Alaska Cruise August 2014

Our first cruise ever! We started our cruise with a couple days in Vancouver, followed by a 7-day cruise to Seward.

After a direct flight from Atlanta, we spent our first day in Vancouver at Granville Island.  We took the ferry over and walked for several hours checking out sights and stores. We also enjoyed the sunshine and sunsets in Vancouver. If we had time would have gone to Victoria!

 

 Our last stop was at the Granville Island Brewery, Zach always enjoys the sampler platter, I help him with the one’s I like!

The next day we rode the hop-on-hop-off trolley around Vancouver. It’s a good concept; however, several times we waited a very long time for trolleys to pick us up. They were a lot behind schedule!

 We went to Stanley Island where we visited the Rose Garden, Totem Poles, and the Lighthouse.

 

 

 

We decided to walk to the next couple miles to the stop at Prospect Point. When we arrived there, we discovered the trolley stop was up a 200 foot cliff with no access from where we were.

Therefore, we had to walk another three miles before the cliffs abated at the Tea House, where we again caught the trolley. A little longer walk than we had anticipated with Zach’s Achilles still in recovery.

After Stanley Island, we returned to Granville Island for lunch. Then it was onto Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and a wine tasting a Van Urban Winery. We ended the day in Gastown at the Steam Clock, one of only two stream clocks in the world. The clock is beautiful and the chimes are created by the steam.

 

 

At noon the next day we boarded our ship, Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Sea.  We spend a few hours exploring the ship and quickly learned our way around, well, at least Zach did. OK, so it took Cathy a day or two to figure it all out. That’s why Zach is the navigator. Cathy always stayed close; she didn’t want to get lost!

 

Our first full day was a cruising day and we did such things as workout in gym, play trivia, drink wine, play bingo, drink wine, eat dinner (it was formal night, which is pretty meaningless on RC), drink wine, go to the show and, of course, drink wine. Beer and wine package, just trying to get our monies worth and we did! No package next time!

 

Our first port was Ketchikan, Alaska. We walked through the town, followed Ketchikan Creek to the Salmon spawning area. The spawning frenzy was very interesting. Also, watched the Salmon work their way up the ladders and rapids. The further we went upstream the more salmon we saw, thousands! It’s amazing how they return to where they were born after 5-7 years to spawn and then die. The bears and eagles enjoy it!

 

 

 From the Creek we walked to the Totem Heritage Center and back to town.

We ended the day at the fun and entertaining Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show.

The next day we stopped at Icy Strait Point and the adjoining town of Hoonah, population about 900. There wasn’t much there and we wondered why this was a stop. We did take a few interesting pictures, like eagles in the treetop’s. One was not mature, so his head was not white.

From there it was on to Juneau, the state capital with a population of about 33,000 and the third largest city in Alaska. We did walk around town a little, however, there seemed to be the same shops at every port, and we are not shoppers. We took a bus ride to Mendenhall Glacier and only had an hour and a half to spend there. First twenty minutes was Cathy waiting in line for the restroom. We took a walk out to view the glacier and happened to see an eagle on a small glacier.

 

 In the distance, we could see many people down by this huge waterfall next to the Glacier, a mile and a half away. We had to really walk fast to get to the falls and back and make it back in time for the bus!

When we returned to the port, we took the tram up Mt. Roberts. It was pretty and cloudy and rainy and the trails we slippery, so, we didn’t hike much. Amazingly, as we were departing an eagle came swooping down and landed on Cathy’s arm! Wow!

 The next day we were in Skagway and we spent most of the day riding the scenic White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad. Saw a lot of great scenery on the ride. We saw a really nice waterfall, but we were going too fast to get any good pictures.

 

 

 

Day 6 was the best day for scenery because we went to Hubbard Glacier and saw some calving (large chunks of ice falling from the glacier and makes quite a booming sound). Our ship was as close as a half mile from the Glacier. Spectacular!

We saw seals basking on a rock as we were pulling away from the Glacier. On our way to Seward, we were in the gym and happen to see a Humpback Whale Calf but did not get pictures.

 The last day of our cruise, we docked in the morning and boarded a bus from Seward to Anchorage. The bus took us around Captain Cook Bay where we saw some Beluga whales. They come into the bay to feast on the Salmon. In addition, Captain Hook Bay has one of the highest tidal changes in the world, around 24 feet.

 After no sun since Vancouver, we arrived in Anchorage to a sunny day. Again, we walked the streets of Anchorage and went to Resolution Point to view the ”Sleeping Lady” and Mt. McKinley, which were both obscured by clouds. That was typical for our trip. We probably missed a lot of scenery that was clouded over. We also went to the Earthquake Experience (fron the 1964 quake), Ulu Factory, (a hand held chopping knife we couldn’t buy with only carry- on), and the Alask State Monument (that was missing an A.)

 That night we flew the “red eye” home. We enjoyed the cruise. Maybe, we will do another sea cruise to Australia/New Zealand or the Mediterranean. Next year, we are giving a China River cruise a try.