The last weekend in July rolled around and it was time to head off on our cruise to Alaska! We were sailing out of Seattle, so drove down early that morning, stopping over the border to pick up a couple of cheap bottles of wine to take on board, and got to board the ship around 12.30pm - in time for some buffet lunch! We had really been looking forward to this trip - it was one of the things we had decided to do before we even left home. It was just a 7 night cruise, leaving and coming back to Seattle. This time we were on the Golden Princess.
The day after we boarded was a sea day, so we were on the ship all day. It was VERY foggy and quite chilly - the foghorn was sounding every half hour or so. We spent most of the day indoors, playing games and having cocktails. And eating, naturally. Not a bad way to spend it!
The next morning was an early start as before we got to Juneau it was announced we'd have a good chance of seeing humpback whales between 7am-9am. So we were up on deck early and were lucky enough to see LOADS.
They were spouting all over the place. We had a naturalist on board who commentated from the bridge throughout the cruise on any points of interest - wildlife, waterfalls, glaciers etc. Then at lunchtime we arrived in Juneau, the capital of Alaska. It's the only US State capital that is not accessible by road, you can only get to it by sea or air! It's a smaller town, about 30,000 people, but the biggest place we went in Alaska. The area that we went to was very touristy, lots of shops targeted at tourists, souvenirs etc. Apparently the "local" part of town is away from the cruise ports, guess they must be preserving themselves from the influx of tourists they get each summer. The Alaska cruise season only runs from May to September (the summer), so that is the only timeframe for them to make money in these small towns.
The next day we woke up in Skagway, which was the only place we had booked a tour. We jumped on a minibus to take us up the valley and into Canada. You climb up in elevation pretty quickly, and the scenery became very alpine. Still, there are a lot of trees and it's quite lush due to the rainfall, but due to the elevation the treeline isn't far above you, where nothing grows. The views were impressive, the mountains jagged. Skagway itself is a cool little town, which has been maintained/redone to be like it was in the goldrush era (this was the starting point for the Klondike goldrush). Lots of great looking buildings!
That evening as we were leaving Skagway we were sailing down the fjord, with more beautiful views - lots of glaciers which cause these waterfalls to come seemingly out of nowhere and plough through the trees to the ocean. Mountains climbing out of the sea, to massive heights, still snowcapped even at the height of summer. The sun was setting, creating amazing colours - with the depth of field we had with the mountains, creating fantastic colour blocks - gorgeous!
As per usual, the west coast sunsets are gorgeous. I've always appreciated a good sunset, but the west coast, by crikey, puts on a bloody good show. I don't know what it is that causes the colours here, but they're great. Every night.
The next morning was another early start as we were sailing in Tracy Arm Fjord in the morning - so we were up on deck at about 6.30am to see it all. It reminded me a lot of Milford Sound, with mountains rising straight up out of nowhere, and the ship getting so close to the shore that you could almost reach out and touch the trees. The other aim of going into Tracy Arm Fjord was seeing Sawyer Glacier. We did get to see it, but it was very hazy. There were a lot of forest fires going on at the time which caused the air quality/visibility not to be so flash, unfortunately. Still, you could see it and we got pretty close. There were loads of icebergs around, which compared to our 290m ship seemed small, but when you saw the little fishing boats next to them, they gave a bit of perspective!
The next day we were in Ketchikan just for the morning. Ketchikan is known for it's salmon and totem poles. We actually found out the next day that the ship picked up 900lbs (400kg) of salmon from Ketchikan, and 3 mealtimes later, it was gone! As we walked through the town and along by the river, you could see the river was full of salmon - they were everywhere! That afternoon it was lovely and warm so we got some sunbathing in and lazed on the deck, reading our books and sipping cocktails - bliss!
We also did a wine tasting session that afternoon, and got to try wine that was $180 a bottle, which was nice! More free cocktails later on, as that evening was the Captain's Circle cocktail party, which is for any repeat Princess travellers. I won a bottle of champagne, which was mixed blessings really - on the second to last night we ended up with a bottle and a half of red wine and a bottle of champagne to drink! We pushed through it though and managed to polish it off.
The last day we were supposed to dock in Victoria, BC for the evening - we were prepared for our 7pm docking with an early dinner (and had the champagne!), when it was announced at 6.30pm that we wouldn't be docking as it was too windy! Not too big of a deal for us as we can go over to Victoria any weekend, but I felt sorry for all the others on board that were from further afield and missed out! There seemed to be a lot of Texans on board, complete with giant belt buckles, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats - and that was at breakfast! There was also a lot of big family groups - exteneded family, grandparents, cousins etc, which was nice to see.
When we docked in Seattle we umped in the car and went shopping - as we'd been away for a week we had full customs quota to take back to Canada so it was all on! Had a good day shopping and got back home in the evening. Alaska was really pretty, but I'd like to see more. I'd like to get up to Denali and see more inland, but we didn't have enough time. Maybe next time?!
