Our final day in Alaska began with our CD, Erin's, 'Welcome to Ketchikan' message at just before 7am. My wife and I had agreed the night before that we were not going to get off early, so we didn't. After a leisurely breakfast after 8am we disembarked the ship in a light mist and headed over to the old part of Ketchikan to do a bit of shopping. Given that we had been to Ketchikan in May on the Volendam on the conclusion of our Hong Kong to Vancouver cruise and the Oosterdam's stop was so brief, we just walked around in what was very familiar surroundings. It was surprising that the shops in Ketchikan generally didn't display quite the same sense of it being the end of the cruise season than we experienced in Juneau and Sitka.
While we were walking around, the Zaandam arrived and tied up right behind us and in front of the Norwegian Pearl.
Before we got back on board, we enjoyed some clam chowder at the Crab Shack. Given the heavy mist that just wouldn't go away, we reboarded around 11am and headed up to the Crow's Nest on Deck 10 to watch the sail away. At 12:45pm, we departed and that was 15 minutes early. I ended up sitting up there all afternoon enjoying the scenery or at least what I could see of it with the rain and the low clouds. But I was able to catch up on my reading of some magazines I brought along and a book which I stored on my phone's Kindle app. While we were at the dock, I was able to do some last minute internet surfing and Facebook posting.
It was another Gala Night and we were seated with 2 ladies from the LA area. As a testament to my wife's health habits, she wore her wedding dress to dinner and she's quite lovely in it after 49 years together and 4 children. Afterwards we watched the Main Stage performance of 'Off The Charts' which showcased hit songs from the billboard charts. It's an energetic performance by the singers with the dancers thrown in for good measure. We liked it so much we returned for the 10pm performance. At the end of that one, my wife turned to me and said, "I'm not getting off the ship!".
In between sets we watched a set performed by Rachel and Jordan at the dueling pianos. They played to a packed house that really grooved with the tunes from the 60's. During their set at 9:30pm, we were served the Chocolate Extravaganza which concussed of various small chocolate treats. This has just been introduced to the fleet and it's a nice treat and reminiscent of the chocolate fountains of years past.
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