Places Visited Home Page

2011 Alaskan Cruise Vacation

	We departed Seattle, Washington in early June on a Carnival Cruise Ship set for Alaska. I don't think I met everyone in our group, and I think there were about 30 of us. The more people in the crew, the better the adventure.
	We weren't allowed to go directly to our staterooms and were told to head for the 9th deck to eat. So we wandered around the upper decks and waited for our rooms to be readied. This is a shot of the outside (aft) deck where the pool and hot tub are located. There was also food available while we waited. The ice cream and soft serve frozen yogurt machines were a cool discovery.
	This is Rick and Lori's room. Actually pretty roomy with an outside balcony. Awesome!
	I thought the method of loading the luggage could be a little more automated, but it seemed to go fast. Now, where can our luggage be?
	On our way out of port, two Coast Guard boats followed us. They were both armed with a .50 caliber machine gun and a gunman standing ready. I wonder what that was all about?
	First day.... we're ready to go...
	We did make one of the dress-up dinner nights. It was fun.... Lori even took the time to do a little dance with our maitre' d. I won't share that picture though... but it was fun to watch.
	Nice calm water makes for a real pretty wake behind the boat. This particular boat is equipped with twin screws that can turn 360 degrees. Wow! That should make for some easy parking. In addition there are also thrusters in the front of the ship. I wonder if the Navy has thought of this?
	We were fortunate to have absolutely beautiful weather.
	I took a lot of pictures of whales, but for some reason I always got them going down with their tail up. There were a few whales that came out of the water with a splash, but I was never quite fast enough.
	Tracy Arm Fjord This is a glacier at the opening to the Tracy Arm Fjord. We would recommend this cruise. Just the scenery from our balcony was breathtaking; imagine the view from the top of the ship.
	And... our first glacier, with 8 bald eagles sitting on top of it.
	Rick and Lori
	We had a visit from the Disney Cruise Liner while in the gorge. The color of the water is a little off due to the silt that comes from the glacier... called glacier rock dust.
	The Tracy Arm Fjord. Photos do not do it justice. Look at the size of the glacier compared to the Disney cruise ship. Tracy Arm is a magnificent glacier-carved fjord just south of Juneau.
	The gorge below the ship was told to be 1100 feet deep. That was a massive glacier. We could see the scrapes on the canyon walls from the glacier moving toward the ocean.
	There is actually a black bear in the middle of this photo. Lori spotted it with the binoculars and I snapped the photo.
	We're on our way to Skagway in this photo. Did I mention how wonderful the weather was....??
	Skagway, AK We could still feel the movement of the boat even though we were on dry land. It's an odd feeling... Lori said she felt fine...her weekly supply of Dramamine must have been working.
	This is a giant snow blower machine for the train tracks.
	We jumped on the train that goes to White Pass. I'm not sure of the story behind this rock writing, but the conductor pointed it out as being important.
	You can hardly see the wooden trestle but it is in the middle of the frame and also in the next photo.
	I have to admit. It's doesn't look real stable.
	This is the top of the hill.
	And this is the USA / Canadian border. We did travel a little way into Canada but didn't get off the train so that way there weren't any customs issues. That evening we all gathered back on the ship as we headed for the next port of call.
	Juneau, AK We jumped on a bus directly off the boat and rode to the Mendenhall Glacier. It was amazing.
	From this photo the backdrop almost looks like a painting.
	The glacier is 100 miles long. You can see the red arrow where we are located, just a small dot on the scheme of things.
	This ice was said to be 250 years old. I'm sure we melted it a bit faster as we all touched it, some more than others.
	We walked to the falls, not a far walk at all.
	Pretty cool picture of the glacier and falls together. To gain perspective of the size of the glacier, look at how small the falls looks in the distance and then look at how big the falls actually are in the photo and video below.
	The .AVI video below takes a bit of time to load. Some will find our video's viewed best if you right click on the link and then "save as" to your desktop and then view with your own software. But with fast Internet connections it should take too long to load. Waterfall video here (35MB)
	Cool reflection image...
	And... back to the ship again and headed for the next port.
	Ketchikan, AK While shopping Lori bought Rick a two-hour float plane trip in a Cessna 185 (I think Lori wanted to shop). The total time in Ketchikan was only about 4 hours so whatever we did we had to hurry.
	Yep, 9025 hours TTAF. And still running great.
	As I headed east in the Cessna 185 there were small lakes everywhere.
	The video below is pretty cool, you can see how many lakes there are in just a short video clip. Small Lake Video (15MB)
	This is a quick video of landing on the lake. The next video (two pictures below) shows the falls a little better as we are leaving the lake. Landing on Lake Video (68MB)
	Oh yeah! This is Rick with a great big smile on his face.
	The couple that went with us (back seat) were from Michigan and were newlyweds. The video is a pretty good clip of the falls that leaves the lake. Awesome! Takeoff and waterfall Video (26MB)
	The pilot said he sees black bears at least once a week. One time he spotted a black bear swimming across this lake. He landed and taxied up to the bear.... next thing he knew the bear was acting like he was going to get on board.... lesson learned.... don't trust a bear.
	I kept pointing to small lakes saying, "you mean you can land on something that small?" Next thing I knew the pilot made a turn and we landed. The water was super calm. This is a must see video. Takeoff From Second Lake Video (57MB)
	The ripples in the lake were from our takeoff.
	We were loading back onto the ship and this is the only picture of Ketchikan I got. Too busy flying I guess.
	The next day we pulled into what we thought was going to be Victoria, BC. I grabbed a picture of the dining area.... where are all the people? I'm thinking they were all outside waiting to dock.
	Well, we thought we were going to dock. The west wind was so bad at 40 knots that the captain made a decision not to pull into port. We were only going to be in port for a few hours anyway. So, we stayed anchored and departed at scheduled time. We then headed south to Seattle and were off the ship early enough to catch our 11:15 flight to Albuquerque, NM. I have to admit, their unloading process is very efficient. When we walked off the ship our luggage was waiting for us in section 2. There was a guy that loaded up our luggage on a dolly, pushed it through customs for us, and we met him at a taxi and we were on our way. We had a wonderful time and Lori says she would love to do it again.