Our Alaska Trip

Saturday, July 31 - arrive at the airport with time to spare. Flight delayed. Missed connector. Next flight out delayed. Missed the ship out of Seattle. Stand in line again for another hour with customer service - get flight to Seattle for that night (bumped to first class, NICE!) and flight to Juneau for the following morning (and not the one from Seattle to Anchorage to Juneau - straight from Sea-Tac to Juneau, yippee)

Arrive Juneau Sunday. Suitcase does not. Wait for over an hour for a taxi; arrive hotel. Tour the town - it's small. Go into store to warm up bc jacket was packed in suitcase. Look at beautiful jewelry and talk with salesgirl, Jenny, until suitcase arrives. Get coat; go have dinner; back to hotel for early bed (Alaska has it's own time zone so it was + 4 hrs for us). Next morning, breakfast and another walking tour - this time to the Govenor's Mansion. Back to hotel to get bags and checkout; wheel suitcases down to pier and watch the ship dock. Finally board, get our cabin keys, drop off purse, head back to pier for dogsledding shore excursion.

dog sledding on Norris Glacier in Juneau, AK (port 1)

Reboard ship; enjoy nice dinner - meet older couple from CO with whom we ended up on same transfer to airport at end of cruise. Matt and Debbie reboard after their fabo whale watching excursion; we all go to disco night.

Spend Tuesday on board traveling to Hubbard Glacier. We were port side, so got to see the glacier for an extended period as we sailed to about 1 mile from the edge of it. Apparently it is about 350 ft tall - quite deceiving in the photos and in real life. We saw several pieces fall from the face, which is what creates the beautiful blue color of the ice. First we heard a sound like thunder and then a little later a piece would fall off.

This evening we enjoyed a special onboard culinary arts event, dinner by the chef, Thomas Schumann. He explained some of the ins and outs of ordering food for multiple days at sea, how to keep items fresh, etc. It was quite interesting and the food he prepared was, of course, quite yummy.

Arrive Sitka Wednesday; take quick tour of town then meet excursion at dock. Get suited up in exposure suit for our ocean raft ride of apprx 12 miles. See several sea otters, a few harbor seals, some Eagles, and a coastal bear on our way to volcano cinder cone. Gear up for 4x4 exploration of said volcano and set off. Upon completion of excursion we board the tender to get back to the ship. As we approach another passenger complains of being very warm in his seat and when he arises there is smoke coming from the covered mechanisms of the tender. All passengers were safely rescued by other tenders and taken to the ship.

Tonight was another formal evening. We do clean up nicely if I say so myself.

Thursday arrive Ketchikan and board bus to zipline excursion. Get geared up and zip through the trees of the Tongass National Rainforest.

top to bottom: Debbie on platform; Matt zipping; Tara zipping; Brent on suspension bridge

Last cruise day took us to Victoria, BC where we arrived at 6 pm. We had dinner reservations in town for our "excursion." Enjoyed our cold 6 hrs in BC.

Disembark Seattle pier 91 8am; flight at 12:35. Enjoy airport massage bar. Travel from Seattle to Boise to Chicago arriving back home around midnight. We had a great time!