REGAL PRINCESS
NORTH PACIFIC CRUISE
VANCOUVER TO OSAKA

HENRY NOWICKI
17 OCTOBER 2001

The terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September threatened to interrupt this 19-day cruise from Vancouver to the Orient; however, air traffic operations resumed sufficiently in the week following the incidents to allow getting to the ship on time. I chose to come early to Vancouver and spent three delightful days with friends in the Madeira Park/Pender Harbour area along the Sunshine Coast about three hours north of Vancouver by road and ferry. The weather forecast warned of gale winds approaching the British Columbia coast and typhoons were still active in southern Japan. So much excitement and the cruise had not even started!

The repositioning of the Regal Princess had earlier looked very promising. The Regal Princess has consistently received good reviews, and as I have happily traveled aboard her twice before, the opportunity to cross the North Pacific and visit Russia was intriguing enough to give it a try.


Sun Sep 23, Vancouver 1700 departure (highlights), (images) and (Map 1). Passing under the Lion's Gate suspension bridge as one leaves Vancouver is always a treat as it promises the start of a great cruise. This one proved to be no exception.

Mon Sep 24 at sea through the Inside Passage of Canada and Alaska (highlights), (Map 2) and (Map 3). The first full day at sea is a time for exploration of the ship and a chance to meet some of the fellow passengers. And, of course, there is the first of many activities to be checked out. How about Mah Jong with a few Chinese tablemates from Vancouver?

Unfortunately, there was a bit of rolling an pitching the first day out and it left a number of passengers to console themselves in their cabins. After this day's introduction to the sea, most of the remainder of the trip was fine (with the notable exception of two later days in the stormy Sea of Japan).

Tue Sep 25, Juneau 1230-2100 (highlights), (images) and (Map 4). Juneau, the capital of Alaska, has much to offer the itinerant cruise passenger. I joined the Mendenhall Glacier Transport Company for a two-hour van trip to the glacier and surrounding countryside. The driver was an ex-disk jockey from the local radio station and he never stopped narrating and joking. Most reasonable and most enjoyable.

We were accompanied in port by two other cruise ships, the Norwegian Sky and the Veendam. We were informed by the happy townspeople that we were the last of the cruise ships for the season. I guess one can get too much of a good thing sometimes.

Just before sailing, we had a real treat as Libby Riddles, the first woman winner of the 1,000-mile plus Iditarod dog sled race, gave a lecture on her experiences with dog sledding. It was first rate.

Wed Sep 26 Glacier Bay National Park 0600-1500 (highlights) and (Map 5). Glacier Bay National Park, located 65 miles west of Juneau, contains some of the world's most impressive tidewater glaciers. Together with Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and the Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park in Canada, this 24-million-acre wilderness has been designated a World Heritage Site and is the largest internationally protected area on earth. It is another 55 miles from the bay's entrance to Margerie and other tidewater glaciers to the northwest. Park rangers are boarded for the day to provide narration concerning the area's natural history. The park service has recently tightened the number of cruise ships that may visit the park daily in order to not overload the relatively well-traveled waterways.

Thu Sep 27 College Fiord 1500-1800 (highlights) and (Map 6). Prince William Sound, 10,000 square miles of beautiful inland waters the size of Massachusetts, was the site of the great Alaska earthquake of 1964. It was the second largest (9.2) quake on record and lifted and dropped parts of the sound anywhere up to 20 or 30 feet. Prince William Sound is an outdoor playground with few equals. Tidewater glaciers are just some of the natural attractions. And College Fiord in the extreme northwest of the sound has over a dozen good ones. The ship can work its way through some of the berger bits to within a quarter mile of the calving face of the glacier which is within earshot of booms and splashes of these falling ice pieces. The Zaandam accompanied us in College Fiord.


Nearby Whittier, a very small port in the extreme northwest part of Prince William Sound is 65 miles southeast of Anchorage and is connected by a combination railroad and highway tunnel with the Seward Highway and Anchorage. It will be the cruise terminus for four smaller cruise lines - Phillips Cruises & Tours, Major Marine Tours, Alaska Sightseeing/Cruise West and Stan Stephens-Prince William Sound Cruises. It is even more fun to get up close along the shore and glaciers and spot some of the wildlife up close and personal. What might be seen? Sea otters, humpback whales, orcas (killer whales), Steller sea lions, harbor seals, Dall porpoises, bald eagles, black bears and mountain goats are among the possibilities.

Fri Sep 28 Seward 0700-1930 (images) and (Map 6). Seward is the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad which services Anchorage (images). some 130 miles to the north. It is a small ice-free port. of about 3,500 inhabitants, on Resurrection Bay which opens up to the Gulf of Alaska. The Alaska SeaLife Center is a new marine wildlife exhibition and educational facility at the southern end of town. A number of passengers also visited Exit Glacier which is about 20 minutes north of the town by vehicle.

The Kenai Fjords region, just west of Resurrection Bay, is the recipient of glaciers originating in the 700-square-mile Harding Icefield, one of the four major ice caps in the United States.

I chose to cruise the Kenai Fjords National Park; a 6-hour, 110-mile exploration by small boat up to the Aialik Glacier (the word Aialik means "scary"), the northenmost part of Kenai Fjords accessible by water. It was an excellent trip with glaciers, whales, seals, otters, eagles, seabirds of many types and a solitary bear at the edge of a small island. I would highly recommend this boat trip. And, of course, we were the last cruise ship this season.

Sat Sep 29 Kodiak 0700-1900. Kodiak, a small port of approximately 7,000 population and located on Kodiak Island southwest of Seward, is primarily a fishing and outdoor adventure center. A large US Coast Guard base is strategically located near the town and there is a limited road net that services only the easternmost part of the island. The huge Kodiak brown bear is the island's best know inhabitant but one needs to seek out the monsters on a guided tour for the most part.
And you might have guessed that we were the season's last cruise ship.

The ship's clock was retarded one hour at midnight, the first of seven continuous days that the clock would be so readjusted. The reason, of course, was that for every fifteen degrees of longitude transited to the west, the time is set back by one hour (360* divided by 15* equals 24 hours) to keep up with the sun's movement. It should be pointed out that the value of a degree of longitude at 60* North (30nm) is only one half of its value at the equator (60nm) which means that the ship would have to make 450nm per day to transit the standard time zone and deduct an hour going westward. Interestingly enough, the ship averaged 20 knots so 20nm X 23 hours equals 460nm or just the right amount!

Sun Sep 30 - Sat Oct 6 at sea. A week at sea was a nice restful period but perhaps a bit long without a port visit for most passengers.

During the night of Mon 1 Oct, the ship crossed the international date line from east to west and thereby lost a full 24 hours so Tuesday Oct 2 was eliminated. Of course, the lost day will be regained if one travels back across the date line from west to east.

Sun Oct 7 Muroran 0600-1800. Muroran is a mid-sized city noted for its harbor and its iron and steel industry. It is located in southern Hokkaido near the tourist centers of Lake Toya and Noboribetsu Onsen (hot springs). Some of the passengers went to one or the other and some took the two-hour bus ride northeast to Sapporo, the island's principal city and site of the annual Winter Carnival that has become so popular. Others took advantage of a free shuttle offered by the city to visit a Fishing Festival at Oinaoshi, a small fishing port at the western edge of the city. The fish on display and the festive flags and trimmings made the visit very enjoyable. The new Hakucho Bridge, built in 1998, spans the fish-hook shaped harbor and provides a modern and convenient way of getting to the north end of the city. Fishing activity, which is so characteristic of all Japanese ports, was much in evidence as the nearby convergence of northern cold waters meeting the warm Kuro Siwo Current (analogous to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic) sets up the basic conditions for heavy krill concentrations and the abundance of commercial fish varieties.

The ship's clock was set ahead one hour at midnight.

Mon Oct 8 at sea. Monday night, the ship's clock was advanced one hour at midnight because the large part of Russia's time zone which contains Vladivostok is essentially east of Japan and Korea.

Tue Oct 9 Vladivostok, Russia 0500-1930. I found Vladivostok to be the highlight of the trip as I had been to all of the other ports previously. The weather was good and there was no limit to visibility although some distant stacks did emit enough smoke to produce a haze to the east.

The city and port I found to be more active than Murmansk but not in the same league as a Pusan or Osaka. Still, the naval ships looked more serviceable, the fishing boats more active and the people more upbeat. Of course, that is a single day's appraisal. The architecture was not entirely Khruschev utilitarian and the hills provided visual relief from any danger of monotony. As usual, the selection of shopping goods was very limited although the prices were right.

The Norwegian Wind was moored next to us at the cruise passenger terminal that was so convenient to the downtown area.

Those persons who went on a home tour excursion had very good comments about the experience. It seems that no matter where one goes in this world, a person-to-person encounter is satisfying.

After departing Vladivostok, the Golden Horn and Peter the Great Bay, seas grew to 12-15' in the Sea of Japan with maximum 50-knot (57mph) winds and this storm continued with variable levels of intensity for two days. These were our first real weather days but they were enough for most passengers. The vessel handled well enough although there was some bumping and grinding in the forward parts of the ship. Tuesday night, the ship's clock was retarded one hour at midnight.

Wed Oct 10 at sea. The seas moderated a bit and things became a bit more normal on the ship. The ship's clock was again retarded one hour for the last
time at midnight.

Thu Oct 11 Pusan, South Korea 0600-1300. Pusan, the largest port in the country, just continues to grow and prosper. The harbor activity is a good indicator and an enormous area is being reclaimed for container storage and operations. The city appears to be thriving and the occupants were moving at a good clip. The Chagalch'i fish market in town was, as usual, one of the visitor attractions and quite a few of the passengers traveled to the Pomosa and Tongdosa Temples. The subway is excellent and convenient to the cruise passenger. Unfortunately, we had a short stay in the port and we could not get in a good day's worth of shopping for which the city is well noted.

The afternoon was spent in crossing the 150-mile wide Korea Strait which separates Korea from Japan. By nightfall we passed into the Seto Naikai (Inland Sea) and under the Shimonoseki suspension bridge that connects the Japanese islands of Honshu and Kyushu.

Fri Oct 12 Hiroshima, Japan 0700-1300. Hiroshima, by virtue of its wartime experience of having been the first victim of a nuclear attack (6 Aug 45), has been a pilgrimmage center for many visitors. The A-Bomb Dome memorial building, a remembrance of over 200,000 deaths, still stands at the Peace Park with its haunting hollow roof. The city looks very active and inviting. A good many passengers walked from the Ujina Pier (Hiroshima Foreign Trade Terminal AT), where the ship was docked, to the nearby tram stop and caught the tram to the Peace Park for Y150 or the equivalent of US$1.50. A limited number of passengers opted to visit the great seaside Torii at Miyajima (Itsukushima) Shrine.

The ship sailed to the southwest well past sundown and, although the route map showed a path east through the Inland Sea to Osaka, I am of the opinion that the ship sailed south and east of Shikoku into Osaka Bay.

Sat Oct 13 Osaka, Japan 1000 debarkation. Early morning found the Regal Princess entering the large Osaka Bay which forms the easternmost part of the Inland Sea. After passing south of Awaji-Shima, which is now connected by a new bridge to Honshu proper, we eventually entered the outer harbor of Osaka and moored near the huge Ferris wheel and the Osaka Cruiseship (Tempozan) Terminal. My flight was released about 1100 to board a shuttle to the new Osaka (Kansai) International Airport (KIX) which is located some 40-50 kilometers southwest of the city. But first the shuttle stopped at a nearby high rise complex to kill some time as the flight was not scheduled until dinnertime. We were invited to the 49th floor hospitality rooms and it was rather untimely to be on a 55-floor skyscraper called the World Trade Center although most passengers were not aware of the situation inasmuch as the building is also referred to as the Cosmos Plaza. The views of the widespread city and harbor were exceptionally interesting.

The new Osaka air terminal is of fine design but, as you probably know, it is sinking in its artificial island and a multitude of jacks are needed to keep it on an even keel. The processing at the airport, I must say, was the slowest moving operation I have yet witnessed.

The cruise was about average for Princess Lines. I had seen all of the entertainment before so I could not get too excited about the jugglers, comedians and lectures about sunken treasures in the tropics. I did enjoy, as always, the dancers in the production numbers and I especially enjoyed Sally and Herb Roach in their dance instruction sessions. I share some of the sentiment stated by a fellow shipmate who was on his first cruise when he said he enjoyed it well enough although he felt more like a passenger about to be harvested. The steady round of overcharging for everything imagineable; ie, from inflated shore excursions to "unbelievably bad art in the art auctions" to high liquor charges. He did not expect to be asked to pay $107 per person to take a bus from the ship to the Osaka Airport when the airport bus coming a greater distance from the center of the city only costs $13, for instance. But, all in all, this was a good cruise and very enjoyable. Good weather for the most part was a significantly important factor.

Ship's Log (nautical miles):
Vancouver - Juneau 780
Juneau - Glacier Bay 224
Glacier Bay - College Fiord 375
College Fiord - Seward 149
Seward - Kodiak 729
Kodiak - Muroran 2225
Muroran - Vladivostok 503
Vladivostok - Pusan 528
Pusan - Hiroshima 245
Hiroshima - Osaka 335
Total 6,113 nm

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Copyright 2001, All Rights Reserved.



COPYRIGHT 2001, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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