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Taking an UnCruise

The west coast of North America, along British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, is a wild place. It's lined with mountains that start right at the water's edge. These are high for coastal mountains, culminating in 18,009 foot Mount Saint Elias, the second highest peak on the continent. The storms that start regularly in the Gulf of Alaska drop a lot of rain and snow on these mountains, producing huge icefields and glaciers. In past ice ages the ice totally covered the land. The glaciers have carved out deep valleys. When the ice retreated many of the valleys were filled by the sea, producing fjords that cut deep into the coastline and leaving a maze of islands isolated off the coast. With so much precipitation, the lower slopes are covered with dense rainforest while the upper slopes are buried under snow and ice. Combined with the sharp vertical relief this produces a landscape that is exceptionally beautiful but where travel is extremely difficult. The best access to the area is by boat along the myriad waterways.

The route that follows this section of the coast, staying to the east of the many islands, is known as the Inside Passage. It's a popular trip for cruise ships. They leave from Seattle, Bellingham or Vancouver and take a week to sail up to Seward or Anchorage (or back in the other direction). On the way they sail past miles of scenic coastline. They usually break up the trip with stopover days in several towns in Southeast Alaska, such as Juneau, Haines, Ketchican and Skagway. I've always wanted to do an Inside Passage cruise to see this part of Alaska but never got around to doing it before this year.

We decided to do something a little different. We booked a trip with a company called UnCruise. As their name indicates, they don't offer typical Inside Passage cruises. Instead of a floating city with thousands of people, our ship had less than a hundred. Starting and ending in Juneau, we spent an entire week exploring in and around Glacier Bay National Park. With a much smaller ship, we would be able to get into bays and inlets that are not accessible to the big boats.

We started our Alaska trip on a Friday with a flight to Juneau. We had two half days of beautiful weather before the start of our UnCruise and we used them to explore the town and its surroundings. Our ship, the Wilderness Adventurer, was in port on Saturday morning having arrived overnight from its previous trip. The passengers disembarked and left after breakfast but there was no rest for the crew. They only had a few hours for cleaning, maintenance and resupply to get ready for the next departure.

Sandy and I boarded late in the afternoon with an entirely new set of passengers. It didn't take us long to stow our luggage - we didn't have much, or to explore the ship - it wasn't very big. Then we were on deck to watch as we pulled away from the dock and left Juneau behind. Although some clouds had finally appeared in the sky, it was still a beautiful evening as we slowly headed south down the Gasteneau Channel. After dinner we were treated to a colorful sunset as the clouds cycled through gold to to orange to red as the sun neared the horizon.

I wasn't sure what it would be like to stay on a ship for a week. The longest time Sandy and I had ever spent on a boat was fifteen years ago when we took an overnight ferry across the Adriatic Sea from Italy to Greece. That was a large ferry that carried cars and trucks as well as people. This time we were on a small ship. The Wilderness Adventurer is only 160 feet long and 39 feet wide. There are thirty cabins but our trip wasn't totally full - we only had fifty passengers. In addition there were twenty four crew members.

Our cabin was small but adequate. There were two twin beds joined together to make a queen. There was about three feet between the wall and the bed on one side so Sandy could get in and out of bed easily. I did have to climb in from the bottom but that wasn't too tough for someone as spry as me. We had a real window, not a porthole, so we could see outside. There was a private toilet/shower stall, tiny but functional. It sealed well so we didn't get water all over the floor when we took a shower. Fortunately we had no problems with the toilet although we heard from a few other people on the boat who did. Marine heads can be quite problematic so we were lucky.

There was even plenty of storage space. We had a set of shelves near the door that reached from floor to ceiling. We stored all of our stuff there that we needed to access easily and had room to spare. Our duffel bags stowed underneath the bed but were still easily accessible.

One wall even had a fold-down bed to sleep an extra person. Rather than folding from one end like most Murphy beds, this one was attached on the side part way up the wall making it more like a fold-down upper bunk. It would have been possible to have a third person in the room but that would have been very cramped. With the extra bed down there was virtually no space in the room to stand up, much less walk around. Fortunately there were only two of us and I don't think there were any three-to-a-room groups on our trip. I'm not sure about the crew though. I never did see what their quarters looked like. They had quite a few crew members crammed into the bowels of the ship.

There were four levels on the Wilderness Adventurer. On top was the Sun Deck. The only part that was enclosed was the pilot house, although there was a section with a plastic cover over it to provide protection from the rain. There were chairs where you could sit and enjoy the view but it was often cold and windy up there. Sometimes I would go out on the Observation Deck for a quick picture but I would rarely linger. There was even a hot tub although I never saw anyone use it. The rear portion of the upper deck was off limits because the inflatable skiffs and catamaran were stored there when they weren't in the water.

The next level down was the Observation Deck. Most of it was taken up by twenty of the ship's thirty passenger cabins, which lined a single long inner hallway with the captain's cabin at the front just below the bridge. It was also known as the 300 level, I guess because it was the third deck counting up from the bottom so all the rooms had three hundred numbers.

It was called the Observation Deck because there was open deck all the way around the superstructure. The front section was the only place where you could see where the ship was going, but since the anchor and its winch were there you couldn't really get to the front of the boat. There were narrow walkways on both sides running all the way to a platform at the back which was where we gathered when we were leaving the ship for an excursion. Multiple times during the day there would be announcements over the loudspeaker.

"Attention Adventurers! Those going on the (whatever), please report to 300 aft immediatly!"

The Main Deck was inside the hull. The front half was the ship's common area, with a lounge at the front, a bar area in the middle and then the dining area. A small enclosed office helped seperate the three parts of the common area. Since the deck was above the waterline there were windows all around, so when we were sitting at dinner or having a drink at the bar, I would frequently see something interesting outside. I'd jump up and run out onto the deck and take a quick picture. Sandy was probably annoyed but she didn't say anything. Beyond the common area was the galley, ten more passenger cabins and then outside there was a platform for docking the skiffs and launching and recovering the kayaks.

The lowest deck wasn't open to passengers. The engine room was down there as well as all of the crew quarters.

Overall I was impressed at how much they fit into a small ship. Our stateroom was tiny but didn't seem cramped. Well, not that cramped anyway. Actually it was fine. Our room even had a flat screen tv and a DVD player. There was a DVD library in the lounge and several evenings we borrowed movies and watched them in our room. While it was quite comfortable lying on our bed and watching tv, for some reason all of the movies that we picked turned out to be pretty bad. In spite of its promising title, All About Steve was probably the worst.

There were a total of thirty cabins like ours for a maximum of sixty passengers (well, ninety if you used all of the fold down bunks but that would be nuts). We had fifty guests on our trip so it was not completely full although with the twenty four crew members there were still quite a few people onboard. The ship didn't seem overcrowded though. There was plenty of room in the common area, even at meals. Sometimes we shared a table with another couple while we were eating and sometimes we ate by ourselves.

The only time things got a little crowded was at Happy Hour, when it seemed (understandably) that all fifty guests wanted to be in the bar/lounge at the same time. We learned quickly that it was important to get there early to stake out a spot.

Food was another concern that I had before the trip. It wasn't like we could call out for a pizza if we didn't like what they served. I needn't have worried though. Overall I thought that the food was pretty good. Breakfast and lunch were served buffet style. There was a cold breakfast starting at 7:30 which was fine for me. I'm not a breakfast person. It was followed by a cooked breakfast at 8:30 which Sandy liked since she is a breakfast person. Lunch was at noon and usually had two choices. Dinner was table service and there were always three choices: one meat, one seafood/fish and one vegetarian. They did a good job of providing fresh foods like fruit and salad all week. As a bonus there were always freshly baked cookies at Happy Hour as well as a bowl with fruit and granola bars left out at all times. We certainly had plenty to eat.

And plenty to drink. Everything was included so Sandy and I always had a glass or two of wine at Happy Hour. We were careful though because we didn't know if seasickness would be a problem or not. We had never done a long cruise before. It turned out that most of the time I didn't feel like there was much motion. There were maybe two evenings when there was a fair amount of roll but neither Sandy nor I felt poorly at any time during the trip. I did think it was funny one day when I overheard someone asking the captain if he could please keep the ship calmer because they had been a little bit seasick the night before. I'm not sure what they expected him to do - maybe stretch his arms out over the water and calm the waves. The captain was polite though and said he would do his best. I was tempted to ask him if while he was at it maybe he could stop the rain and make the sun come out.

So overall we were pretty comfortable on the ship and doing a cruise wasn't any harder than any of our usual trips. Now it's time to talk about what happened on the cruise itself. This post is long enough so I'll cover that in the next one.