Cruise - Day 5 (Skagway)

Before I get into day five I have to go over something that happened at the end of day four that I didn't mention in the last blog. At the end of day four we saw Karaoke Idol (yes, NCL's version of American Idol). The way it worked is that everyone who wanted to participate submitted their name and three names were chosen. Those people would perform karaoke of the song of their choice and then, after each had performed their songs, they would perform a random song. The contestants were also provided wardrobe for their second song. The Entertainment Staff also provided stand ins for Randy, Paula, and Simon. They played their roles very well, especially the girl playing Paula. The funniest thing that happened was this old guy who performed a country song was forced to sing the song Material Girl by Madonna. They gave him a blonde wig and a hot pink jacket, and he hiked his jeans up to his knees for the full effect. He "sang" the song as best he could and danced as best he could and it was nothing short of hilarious.

Ok, so day five was in Skagway, the northernmost city of Alaska that we visited. Like Ketchikan, Skagway is only accessible by boat or plane. Skagway was originally founded during the Klondike Gold Rush. There were two trails that early gold enthusiasts took back in the day, and we took a train ride that followed one of those trails: the White Pass. So, everyone wanted to know which side of the train to sit on to see the most. They told us once we get to the summit the engine will be moved to the other end and we would go in reverse and everyone would switch to the other side of the train so everyone would get to see everything. Well, everything was on the other side of us going up... So we still got to see everything when we went back down, but since this was our second time hearing the background stories the spots of interest kind of lost their luster. Also the ride was about 3 hours long and we had trouble staying awake after a while.

After the train ride we walked around Skagway for a bit. We went to the Tourist Center and watched a video about the history of Skagway, which was pretty entertaining I thought. Someones phone rang right behind us during the movie, and if that wasn't annoying enough the stupid lady answered and took the phone call in her seat! Grr, I was so pissed. I wanted to turn around and punch them in the throat but I'm glad I didn't cuz I got a look at her after the movie and she was like 70 years old.

After that we decided to get food on land for a change and went to a Pizza/Italian/Mexican restaurant. I got a pepperoni and sausage pizza (no sauce of course) and Cassie got cheese enchiladas. The place was kind of expensive but the food was way good. I wanted to save some pizza for later but not having any way to refrigerate it forced me to eat the whole thing (this is because of a story I forgot to include in the day 2 blog. Long story short, I asked our room steward to remove all of the alcoholic honor bar items in our refrigerator, he misunderstood me and removed the entire refrigerator).

After that we did some shopping and went back to the ship. There were two shows going on in the theater today. I mean, two different shows instead of the same show with two show times. We didn't know a lot about the first show, only that it was a comedy based show. Unfortunately we took a nap after getting back on the ship, which caused us to go to dinner a little later than we wanted and we were a few minutes late for the show. As luck would have it, this was the best show of them all and the only place we could find to sit was up in the balcony. Well, Cassie found a place to sit and I stood behind her. The show was a improv group of actors called Second City. They were hilarious. The show was mix between short comedy sketches a la Mad TV or SNL and improv sketches a la Whose Line is it Anyway. The improv sketches were ok but their short comedy sketches were just hilarious. They had me in tears. If you ever see me in person you can ask me to recall a couple of their sketches.

Anyway, the second show of the night was basically a showcase of some of the hidden talents of people that worked on the cruise ship. We saw a really good Michael Jackson routine, complete with lip syncing, good dancing and the iconic moonwalk. We also heard some stellar singing, and saw some cultural dances. The show ended with a bit they called Fountains which consisted of the Entertainment Staff sipping water from cups and spitting on each other. It was actually pretty funny.

That does it for day five!