This is the day I've been waiting for!! To partially follow my Grandparents' footsteps from Skagway to the Yukon. Except we'll be taking the White Pass and Yukon Railway which didn't exist when they went to the Yukon in 1898 - the route was started that year but not finished till after they were back in Vancouver.
Looks like another wet day but this time we are DOCKED! Lo and behold the rain stopped and the sun came out – perfect weather for our train ride! Had breakfast upstairs in the Café - did some walking around the ship. When we got back to the stateroom there was a note from Charlie saying that tonight was on and to meet in their suite (a Royal) at 5 for hors d’oeuvres. After calling him to say we’d received the invite and would be happy to see them then we were off to the Cova Café area and the internet café to try and get the wireless working properly – finally it is set up for 200 minutes – should definitely be enough for the rest of the cruise. Then it was back upstairs to have Ezio bring us up a couple of hamburgers around 11:30 – tours around 12, 12:30 are no good for trying to get in some lunch as the café and dining room don’t open till then. The hamburgers were surprisingly good – that has been the one thing on the cruise that has been a disappointment – the food. We’ve heard how wonderful the food & service are on Celebrity but evidently not on this cruise. We’ve heard a lot of people discussing how disappointed they’ve been in it – and most of those are frequent Celebrity cruisers. We were thinking that maybe we were just really spoiled on Jewel of the Seas but after listening to others I guess it’s this cruise.
Our train trip was stupendous! One of the absolute highlights of the trip! I still can not believe my tiny Granmother actually did that back before the railway went in (1898). WOW - gives me a whole new idea of her. The train actually met us right at the dock 
- they had one train just for 
Infinity and at least one for Princess which picked them up at their dock (the same 2 Princess ships were here too) plus another one – maybe for Princess too?
We got a chuckle that who should get on our car but Charlie & Nedra – boy we keep running in to them everywhere. J John took scads of pictures (193) – we’re sure though quite a lot need to be deleted. It's truly amazing that they can have 3 trains operating at the same time on the one track. It was kind of neat at the White Pass Summit (beyond the Canada/US border) the first train would pull on to a siding, it's engines would go past it and rejoin the train at what had been the back, then the next train (ours) would do the same. Once the engines of it were hooked up then it would back up further into Canada on a siding while the first train went past it on the siding. Then when the third train arrived the first train would pass it on the siding and leave, then the engine procedure would take place again for the third train. Once that had happened train #2 left and finally the last train would leave for Skagway. Meanwhile everyone had flipped their seats over so we were facing the right way & we were all told to switch sides too - so everyone would get vews from both sides of the train. We bought a DVD of the ride and John a hat from it. While riding through town on the way back to the dock we noticed a Starbucks sign and I immediately thought of Cindy. :) Once we arrived back at the dock there was a ton of people waiting to get aboard ship – too many excursions ending at the same time. J There were a lot from the train especially as it was 16 cars long. Although some were walking into town – we didn’t have the time as it was already past 4 and we needed to be at Charlie & Nedra’s suite for 5 before heading off to the USS United States.
Charlie & Nedra's suite was great - about 2 ½ times the size of ours. Their bulter had arranged champagne, hors d'oeuvres and a cheese plate for the 6 of us. After all of us having a glass of champagne and something from the table we were off to the USS United States. The restaurant was superb – and talk about service! This must be what others were talking about when they mentioned Celebrity’s food & service. Each couple had a server. After much discussion we all finally decided on what we were having. I had the Goat Cheese Souffle and the flambéed scampi. John had the Caesar Salad and Steak Diane – the shrimps, salad and steak they made right there at the table. Dinner took about 2 ½ hours but boy was it good.
