Our Northbound Voyage of the Glaciers cruise had officially come to an end and normally, I would have been crying big elephant tears because I would have been walking off of the ship and making my way home. BUT, for the first time ever, all I had to do was to literally walk down the hallway from our mini suite D407 (mid-ship) to the Seychelles Suite D701 (aft) and begin our next adventure, the Southbound Voyage of the Glaciers cruise.  Before we left our mini suite to make the transition to our next stateroom, we received this “Log of the Cruise” for the Northbound leg of our cruise in our ‘mailbox’:

Yes, yes, I did say that we’d be moving to a suite for this part of our journey…let me tell y’all, I literally got lucky and found that suite on Princess.com for not too, too much more money than what we would have had to pay for the mini suite, so we jumped at the chance to experience the suite life in that sweet suite! There were many perks that came with staying in a suite, one of which was that we got double the “Captain Circle” points to go toward our ‘loyalty level’.  Truly, if I’m honest, and I am never not honest, I can NOT stand to hear folks lamenting about how wonderful they are because they are Platinum or Elite members of the Captain’s Circle (Princess’ Loyalty Level Program)–All it really means is that they’ve spent a copious amount of money with Princess cruises in the past and “expect” perks for doing so–blah, I’m just happy to be able to cruise thank-you-very-much!  We are Platinum and still have like 6 or 7 more cruises to go until we hit Elite.  I hope upon hope that I remain humble and grateful for each upcoming cruise that we are blessed enough to take and never, ever worry about what level I have attained in the Captain’s Circle. 🙂

ANYway, let me tell you about the “Turn-Around Day” process so that those of you who might take a back to back (b2b) cruise moving forward will know what to expect. The evening before the last day we received a packet from Princess that included this letter and instructions:

As you saw in the information above, we didn’t have to pack up completely, instead, I had used my packing cubes and garment folder and Chris had done the same, and we packed up all of the items that we had in our drawers and out on shelves into our suitcases.  We left all clothing that was hung up on the hangers alone and before we knew it, our room Steward Kurt knocked on our door and told us that our next accommodations were ready for us to move in to.  We were blown away, we fully expected that we’d need to wait until after we were back from our planned excursion (the 26 Glaciers Cruise) before we’d be able to unpack and such. Instead, here came Kurt with a helper who had a cart in tow. They started to fill up that cart with our suitcases and hangers and whoosh, we were heading toward the aft and to our next room the Seychelles Suite D701. There was such a flurry of activity that I neglected to take one picture of that process…go me right?! Gracious! We arrived at our stateroom to more of a flurry of activity and Kurt introduced us to our next room Steward, Jimmy. Kurt had told us that he had already told Jimmy all about us, that we were very kind, down to earth folks. Jimmy was so kind right from the very start, so much so that I told him to calm down, that we would not expect to be treated in any special way…hard to explain really. Bottom line, we are just regular folks who don’t need special treatment.

Here is a Facebook Live video that I took shortly after we got unpacked in our new digs for the week:

And here is a link to a much slower paced and detailed tour of the Seychelles Suite that I created for my YouTube “Arlynn’s Travels” Channel:

Here are some still shots of The Seychelles Suite:

We’d be leaving soon with our “Passenger in Transit” cards and our new cruise cards to go to meet our guide in the cruise terminal for the 26 Glaciers Cruise, but, as we waited, we got to see the flurry of activity that occurs before one ever steps on the ship on turn-around day.  First, there were some officers in the Seychelles Suite as we were arriving there and they were inspecting everything–as I mentioned in my live video above, there are a team of 5 of them that inspect every single stateroom on the ship before boarding begins. In addition, the things that we had ordered via our Cruise Personalizer before the cruise started to arrive such as, my spiffy cup that went along with my “Soda & More” package & our water package (BTW—PLEASE be aware that if you would like a water package for your cruise that you *must* order it via your Cruise Personalizer *before* your cruise. A water package is not available once aboard):

Here are some pictures of the beautiful town of Whittier…Well, pictures that Chris took in the wee hours of the morning and then a few that we took while waiting to depart for our excursion:

Here is the outfit that I chose for this day:

We were ready to go!

Here is the Princess Patter for that day and some of the other paperwork that the Princess folks dropped in our mailbox that morning:

A couple of Suite perks that we weren’t prepared for were these two lovelies…The plate of tasty treats was just a one time deal, but, the fruit bowl was refilled each day (and we could choose the kind of fruit we preferred):

Okie dokie, it was finally time for us to disembark and head to our mode of transportation for the 26-Glacier cruise, the Klondike Express:

Our first stop was the cruise terminal where we met our guide who gave us our table assignment card and our lunch tickets and led us to a line where we waited to board–BTW, we’d chosen what we wanted to eat earlier in our Northbound cruise. You can see our tickets from Princess in the envelope below the lunch and table assignment cards, I had arranged for this tour through Princess via my Cruise Personalizer months and months ago:

And onto the Klondike Express we stepped, here is a little brochure that was sitting atop our assigned table when we got there–btw, we shared a table with a lovely couple from California…shout out to Erin and David!

And after a little safety talk from the Captain, we started on our journey…It was a magical day filled with sights that were just astounding, amazing, phenomenal, and very, very memorable.  I took a bit of video on this day and I will post it below, but, first, here are some of the pictures that we caught on this very special excursion. If you ever get the chance, I highly, *highly* recommend that you take this awesome tour!! I am so sorry that I do not remember the names of the glaciers, there were SO many!! lol. All right, get ready for your eyes to have a party now…3-2-1…GO:

And that my friends was that, I do not even remember where Chris and I ate dinner that evening, I do believe it was at the Horizon Court though. Another Suite amenity is that you get a complementary meal in Sabatini’s (one of the Specialty restaurants) on embarkation day, but, we were bushed when we got back and we called the dine line and were able to reschedule for a day later in the cruise.  Truthfully, we crashed and watched tv for the rest of the evening.  I will say though, that nothing could compete with what we’d already laid our eyes on earlier that day. We had a wonderful time…Alaska just continued to give and give and give to us.

Next up, the magnificent Hubbard Glacier…Here is a sneak peek:

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

~Arlynn ❤

And here is a link to Episode #11!