked around the grounds at the top for a few minutes, but mostly enjoyed the view of the port area from this elevated location.  The lodge area was a nice place to rest for a few minutes.

Ketchikan is best known for Creek Street.  The former red light district of the Gold Rush era is now full of souvenir and craft shops. It is essentially a shopping area on a small scale boardwalk. Creek Street offers a great view of seals as they chase down salmon trying to get upstream. As you travel further up Creek Street, you can see a salmon ladder in use. Different views of this Creek proved that Ketchikan is the salmon capital of the world as it was jammed with this prized fish.  We also spent some time just walking around the town streets, just getting a look at regular Alaska suburban life, petted a few dogs and met a few of the local residents who were more than happy to chat with us.

For those who enjoy a good craft beer, the Bowden Street Brewing Company had a good assortment of draft beers, all at reasonable prices.  They had everything from IPAs to Saisons to Porters.   This was our last stop before heading back on board.