I’d been looking forward to Skagway for a long time. We didn’t have an excursion planned, we just wanted to explore the town.

Walking through Scagway

We got up very early because we were in Scagway before 7 am. We had breakfast in the buffet. Honestly, the buffet is just so-so. There isn’t a huge variety of food and sometimes the food is just lukewarm, but it’s quicker and easier to do the buffet sometimes. I always have an egg, potatoes, and bacon. They do have waffles in the front buffet, so I make belgiam waffles with strawberry sauce and whipped cream. You can find toast in the front buffet also. But we always keep going to the back buffet because it’s easier to find seats there, especially on the left side. This has been a crowded, practically sold out cruise.

We got off the ship at around 8 am. The gangway was on deck 7, and it was kind of odd. You had to walk down steps to get off the ship, I’ve never seen that before. It’s actually kind of awkward. There is a bit of a walk to get into town. There is a shuttle, but I think that you have to pay for it. We just decided to walk, it really isn’t very far from the dock that we were at.

Scagway is a picturesque gold mining town, and many of the buildings are very old. The main street has been transformed into a souvenir mecca, and you can find the usual cruise ship shops, as well as locally owned shops. We did a lot of shopping, but I found that the prices were actually better in Juneau. You can find Alaskan Made Ulu knives at the Ulu knife shop but they are much more expensive than the ones made elsewhere. I’d love to shop for Alaska made items, but I just can’t afford them.

There are restaurants, bars, pastry shops, coffee shops, ice cream shops, etc. around the small town. Also, if you turn left on 4th street, there is a small grocery store. It’s a big white building. You can buy snacks or cans of soda to takeback to the ship. Of course they cost more than the continental US stores because it has to be shipped into Alaska. We were told that there are shipments one day a week in most of these ports, and if you don’t shop early, there is not much of a selection the rest of the week.

All in all, Skagway is a very walkable town. Plus, there are restrooms everywhere. You can buy tickets to take the cute train up the mountain to see the scenery too. We saw many excursion busses go by, so I’m sure that there is a lot to see in the area. We went in late August, and it was extremely busy in town. I found that groups of people would just stop on the narrow wooden sidewalk and talk, which meant that you had to walk on the street to get around them. The street wasn’t terribly busy, so that wasn’t usually a problem, but it did get kind of frustrating after a while.

After we’d walked around awhile I decided that I wanted to go back and buy a hat I had seen. But, I forgot where I saw it. That added quite a bit more walking, but I finally found the prize. So, if you see something that you might want, either remember where you saw it, or buy it right away.

We also saw actors around some of the buildings reenacting what life was like in the gold rush days. This included gunslingers and women at the bordello. I just love the history of Scagway. You can find a couple of information buildings around with more of the history. There are some original town buildings on one of the side streets. You can also find a large kids play park, and a train and caboose that they can go into. Look for an old church to the right on one of the side streets, and it’s next to that. In that same area we saw Salmon trying to swim upstream in a tiny little creek.

I’m really glad that we got to stop in Scagway. We had heard stories about how it always rains in Alaska, but we’ve had nothing but wonderful weather. We never even wore our rain jackets. We ended up having to take off our coats because it was sunny and hot. What a beautiful day it was. Definitely dress in layers because you just don’t know what you’ll get.

Lunch and thoughts about our stateroom

We got back to the ship in time to get some lunch at the buffet. That’s the nice thing about cruising, you can always go back to eat, then go out again if you want. I decided to try and get a blog done, and then relax awhile. We finally had reservations for the Crown Grill, and needed to get ready for that also. Plus, we did a load of laundry. It’s not easy to get an empty machine. We thought it would be easier on a port day, and it was. One of the two washing machines on deck 5 was broken, so it’s even harder to get a machine. I heard that there is a laundromat on every other floor. A tip for you…before purchasing tokens, try the machine without them. Right now the washer and dryer are working without tokens. For the washer, push in the token bar without tokens, for the dryer, push in the token bar then push the start button. Both run for about 40 minutes and do a good job. Bring detergent and fabric softener sheets so you don’t have to buy any. They are not free.

Our room

A little bit about our room. We’re on deck 5, the Plaza deck, P234. We had booked an interior room, but bid on an upgrade to a room with a window. I’m glad that we won the bid, because I love to look out to the ocean. I’d have preferred a balcony, but it cost a lot more.

So far this room has been good. It’s not too noisy, and it’s kept clean by the steward. On a side note, above your room number on the wall by your door is an electronic screen that has your name on it. When you walk to your room your Medallion shows that your door has been unlocked. One thing that we just found out is that on the bottom of this screen it says in two tiny little circles “privacy please” and “clean room”. Someone in the hallway must have touched that button that says privacy, and we couldn’t figure out why our room wasn’t being cleaned. Guest services called us and asked us why it said “privacy please”, probably wondering if we were sick. She explained to me where it was and I went and changed it to “clean room”. We’ll be watching that from now on.

Also, we hear constant water flow. There must be a sewer line running under our room. It’s not a horrible sound, and we don’t get a sewer smell. It’s more like the sound of draining or swishing around a bathtub.

We have a large television, and I keep hitting my head on the shelf it’s on. I just forget that it’s there but it sticks out just enough for me to stand up after getting something out of the fridge and hit it with my head.

There are two plugs near the mirror, I brought a non-surge protector power cord, and another plug with two USB ports. There is a safe that you use a four digit code on. The thing that I hate most about this room is that there is an overhead light in the hallway between where you hang your clothes and the bathroom. When you get up at night it automatically comes on by a motion sensor which wakes everyone up. We’ve tried to cover up the motion detector sensor with a Bandaid, which is all we have. But somehow the Bandaid keeps coming off. I have no idea who had this not so bright idea but they need to fix that. And once you cover up the motion detector sensor, you can’t see anything in that area because there is no switch for that light.

Crown Grill and Elvis Impersonator

This was the only day we were able to make a reservation for Crown Grill because it’s so popular. We got in right on time and were shown to a table by the kitchen. It’s a beautiful area on the ship, and we had heard that the food was delicious, but there is a cover charge for this restaurant of $39 at this time. We were immediately approached by our waiter, Dejan, from Serbia, who was very friendly and gave us very great service. He brought us a wonderful small loaf of bread, and asked if we’d like drinks. We opted for iced tea, and it was brought promptly to us.

I started out with a lobster cake and then some onion soup. The lobster cake was okay, but not outstanding. It could have used some onion and some more spice, it was a bit bland. However, the onion soup, which contained Jack Daniels, was excellent. We both ended up with the ribeye, which was huge, plus mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. I did end up cutting off a lot of fat, because I don’t eat that, but I still had steak leftover that I couldn’t finish. It was delicious! Dessert was the best though, Triple Chocolate Treasure, with dark chocolate mousse, orange cremaux, hazelnut filling, and a blond brownie crust. I was so stuffed, but I had to eat most of it, it was that good. I wished I could get another to take back to the room for later.

Here are some pictures of the Crown Grill, the menu, and some of the food we ate. You can scroll through to see them. Food has been wonderful on the Crown Princess, a nice change from some of the other cruise lines we’ve sailed.

After dinner we went to the theater to see Dan Middleditch do his Elvis Presley impersonation. He was very good and the crowd, especially the ladies, was really into him. You could tell that he was having a lot of fun doing the show. He was very likeable, and did a wonderful job.

Then, as I was walking, I noticed the Skagway expert in the Explorer Lounge. I didn’t get his name because we didn’t have time to stop, but I’ve seen him on vlogs. I would have loved to have enough time to sit down and listen to him. Also, the Puppies were in the Piazza. These are sled dogs in training. So cute.

And after that we decided to relax in the room and finish the movie we had started, The Martian. I love that this ship has movies on demand. So much better than other cruise lines that make you watch the same thing over and over again. Being The Quiet Cruiser, sometimes I like to have some time away from the crowds to wind down. And this has been a pretty crowded ship. And it was a very busy week. Time to rest the feet.