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Monday, May 28, 2007.

Ketchikan, Alaska.

My supervisor (Dave) made the mistake of putting me on IPM the first two times we were here, which made today the first time I was able to get off the ship and see Ketchikan. I know I've been here before on the one Norwegian cruise I went on as the city did look familiar. This time however, I had to hurry things up a bit as we were tendering here and time was short. The main reason for my hastened shore leave today was rumors of a little hole-in-the-wall burger joint named Burger Queen. It's quite a notorious place. This was my first shore leave since my laminex was taken from me, so I naturally was a bit reluctant to call it too close. Besides, when you're tendering, the powers that be won't count you as back from the time you're standing in line for the boat--you still have to make it back to the ship and get your card into the machine by the deadline. Aside from the tender running out of gas, you really are responsible for getting back on time.

But the allure of a local legend of a cheeseburger was too much. The problem was that the place opened at 11:00, and we had to be back on board by 12:30. Not too much of a stretch until you consider the very likely possibility that 3000 passengers cut their time as close as possible to getting back on the ship. For some odd reason, they're offered more leeway than crew when it comes to being late. So I was Burger Queen's first order of the day. :) The burger was worth it too. Hopefully the next time we stop by on the southbound trip we won't have to tender.

The rest of the day was pretty standard, although we picked up a brand-new group of dancers and four new singers in Vancouver. I'm going to meet all of them tomorrow so hopefully we drew a good bunch of people. I'm optimistic.