Long ago and far away part 2

So we boarded the Coral Princess on Wednesday, June 26. We had lunch in the Horizon buffet, booked spots in the Sanctuary for the Glacier Bay day. Unpacked, had a nice dinner in the main dining room, where we met the people who would be our tablemates. Because Ralph hates to fly, we had booked a back to back cruise. Vancouver to Whittier, and Whittier to Vancouver.

Cool view of Vancouver from our balcony. After dinner we wandered for a bit, then went back to the room.

Ralph had ordered the internet package, so he decided to make sure it was working, since we were at sea by then. And the world collapsed. We had a text from Heather to call her ASAP. And a text from my brother Mike. It said "Joe passed away today we are not sure how we are handling the arrangements, I will talk to you about it."

We texted our girls on the group text. At that point, we didn't even know if you could legally leave a cruise during the cruise. The next day was a sea day, so we had no cell service. I thought about it, and decided we had to try to get home. I had texted Mike to tell him that I didn't know what we could do, and he replied to not change our plans. Yeah, cause crying thru Alaska would be so much fun. And we were four time zones behind the east coast!

So Thursday afternoon, while still at sea, we went to the purser's desk to see what we could do. They said we could leave during the cruise, but since we'd book through a travel agent, they could not help with flight. They have us a code to dial so we could call and leave the TA a message, which we did.

It was formal night, so we dressed up a bit and went to dinner. The TA had told Princess that we had an anniversary, as did 3 of the other couples. So they gave us a special dessert, and the maitre d' sang to us! After dinner we went to the show, Silk Road, which was interesting. It had a lot of puppets in it, which had been created by Jim Henson's group. It was fun. 

Friday morning we were up early, and as soon as we got cell service, about 6 am Alaska time, I called the TA. She was just listening to my message, and was shocked. Of course I had travel insurance. She said to give her an hour, after we established that Ralph would fly with me, and we wanted to leave from Juneau the next day. She got us flights via Alaska Airlines, and we notified the purser's desk. They said to be at the desk at 11.30 am on Saturday, and the dock agent would escort us off the ship, and drive us to US Customs in Juneau. By that point it was lunchtime, and we'd notified the girls that we were coming home. I'd talked to John and cried on the phone with him, and talked to Mike and cried on the phone with him. We had no desire to go into Ketchikan, so we had lunch on the ship. Later, we went to afternoon tea, which was fun. The TA had given us a dinner in a specialty restaurant, and that was scheduled for that night. 

I even had a drink! An Alaskan mudslide!

To be continued.