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.
