Our last sea day brings us an early morning wakeup.  We will be visiting the Hubbard Glacier.  Our cruise director let us know last night at the show that we would be arriving in the bay about 8 am and be close to the glacier by 9 am.  Since they cannot make announcements in the outer decks to protect the wildlife, you will have to listen to the commentary from one of the lounges or in your cabin.  Best viewing is from the helipad, upper decks (although there are window obstructions in some areas), from deck 4 (no obstructions), or from your cabin balcony. 

The ship-wide announcement came at 6:30 am from the captain that we were already entering the Yakutat Bay.  (Yes, it woke us up.)  From here we will be traveling toward the glacier in Disenchantment Bay.  Two small excursion boats will take some guests to a closer vantage point.  We will stop our progress approximately a mile or even half a mile from the glacier.  The actual distance depends on how much ice is in the bay and the migration patterns of the wildlife in the water.

Our original plan was to take showers, go to breakfast, and then go out on one of the decks to take a look.  However, we also wanted to hear the live commentary from the naturalist who had given the presentation on the first sea day.  With our arrival much earlier than expected, we decided to snack in the cabin and go down to breakfast in the dining room after our viewing.  We listened to the cruise director, the naturalist, and a guest commentator on a dedicated channel on our cabin television with the balcony door open.  We would go out periodically to stay out on the balcony for a while.  It was too cold to stay out on the balcony continuously.

We enjoyed the commentary, although I think they were all caught a little off guard by our very early arrival at the mouth of Yakutat Bay.  Unlike the glaciers in Glacier Bay that we saw on our last cruise to Alaska, Hubbard Glacier is not shrinking but rather advancing into the Disenchantment Bay.  There have been two major surges in the last 30 years.   “Those surges were big enough to cross the bay, turning the fjord into a lake and threatening to flood the coastal town of Yakutat.”  Alaska.org.    For that reason, it is often referred to as the “Galloping Glacier.”  It also drops a lot of ice, often in large chunks of 3 or 4 stories, into the bay in a process called calving.

The Hubbard Glacier is huge, 400 feet tall and six miles wide.  The ice at the face of the glacier took roughly 400 to 500 years to travel down from the mountains.  Alaska.org. Most of Hubbard Glacier is underwater.  That is part of the reason that the cruise ship cannot get any closer.  “On June 25, 2022, the cruise ship Norwegian Sun collided into a growler (a chunk of ice smaller than an iceberg) in foggy conditions as it approached the Hubbard Glacier for sightseeing.” Cruisehive.com.

The Hubbard Glacier is located in Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve in eastern Alaska, about 200 miles from Juneau.  The glacier was named for Gardiner Greene Hubbard, “a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society and… a founder and the first president of theBell Telephone Company [now At&T] .”  His daughter Mabel married Alexander Graham Bell.  Wikipedia The Hubbard Glacier is the largest tidewater glacier in North America.

While there was lots of ice in the water, we were able to get pretty close.  Once there, the ship maneuvered so that passengers get 360-degree views of the glacier.  From our balcony, we got views from various angles, including a straight on view of the glacier.  Since we had private balcony access, it really wasn’t necessary for us to leave the cabin.  Given the early hours, I was happy to just roll out of bed, only spend as much time outside as I wanted to, enjoy great views with privacy, and get to hear the commentary from the TV in our cabin.  If you are not going to spring for the excursion for close up views but have a budget to book a balcony cabin, balcony viewing is my recommendation for seeing the glacier.  For those with a tighter budget, there is great unobstructed viewing on the promenade deck; that is what we did last time. Just dress warmly.

When the ship left Disenchantment Bay to go to Yakutat Bay and eventually the Gulf of Alaska, I took a quick shower and then we headed to the dining room for breakfast. While in the dining room, we saw the excursion boats returning to the ship.

We were kind of tired the rest of the day.  Originally, we were going to go to “Crab Shack” in the specialty dining room for lunch.  It is only offered on this last sea day.  We have had such bad experiences in the Tuscan Grill (tea, dinner) that we cancelled this last booking.  However, the day before we decided to book Sushi on Five for this last sea day for lunch.  Instead of a flat fee, it has a la carte pricing.  We did one of the $40 package with several courses + one other item (so both of us were ordering something as required) and shared all of it.  The food was plentiful, enough for both of us, and very good.  This specialty restaurant I can recommend.

The last night we ate in the dining room and then went to the show, Almost Elton John, featuring an entertainer who does Elton John covers.  The night before one of the young performers did a cover of “Your Song” in the production show Rockumentary.  I actually thought his performance was better.  The closing night show was just ok.

After dinner and the early show, we had to go back to the room to do the last bit of packing.  I had sent a bag to the laundry a couple of days ago, a free complimentary gift given our Celebrity status, but it didn’t come back until we were leaving for dinner.  We got luggage out right before 10 pm.  As we are going on a land tour, we packed anything that we needed only on the cruise portion of the trip in one of our large suitcases.  The land tour operators will store this bag rather than bringing it to the new room each night.  It will be returned to us the last night of the land package so we can repack for home.  Normally, when you get off the ship, your luggage is in a general holding area to collect before the transportation options.  With our land tour, our luggage goes directly from the ship to our first hotel via truck. 

We had a fabulous cruise to Alaska; it felt new again since it had been so long since we were last here over 25 years ago.  Tomorrow starts the next new adventure, our Alaskan Land Tour with Denali National Park as the highlight.  There is more to come…

–Natasha