Whales & Waves

Travel Dates: July 13th-25th, 2025

Day 6

(College Fjord, Last Day on Ship)

After 5 full and pampered days, our time on the cruise ship portion of our time in Alaska was preparing to come to an end. Day 6 would be our final day at sea.

After having a very full evening celebrating our 5th anniversary and embracing the chaos of the night’s “chocolate surprise”, we all decided to start the morning slowly and relax in bed, in our cabins, or on the balcony.

The ship was serving a special Alaska Brunch from 9:00-12:30, so we made our way to the dining room at around just last 10:00. The menu was made up of some favorite local flavors for the three courses, which were fruit, main, and dessert.

For fruit, our options were an Alaskan Breakfast Smoothie with apples, beets, and pumpkin seeds, a Fig and Banana Parfait with vanilla Greek yogurt, mixed berry compote, and poppy-granola fingers, or Goat Cheese with assorted fresh berries and toasted pistachios.

For our mains, we had more choices and a much harder decision. There was Banana Foster Pancakes with toasted walnuts and chantilly cream, Alaskan Blueberry Pancake Stack with lemon curd, whipped butter, and maple syrup, Salmon, Potato Chowder in a Bread Bowl with smoked bacon and chives, Burrata and Yellow Tomato Salad with toasted pecans, balsamic reduction, and pesto bread, Ham and Beecher’s Cheese Monte Cristo Sandwich with French fries, Wild Forest Mushroom and Tarragon Crepes with gratinated cheese and hollandaise, Fisherman’s Rockfish Sandwich with arugula, farmhouse bread, Beecher’s cheese sauce, and French fries, Crab & Hot Smoked Salmon Cakes with lemon salad, fried capers, and chili aioli, Biscuits with Gravy & Reindeer Sausage with fried eggs and bacon, Kodiak Steak & Egg Skillet with reindeer sausage, Gouda country potatoes, peppers, onions, and Alaska summer salsa, and finally, Home Smoked Gulf of Alaska Cod Benny with boiled Yukon potatoes, creamed cabbage, poached eggs, and tomato concasse.

For desserts, we had a choice of Triple Berry Alaskan Tart with meringues and pistachios, Wild Berry Crisp with crumbled topping, vanilla ice cream meringues, and pistachios, or Ice Cream of the Day.

Luke started with the fig and banana parfait, while I opted for the goat cheese and berries. Then, Luke sampled the biscuits with gravy while I enjoyed the ham and cheese monte cristo. We both agreed that the wild berry crisp was the best option for dessert!

Then it was free/activity time! We were all in a place where we were comfortable doing our own thing. I wanted to go to the whale origami class at 11:30, but I was the only one interested, so I went by myself! I am oddly comfortable sitting silently and love learning new things, so it was perfect.

It was very fun learning how to fold the little paper squares in a way that creates a cute little humpback whale, and I was very happy with how my majestic little sea creatures turned out! It was also a very relaxed and social setting, so it was easy enough making small talk with people sitting around me.

The only other thing that Luke and I didn’t want to miss was the final afternoon tea at 3:00. This time, it was just us by ourselves as the rest of the family opted for relaxing in the cabin. Because it was just the two of us, we got put in a different area at a smaller table, and another random couple was seated with us. It was a little awkward sitting and sharing with people we didn’t know, so it was a much quicker and quieter tea than the previous two, and I didn’t take any pictures because it was more of the same, but the tea was still awesome, and I’m glad we went!

At around 4:30, we started to make our way into the passage that would take us to into College Fjord. It’s called College Fjord because of its glaciers that are named after a few prestigious east coast colleges, including Harvard and Yale.

One of the best parts about having balcony rooms is the access to an easy front-row seat to all the nature and wilderness views our cruise ship brought us through, including the fjord and glaciers!

While still chilly, the sun managed to peek through the clouds a few times and illuminate the stunning scenery around us. The snow-capped mountains resting among the wispy clouds. The rolling blue glacier tides. Even some wildlife going about their day.

We finally caught our first glimpse of a glacier arm around 7:00. However, we would soon realize this was only a taste of what was to come.

The passage began to fill with glacial chunks speckling the tidal waters. Less and less green covered the mountain sides as the snow-capped tops began to lick down and paint the stones white.

The bustling ship faded into near ghostly silence as every passenger took up a spot to soak in as much of the beautiful nature views as they could. I cannot emphasize enough how easy being in a balcony room made this for us. We didn’t have to elbow our way into a railing spot or go up on tip-toes to see over the heads of others. We didn’t have to sacrifice warmth to keep out good spots.

We got to simply sit, stand, and lean to our hearts’ desires right from the comfort of our own cabin space. If and when we got chilly, we would simply slide the door open and enjoy the views through the glass windows all cozy and bundled up instead.

Eventually, the slides of glacier turned into a large solid wall. We reached the spot where the glacier stretched across the entire bay, and we could not go any further. Instead, we faced off with a large, solid, stretch of ice. A natural wall to anything beyond.

If you thought glaciers would be quiet, calm, and peaceful, you would be mistaken. Even from the distance our boat had stopped to observe, we could hear the constant crackling and popping of the ice. The waters below always pushing and lapping against it cause small shifts and upsets that lead to the glacier sounding like a bad back the night after being in a sleeping bag on the firm ground of a tent while camping.

We saw several cracks and fissures that looked like they might calve, or give way. While seeing a glacier calve is the bucket list goal of being able to stop here in sailing through the College Fjord, there is absolutely no guarantee of witnessing this event. As we well know, nature is going to do what it’s going to do, and we get no say in the matter one way or the other. So instead we sat in near-silence, watching, waiting, and hoping.

While our side of the boat was facing the glacier, the miraculous happened. Not just one, but several large chunks began to calve off and careen into the icy waters below. Because the ice is constantly popping, there is no way to know where the chunks are going to break off from (that’s if they do at all). We had been keeping a close eye on one particularly large crack, but that wasn’t the area that ended up splitting.

The glacier is loud on its own, sitting still. While not as loud as I thought it would be, the seceding ice wildly splashed into the waters below. Despite the large pieces sliding and crashing down, the loudest sounds were probably the gasps and calls of the guests on the boat who had been holding their breath for this exact moment.

We had been fortunate enough to witness so many amazing and unbelievable sights already at this point in the trip, with many more astonishing things to come, but this was still one of the highlights of the whole trip for me. How many people can say they got to witness a glacier calving several chunks into its tidal waters? How lucky are we to have been chosen by nature to be blessed by this moment?

After about half an hour, the boat began to spin so that guests on the other side of the ship would get a chance to see too. Since we had already gotten a spectacular view and witnessed glacier calving, we definitely didn’t HAVE to leave to find a spot to watch from the other side, but we did. It was nice walking around and not feeling like we needed to be able to see, so it wasn’t stressful. We just got to walk around and take in the scenery and glacier casually and at our own pace.

We still wanted to keep an eye on the enormous crack we had been watching since we first arrived at the ice wall because we were invested. However, after walking and watching, it was time for the boat to set off once again, so we began to sail away with no more eventfulness. We still enjoyed our walk, the fresh air, getting to spend time together, and of course already getting to witness a calving.

Our final night on board our cruise ship was coming to a close. We changed into our comfiest clothes or pajamas and soaked up our last few hours at sea and on our cabin balconies. There was still events going on that night, but it was hard to find any motivation to leave our rooms when we knew we would parting ways with our homes at sea so soon.

We were, of course, excited for the next stretch of our journey that would be taking place on land, but we had enjoyed our whales and waves portion so much, and it had gone so fast. It would be strange being back on land, not being constantly surrounded by water, and not being graciously accommodated and spoiled rotten.

Our final port stop was taking us into Whittier. Whittier is an interesting Alaskan town in that there is one building that essentially houses everyone and everything for the town. Most of its people live in the 14-story structure, and it has businesses, hospital, schools, and even government inside as well. The only connection to the outside world from Whittier is a single road that leads through a large tunnel under a mountain.

We weren’t officially stopping or spending any time in Whittier, but we were still excited just to see it because of how unique and interesting it’s story is! We stayed up late to see us pulling in, which was around 11:30 that night. By the time we officially docked, the sky had darkened, and the town was only visible by artificial lights.

It was time to turn in one last time on our home at sea. The next morning we would be disembarking and beginning our journey on land, the peaks and parks stretch of journey across the Alaskan frontier.