Alaska Cruise Part I

I have been working on this post for a couple of days now and just decided to break it up. Plus there is so much- who wants to read a novel? We also took over a thousand pictures, so there are many of those to post. I wish I could have blogged daily, that would have made this so much easier. We had tons fun- an experience of a lifetime, I wanted to share.

Day 1

It's funny how you plan a vacation for several months, but then when the week before you leave comes it is nothing but stress getting ready to leave. For as long as I can remember Jamey and I had talked about going on an Alaskan cruise for our 10 year wedding anniversary. So at the beginning of the year we booked it! In April we booked the airline tickets, and I just didn't read things very well. I thought 4pm was when you could start boarding the ship- not the departure time. We were getting into Seattle at 2pm, that gave us only an hour to get to the ship from the airport because you had to be on the ship one hour before departure. The cruise line website said that it takes 45 minutes to get to the pier from the airport. Needless to say the whole before we left we were stressing about making the ship on time. The night before we left we were on the phone nonstop with my dear Haley looking at flights and seeing if we should try to go to the airport to do a standby on an early flight. For some reason everyone was traveling to Seattle and every flight was full and over full. We decided to just pray hard and wish for the best. Haley's words were: get an Arabic taxi driver who will speed you to the ship and you should be fine. That is exactly what we did and we made it to the ship with 30 minutes to spare. Then at 4pm when we were suppose to depart an announcement came on that said they were going to have to wait an hour to depart, Jamey and I just laughed so hard. The rest of the day was just relaxing after we got on the ship.

We changed our clothes into a little nicer attire and went to dinner. It was this night that they celebrated our anniversary with a cake mousse cake and singing. It was also the first time that we met our dinner group- a couple we ended up really enjoying and talked with often- Siki and Doron.

Day 2

This was our first day fully at sea. Before we left Jamey went to the doctor because he was concerned that he would get sea sick so the doctor gave him the motion sickness patch to wear. He did pretty good on the cruise with it, so I assume it worked. Every night the cruise would deliver a schedule of all the activities on the ship the next day. So at night we would sit and mark the things we wanted to do. This day we kind of just walked around tried to get familiarized with the ship and check things out. We played Backgammon, which was my first time.

Walked the top deck of the ship and watched us sail, went to several presentations and entered into tons of raffles. We won nothing the whole week, but we kept attending things to try to win. This was also the first captains dinner, where you had to dress up. Men were to wear a suit coat and women were asked to wear formal attire. I had so much fun finding a dress with two of my favorite people the weekend before we left. I was so excited to wear it!

I also found the most beautiful shoes, although I don't have a picture wearing them. So here they are-

We were quickly learning that food was everywhere and so much of it! Also the people working on the ship work so hard to make it a wonderful experience. There is always someone there to help you or take of things for you.

Day 3

This was our first stop and we docked at Ketchikan AK.

We didn't plan an excursion here, we wanted to just walk the town and see what there was to see. Might I add- not much. It was a tiny little town that was not taken care of well. My only goal was to see totem poles here. There were a few and then there was a museum that looked so boring we didn't bother doing it.

We went over to a heavy flowing stream and watched the salmon spawning. That was a very interesting thing to see. There is a ladder that was built in the river but not even 25% of the salmon use it. We stood and watched that for quite some time.

Then we walked to a beautiful park and just hung out. This is also where we called the kids for the first time to say hi. They were doing great hanging out at my parents house.

After all this we decided to try a hike that was on the map. Let me first say that it would have been helpful to know that you needed to walk 3 miles UPHILL to reach the start of the hike first. By the time we reached the trail head we were already wiped. We proceeded on though with the thought of seeing some pretty neat things. After hiking for another mile we gave up. It might sound bad, but we just kept feeling like we were hiking in Colorado. There wasn't anything different to see and we were so tired from the walk up to the trail head, we just decided to head back.

This is the hill we had to hike up to get to the trail head.

Before we got back on the ship we went to a few a shops and grabbed a couple of things. The weather was more than we could have asked for. It was so nice- almost boarding on warm. We were in long sleeves and light jackets and that was just too much. After we got back to the ship we decided to go to the top deck and just hang out.

Do you think he was over my picture taking?

We both ended up falling asleep and I woke with a slight sunburn on my neck. We laughed for quite some time about getting sunburned in Alaska! Later that afternoon once the ship left port we went up to the Constellation- which was the night club- and sat and read. This was the best place to see the scenery, because it was on the top deck as at the back of the ship.