Alaska 2025

 Today was our last port stop on this trip. We were not scheduled to arrive until 11:00 AM so I slept in until around 8:30. After a leisurely breakfast in the Lido, we found a couple seats up in the Crow's Nest to watch the sail in.  Sailing down the narrow passage to Ketchikan is rather pretty.  Just before reaching the city the Alaska marine highway has a repair shop. There were two vessels there. Our assigned berth was number one, which is the southernmost one. The Coral Princess, which was on a northbound route, berth number two. Celebrity Solstice took berth number three and RCCL's Enchantment of the Seas number four.  The crew skillfully brought our ship into the berth. At this point, I was on deck number three and watched the seamen make three attempts to throw the lead line to shore. The fourth time was the charm. It's fascinating how these ships can be docked without feeling anything. About 10:45 AM passengers began to flow off the ship using gangways on dec...

 We woke up this morning with the ship docked.  It had arrived at 6ish, but we never felt a thing.  We at our customary breakfast, and dressed with our windbreakers and no backpacks to possibly do something special today. The weather was totally calm with blue skies and it's what I had been waiting for.  We scanned off the ship with facial recognition and walked the long pier and approached the M&M ticket sales booth.  It was 9:15am and I inquired if there would be space in an upcoming excursion.  The agent made a radio call and said there were two spaces on the 9:30pm pickup.  So we booked it and walked a block up to the pickup point by snowplow train. A little after 9:30am a van with Tesco on the side pulled up and greeted us and we boarded the van as the only passengers.  Our driver then drove us over to the start of the excursion while we watched a safety video.  There we were greeted and ushered in to put on special ice boots and a s...

 Today I crossed another item off of my bucket list. The ship arrived around 8 AM but I didn't get up until about 8:30. After our typical breakfast, we gathered up our things and headed out. The ship was moored at the second farthest berth from town, so it was a little bit of a walk up to the Tram station.  The plan today was to take the tram up Mount Roberts, and then hike the trail back to Juneau.  I've been wanting to do that for a long time. Tram tickets now cost $60 per person. We got the next tram and headed up the mountain. The tram attendant mentioned that a bear had been spotted earlier, but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm. It was a beautiful clear day with temperatures in the low 70s. We headed off down the trail and immediately encountered some fresh bear scat. But we continued on the trail which was 2 1/2 miles long and was quite steep and full of roots and rocks. It took us old people about 3 hours to reach the bottom. We encountered many people who were com...

 Today was all about Glacier Bay. After breakfast around 8:30 AM, we picked up the contingent of rangers who arrived by a small boat and transferred themselves to our ship while we're moving. We were in the fog bank and staying in that fog bank for quite some time. It eventually dissipated and we had clear sailing before injuring a second fog bank. After we passed through that fog, we had no further fog the rest of the day, and it was quite nice with blue skies. As we sailed up the fjord, we encountered a number of sea otters probably the most we've ever seen in the many trips we've been here). Once we reached Marjorie glacier, the ship was positioned with the port side facing the glacier. We stayed in that position about an hour before the ship was rotated with the starboard side facing the glacier. All this time I photographed the glacier and the surrounding territory along with the Grand Pacific glacier, which is next to Marjorie glacier. There are also a number of seals...

 We slept well although it was still 73°f when we woke up.  I felt no motion and slept straight through for 7.5 hours.  But the best part of waking up was I got to enjoy for the first time in 8 days my first bowl of congee for breakfast. Arthur, our Cruise Director, did a coffee chat with Emryn, our wildlife specialist.  She's biologist by training and will keep us informed about the wildlife on our cruise.  Immediately following this interview she gave a presentation on where and what wildlife we can expect to see on our voyage.  It was one of the better ones of this subject. The Mariner reception was nice.  We sat with Sue and two sisters, one of which had just did a burial at sea for her husband that morning. After lunch Emryn gave another excellent presentation on Glacier Bay.  Our regional wine tasting immediately followed and it was in testing but there was no clear winner for a wine that I would like.   Hubbard Glacier was the primo ev...

 I made my goal of being in my birth city on my 80th birthday!  We woke up in the Hilton at 7:30am and prepared for our day.  Our light breakfast of an apple and a half of a protein cookie was yummy.  We checked out of the hotel and walked down to the train station and dropped off our checked luggage which will be trucked down to Whittier.  Checkin was quick and we received our seat assignments in car C, 4 a&b. Around 9:20, the "All Aboard" call was made and we made our way on to the nearby train car.   Our car was not completely full and many people shifted seats after we got moving promptly at 9:45am.   The train moved fairly slowly until we reached the outskirts of Anchorage.  Then the speed picked up.  The route essentially follows the Turnagain Arm on the south side of the tracks and mountains on the left.  We made one stop at Girdwood before reaching the stop at the tunnel entrance to Whittier.  There was about a 15 minute...