Alaskan vacation

I can’t believe that May has come and gone, and so has our Alaskan cruise (sigh). I have to admit that I had a marvelous time. Having never been on a cruise, I have to say that I was expecting to be treated well, but we were treated EXCEPTIONALLY well. The morning before we traveled, I received a call from the travel agent who told me that Mom & I had been selected for an upgrade to a premium suite (I had reserved a mini-suite) if we wanted it. The only catch is that we would be at the complete back off the ship instead of the middle. Not knowing what to expect with this kind of move on a ship, I asked the travel agent what she would do, and she said that she would take it even though it might be a little louder when we dock and we might feel a bit more movement if things got choppy, but things that could be overcome. We took it. I am SOOO glad we did. We never heard anything and I didn’t perceive any more movement in our cabin vs. what we felt anywhere else on the ship, and our room and balcony were both HUGE, and the views…amazing.

Anyway, here is my travel log. I warn you that it might be more detail than you care to read, but read as much as you like, and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

May 17 – Vancouver, BC & Embarkation

I had reserved a room at the Hotel La Soleil, which was an extremely beautiful hotel just 3 blocks from the docks in Vancouver. The staff was so great there. We told them that we had about half a day in which to check out Vancouver before our cruise began, and they gave us a recommendation of a trolley tour around town. Not only would be able to get around easily, we’d be able to see all of Vancouver’s high points. There were a couple of really cool stops, most of which involved Stanley Park. The flowers were in bloom – the tulips and azaleas and blooming trees were just incredible.

Mom also really enjoyed the totem poles. I saw her eyeing the poles thinking to herself, “Hmmm…I wonder if they can carve me into one of these. I bet I’d make a GREAT totem pole story.” Unfortunately, she has too large a family. Who wants to carve that many people in a tree??

The one thing that surprised me was the weather. It was so warm (80 degrees) and sunny. The locals told us that 2 days before, the weather had been very winter like. Luckily, the sunny warm weather turned out to be a good omen for us. It really did follow us through out the trip.

By about 1:30 p.m., I was so excited to start the cruise that I felt like that little kid on the Disney World commercials who says “I’m too excited to sleep!” I was too excited to waste any more time to look at anything else. I wanted to head to that darn ship, so we did. ::Smile:: Mom is such a good sport!

Luckily we had waited long enough to speed right through customs and the check-in process. Within about 20 or 30 minutes, we were on the ship and searching for our suite. We walked and walked and walked (the back of the ship is a LONG way from the mid-point). Once we got there, our cabin steward, Marvin, was there to help us. One of the first things we asked him to do was take this photo of us out on our balcony. See also some pictures of our cabin.







It wasn’t long before it was time to head up top for the Bon Voyage party. We found ourselves a couple of lounge chairs and enjoyed the views. We met a couple right off that seemed really great. We actually never saw them again, but people were so friendly and wherever we went, people were happy and friendly. I like people who are upbeat and nice to me. There just isn’t enough of that in this world…or maybe it’s just me. Hmmm. LOL

For our first night, we had chosen an early seating for dinner at a table for 8. Dinner started at 5:45, which really was early. The people at our table seemed pretty nice, but there was one woman from Australia that liked to dominate the conversation with stories about herself. That wouldn’t have been bad if she would have been interesting and/or upbeat, but that wasn’t the case. As we left the dining room, we decided to switch to any time dining, which we later learned meant we had a lot more choices in dining rooms, table companions, not to mention eating times. We liked the idea of choices.

May 18 & 19 – A day at sea and Ketchikan

Our first full day on the cruise started a bit rough. At the muster (emergency evacuation exercise you have to do at the beginning of the cruise), they announced that we had to set our clocks back an hour, which we did. Then in the morning, they had sent out announcements that they had NOT moved the clocks back, but for some reason that didn’t click for us. They put out a daily news letter letting you know of all the activities, times, locations, etc., so we picked our activities for the day and headed for the first one. We waited, and waited, and waited. We finally asked one of the crew members when it was going to start, and he informed us that we were an hour too late for it. GREAT…that just meant we were an hour closer to lunch in my book. (It did feel like everything revolved around meal times.)

The second thing that made the day kind of rough for me particularly was the weather. I was surprised at how choppy the water was on the inside passage. I wouldn’t say that I was sea sick per se because my stomach wasn’t upset at all (don’t worry, I didn’t have to pass on the buffet), but I had a terrible headache. Every time the water was choppy throughout the cruise, I would get horrible headaches. I did bring wrist bands for sea sickness with me, and they seemed to help me out…that and sitting. I think the movement of the ship and trying to stay vertical was too much for my simple brain to handle. I know that may not surprise too many people. LOL

Since we were at sea, there were tons of activities available to attend. We went to a couple demonstrations from some of the staff. One was the fruit and vegetable sculpting. Mom was VERY intrigued. She studied those sculptures, photographed them in detail. If you guys see a really impressive food sculpture at Mom’s next family function, don’t be too surprised. I think that 30 minute demo is really going to yield great things.

Watch for something like this at Mom's next dinner event:


I attended the first art auction on the ship. I went because I was intrigued and wanted to learn how these art auctions happened. Man, I fell in love with the art auctions. I wound up attending every single one they had. I actually bought a couple pieces, which I’m very excited about. Maybe art collecting will be my new hobby. Of course, I would be a more successful are collector if I could actually afford to buy art. Oh well. I guess I have to start somewhere! ::Smile::

Our first day at sea was also the first of two formal nights on ship. I made Mom get dressed an hour early so that we could walk around to all the photographers they had set up around the ship. I wanted one picture that we would want from this trip. By about the 5th station, her smile seemed a bit strained. The funny part was that in almost all the pictures my hair was standing up and I looked like I had a black eye in every picture, which of course meant I made her go through that all again the 2nd formal night. She really was a good sport both nights.

The first port of call happened on our second full day. Our first stop was Ketchikan. There really isn’t much going on in this little town, but we had signed up for a couple tours. The first one was the totem pole park. Mom was still excited about the totems, and as you can see from the pics below, they are pretty cool.




The second tour we went on was the Lumber Jack show. I have to admit that I was expecting total corn ball on this, and I was clearly not disappointed. It was one of the cheesiest things I’ve seen in a long time, but it was fun. How can you not like plaid and cheese? It’s like a match made in heaven. I did have to wrestle a flannel outfit out of Mom’s hands at the gift shop. I threatened to nominate her for TLC’s “What Not to Wear”, so she gave in because she didn’t want to have to face the 360 mirror. J/K!



Ketchikan was the one and only port at which we received rain, but we didn’t let that stop us. As you can see here, we walked through the historical part of Ketchikan in the rain. Here’s a picture of Mom in front of one of the most famous “house of ill repute” in all of Alaska. I’ll let you fill in your own inappropriate jokes here.



May 20 – Juneau

This was by far my favorite port of call. Again, I had planned two different tours—a morning and an afternoon of FUN! The first tour, whale and wild life watching, Mom chose. They bussed us out to Auke Bay to meet our boat. It was so cold that morning that Mom and I actually broke out our heavy coats; although it warmed up as the day went on. It was so beautiful on this trip. We wound up seeing 2 brown bears, eagles, seals, sea lions, dorsal porpoises, dolphins and LOTS of whales. The only species we didn’t see (and never did the entire cruise) was Orcas (the killer whale). It was amazing all the animals we saw. Near the end of our 4 hour cruise (hmm…sounds a lot like the Gilligan’s Island trip), we saw a mother whale and her calf. I was out standing by the aft (back) corner of the boat, when all of a sudden they came up right by the boat. Surprised me so much, I didn’t even think to snap a picture! Just amazing to see. The people who run the tour couldn’t believe everything that we saw. They said that they almost never see that many variety of animals nor the quantity we saw, but luck was smiling on us.

(A whale tail for you)

The afternoon was a tour I chose. I decided that since I probably won’t get back to Alaska any time in the near future, I was going the whole way in getting my Alaskan experience. With that in mind, I chose a helicopter ride up to a glacier where we rode/drove the Ididerod dog sleds. I expected to have to wrap up really warm, but the weather had gotten so warm, that we were told to leave all of our winter clothes in lockers down at the bottom, and the only “winter” clothes we wore were the special boots they gave us to put over our shoes so that we could walk on the ice. The helicopter had to go up more than 5,000 feet over the mountains. It was incredible to fly over all the ice and mountains. They dropped us down at a dog sled camp. It was really hard to walk on the snow, and Mom had a gift for finding weak snow and sinking down clear up to her knees. It made the going very slow for her. There were 3 people plus the professional musher to each set of sleds. The musher drove the first sled and then one of us needed to “drive” the second sled while the other 2 rode. I volunteered to be the first “driver”. Within less than 5 minutes, we had an accident where Mom got dumped out in the snow. I hadn’t realized that I was suppose to move from blade to blade to counter balance the weight through the terrain. Mom wanted to go back after she was pulled from the snow drift, but we just dusted her off and promised to be better going forward. It was incredible and TONS OF FUN. See pictures below.






May 24 – Skagway through the end of the cruise

Skagway was probably my least favorite port. I think it’s because we spent about 8 hours on a bus driving for a 1 hour lunch break in the Yukon. The scenery was incredible, but I have to admit that so much time on a bus just for some BBQ chicken in the middle isn’t my idea of a great time. The best part of the trip was the bus driver. The vast majority of the tour guides were college kids (mostly from BYU shockingly enough) who go up for the summer. They had great stories that they shared about the gold miners. I did enjoy that so much that I wound up buying a few books and reading up on the trip home.

Pictures from our long day:





The rest of the cruise was all at sea. We saw Glacier Bay and College Fjord. They were both beautiful. During our time in Glacier Bay, we got to see a lot of ice calving (where large chunks of ice fall off the glaciers into the water…makes a lot of noise and great pictures. It kept my attention for a couple hours, but they cut back almost all activities because you were suppose to sit and stare at (err…I mean appreciate) the glaciers. This was definitely set for a more mature audience. I spent time at the art auctions and Mom and I each spent some time at the spa. Ahhhhh.




I do have to say that we were treated very well on the cruise. Because we were in a premium suite, we got all kinds of free things—chocolate covered strawberries in our suite every evening, free stocked refrigerator with our favorite beverages, free laundry service, special lounges to wait for transportation (we of course, were too special to wait with the riff raff of the ship). It really is addictive to have every need met, food cooked, cleaned up after 3 times a day. It was great.

The Land Tour

The land portion of the cruise started in Whittier where we disembarked on May 24. We went from the ship straight to a sight seeing (a.k.a. glass-topped) train. We had a 10 hour train ride to Denali Park. The roughest part for me was that we were sat at tables of 4 people for the ride, and Mom and I wound up riding the whole way facing the back of the train, so it was hard to see some of the sights. I wound up with a stiff neck by the end of the trip.

We stayed at three beautiful locations in Denali National Park, in Denali State Park, and in Anchorage. We were some of the lucky few who were able to see Mt. McKinnley (known as Denali by the natives). They say that only 30% of visitors to Alaska get to actually see the mountain…and some for only a few minutes. We saw it for a few minutes at Denali National Park. The next day while we were at the State Park, we put in a request to be woken up if it became visible during the night (they have about 20 hours of daylight right now, so “night” is definitely different at this time of year). We got the call at 5 a.m. that the mountain was visible. We threw on some clothes and headed out with hundreds of others to take pictures, then headed to bed. When we came back out at 8 a.m., the mountain was still completely visible. We had the good fortune to have it visible for the rest of our visit, but it was starting to cloud over as we left.



Overall, it was just an amazing trip. We had a great time, and the weather was incredible the entire time for us. For a state where it rains 85% of the time, we only had 2 days of rain—one in Ketchikan towards the end of our stop and one during a day at sea. Luckily, I took a couple extra days off after I returned to recoup. It’s been great to continue to be lazy. Now all I need to do is figure out how to keep this life of luxury full time! Any donations you want to send to the “Samantha’s Living Like a Queen” fund would be greatly appreciated. LOL