Saturday 18 May - The inside passage ? - Day 2

I slept pretty well  only woke up once at around 3 to use the loo and Diane was awake and asked me to check the hallway for our luggage. It was not there. I went back to sleep until 5 and then got up and went for tea and to start journaling in this computer as I didn’t have my journal, it was in my suitcase. This was to become a phrase that we used often.

Went up to deck 10 and settled in. There were three other people sitting along the windows  I got about 2 and a half pages done when Dorothy showed up. She said that she had been one of the three people sitting there and I must have missed her.  We went exploring. Up to the 11th  deck, over to the end of the 8th deck. We found the library, the computer sign up room (where I bought 24 minutes of computer time at 65 cents a minute) and the pools, both inside and outside, hot tubs and more restaurants.

 The weather was a little rough and so the ship was a little unsteady. Sometimes, when walking, it was like you were a drunken sailor. Luckily I was not affected. Dorothy and I are the early birds. We went for another cuppa and then went down to our staterooms to see if the Diane and Dorothy were awake. They were up already so we got ready to go and have breakfast. 

 It was in the level 5 metropolitan restaurant , the upper level of the restaurant that we had dinner in the night before.  I had the funniest looking eggs benedict that I have ever seen. They were tasty though so who cares what they look like.

We met some lovely people from Scotland whose names we did not get, but they were a lot of fun. Dorothy did not eat, as she was not feeling well. Queasy, said she was fine when we were walking but not when we were just sitting,  so she went back to the stateroom to lay down. 
After breakfast we went down to check on the status of our luggage and they gave us laundry vouchers?  ?  and what were we supposed to wear while we were getting our laundry done? There are robes in the staterooms but... what? Then we said we would like to pick up something else to wear and the young man  Mateu, told us to go look at the shops and come back with prices and they would see what they could do for us.

With that little bit of progress there we went to the hospital on deck one for Shirley who had put her medications into her luggage at the port prior to boarding rather than carry them around in her purse. We were not even 200 yards from the boat at that point. What could go wrong? We did not know that there were two boats loading at the same time. The doctor took a little while, but that was ok as he was very good looking and with a lovely south African accent. She is diabetic but can control it with her eating so he told her to just be very sensible until we got our luggage and then gave her some of her other medications to tide her over.

We went back to check on Dorothy and she was feeling better as long as she looked at the horizon. She  took a gravol and said that the desk had called they found our luggage!!! it was on the other ship and that they were trying to arrange to have it airlifted to either Juneau  for Sunday or Skagway. for Monday and they would like us to come up to the desk to discuss it. Off we went to see what we could discuss.

When we got there I said to the young girl at customer relations that I was so glad they were giving us a free cruise in compensation. The look on her face was great. She sent us over to Mateau who was taking care of a group of 6 other people whose luggage was also missing,  where I repeated the statement. Mateu just smiled and explained where our luggage was and what they were doing to try and get it to us.  I guess the free cruise was not on the table as an option. Mateau told us to go and look at the shops and decide what we needed, write it down and come back to see them with the list and he would see what they could do for us.

We were not sure what we might find amongst the t shirts and sandals for our formal dinner that night but we did come up with a list. I picked a black t-shirt with a bling starfish, a white t-shirt with a bling design on it, a pair of  black pants and blue sweater, a black scarf and some earring that almost but not quite matched.. the pants were a little too long but they would have to do. I wanted to try the items on but the single change room was full of boxes of hangars so I just slipped them on right there in a quiet corner of the shop. we made a list of how much things cost and then we all went back down stairs to see Mateau. 

We told him we each needed about $200. He seemed quite surprised and said that he would have to speak with his supervisor. In a moment Sandra and Mateau came out and brought us back to a little back room to negotiate as it were.  There was a small sign on the wall that said “$5 dollar charge for whining”  I asked her if the sign was being enforced on this occasion,

She said that although the ship was not actually responsible to do anything as that was what insurance was for and we had all signed the waiver when we bought our ticket , the company could offer us each $100. I said that would be fine for me but that the others needed a coat in order to leave the ship in Juneau.  So she said she would give each of us $150 which made me very happy and the others pretty happy.  The office would credit each of our cards with  $150 and we could just go and pick up what we needed.  I went to shake hands with Sandra and learned that they do the knuckle bump in lieu of handshakes on board.

We went back down stairs to see how Dorothy was fairing and she was not there. We went up to deck 10 and there she was having a small bite to eat. So we all grabbed a tea or coffee and chatted about the events of the morning.

Then we went shopping. I spent  $158 and got the 2 t’s, a pair of pants, a sweater, a scarf and some underwear. The prices on board were actually not that bad.  Back to our stateroom to change and then  off to lunch. Diane hates lines but we decided to go to Deck 10 buffet anyway. We will go to Deck 4 restaurant tomorrow. 
After lunch Dorothy and I went up to the Cosmo lunge to have dessert and discovered that there was only drinks. Ginger ales worked and we sat at the front and top of the ship enjoying the view. It was raining and or misty with only brief patches of clearing but it was still very coastal pretty.

I went back downstairs to fetch my computer to try and catch up with journaling and did manage to get a few more lines in. There was this rather annoying gentleman who insisted on asking me questions about what computer system I was using and talking to me from behind me while I was typing.  Diane and Shirley came along eating ice cream cones complaining about being blown off the deck as they walked to the lounge on the outside deck, which was, I am very sure, very windy and cool.

I had brought along the binoculars I had bought at the port and Dorothy was enjoying them very much.. I could never figure out where we were. I thought that we were in the inside passage but it didn't look familiar at all. We all went for tea and ended up having dessert and tea. Yummy. Great views and the sun was out and the sea was blue..... loverly!

We decided to go and see about shore excursions for the next day in Juneau. Diane and Shirley would stay on shore and shop and browse and Dorothy and I were going to go whale watching on a catamaran. Into another line up, not too long, and we booked our trip. we realized that it was getting closer to our first formal dinner. We were ready,,,, ha ha,,,,, with our blingy t-shirts and scarves.  We were not going to win best dressed but we were, at least, going in clean clothes.

Dinner was lovely again. Pat and Don joined us and we all had a great time. After dinner we went to the show. An impressionist singer. Pretty good and fun. That ended around 930 and then to the casino where Diane and Dorothy lost a bit of money, maybe 25 total, but had fun doing it.