She Wants To Be A Ship When She Grows Up – Prologue

When is a cruise not a cruise? When there is no ship. With four days left to go before leaving for this trip, we got some very worrying and decidedly unwelcome news. While on a repositioning cruise from Los Angeles to Vancouver, our ship developed issues with both azipods, which is the propulsion system of the ship. One of them came back online after a short period of time, but the other needed some repairs, which could only be carried out once the ship was docked. Both port calls for this cruise were cancelled as the ship could only sail at lower speeds. They also wanted the ship to arrive at Vancouver ahead of schedule to allow for repairs to take place. An email went out to the people on the next cruise explaining what was happening and that their cruise was still scheduled to go ahead, but there would be an update on the evening before their cruise.

It was a slight relief that at least there was a one-week buffer before our cruise. However, last year, the ship suffered a similar issue, and they ended up cancelling two cruises. One silver lining was that this time, the ship would be in Vancouver which has a busy international airport with links all over the world. In September 2023, the issue occurred in Seward, which is in the middle of nowhere. The closest airport is Anchorage, which has limited flights. It is also about 3 hours away from Seward. Still, even with all the reasons to be cautiously optimistic, it felt like somebody had pulled the rug from underneath my feet.

The irony was that this was the best planned trip since before the pandemic. We had enjoyed a number of amazing trips since then, but rather than the elaborate plans I had made in the past, any planning was made fairly last minute and often we had no idea what we would end up doing that day when we got up in the morning. It was almost like I did not want to tempt fate by planning ahead. However, this time round, I realised that this was going to be a rather special trip and we started planning bits and pieces months in advance including an excursion to visit two tidewater glaciers in the Kenai Fjords National Park; having playtime with husky puppies as part of an excursion travelling along the Klondike highway to Summit Lake and a visit to sanctuary for orphaned bears. We still would have days where we would  just go exploring and see where our noses would lead us. Fortunately, we either booked the excursions through Royal Caribbean or they could be cancelled up to 24 hours before the tour date for a full refund. This way at least if we missed out on the experience, we were not out of pocket.

I have to say I panicked just a little that there was a good chance that we would not have a clear idea when we left if there would actually be a cruise. An important indication would be if the cruise leaving the week before us was going to go ahead. However, with a quick repair like they were hoping to do, it would really only show if it was in fact fixed once the ship was sailing again. Therefore, we knew that there would be a good chance that we would not know for sure if we were going on a cruise or not until we were already in Vancouver. Graham got straight to work and found out that it is actually feasible to fly up to Anchorage. The flights were not cheap, but they are not crazy prices either and there is a good selection of hotels in Anchorage. The drawback with this was that the season that far north does not really get going until the second half of May making getting around a little bit of a challenge. The other option was the Canadian Rockies, and we knew that this can be done by train. We even looked at the option to take a train journey down the west coast to Los Angeles. With plan B,C and D in place, I felt a little more positive. 

Packing was also an interesting proposition. I hate packing at the best of times. This time, I had been organised and had put stuff I wanted to take into a couple of boxes a few items at the time. My usual trick of packing at the very last minute was not working this time either as I was working late shifts right up until the day before we were due to leave, and we had an early start on the first day of the holiday. The saving grace was that at least there was very little chance that this would turn from a cold weather trip into a warm weather trip. We learned early on that layers are the name of the game in Alaska, and this works for a land-based holiday as much as for a cruise. 85 to 90% of the packing would be the same. However, on a land-based holiday, I would have no use for pretty gowns, elaborate jewellery, or swim wear for that matter. I was wondering if I should just leave those things at home. However, I realised that I would be utterly miserable if we ended up going on the cruise and I had nothing to dress up. This is an important part of the cruise experience for me. In the end, I decided that the approach of hope for the best and plan for the worst has always worked for me.

After the initial shock, information started to filter through from people who were on the disrupted cruise. Some people reported a loud thud and then the ship slowed down straightaway. This sounded like the ship had hit some debris with one of the propellers. The fact that one of the azipods was brought back online almost immediately also supported this theory. The positive aspect with this was that this is a relatively easy fix. No dry dock would be required, and the repairs could be carried out by divers as long as the ship was docked. Apparently, this kind of repair had to be carried out on one of the sister ships in the past and took two days. The whole affair was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. What did not help either that there was a lot of conflicting information. The original announcement from the captain stated that the ship would arrive in Vancouver earlier so that the necessary repairs could be carried out. Somebody then spotted on a marine tracking site that the ship was heading to Astoria. Suddenly there were rumours flying around that the ship was heading for dry dock in Portland, Oregon. It appeared that the ship made a very short stop in Astoria, but was soon under way again. The ship then arrived in Vancouver on Thursday evening. On Friday morning the next set of rumours was floating around that they had to fly in an engineer from Finland and that the ship would be docked in Vancouver for three days. During all of this, Royal Caribbean was supposed to send an update on the 25th for those sailing on the 26th, but this was not forthcoming. This was then changed to an update on the 26th, but this had not been received by the time boarding commenced. When we went to bed the day before we left for our trip, we still had no idea if everything would be OK. That was not the best start to a holiday.