Alaska Cruise - May 2009

We went on an 11 night Alaska cruise out of San Diego. It stopped in San Francisco, Icy Strait Point (Hoonah), Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, and finally Vancouver. We stayed a couple nights in Vancouver before flying back home to San Diego. The scenery was amazing and we were lucky to have sunny and warm weather throughout our whole trip! The highlight of our trip was when we hiked on a glacier!

Our excursions included a private van tour in Skagway, hiking the Mendenhall glacier in Juneau, and a boat tour to the Misty Fjords.


I'm glad we got to see the glaciers, those were definitely the highlight of our trip and the real reason we chose to go on the cruise. We saw Hubbard Glacier from 400 feet away on the ship and we hiked on Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. It's amazing how much of the Mendenhall Glacier has retreated , even since the 70s. Hubbard Glacier is constantly moving, so we got to see a lot of calving and hear lots of "White Thunder" (when the ice breaks off it sounds like thunder).

We saw some wildlife, including several Bald Eagles and a mountain goat. We did not get to see any bears although there were 2 spotted on our train ride in Skagway. We were in one of the last cars, so they were out of sight by the time we came around.

A little about the ship, Royal Caribbean's, Radiance of the Seas.  We had an aft balcony room.  The balconies on the aft are pretty big and spacious.  We loved it and were always outside checking out the scenery.  Everyone on the ship was very friendly, the staff always said "My Pleasure" anytime I said "Thank You."  We had late seating and it worked out well for port days, but we missed sunsets.  The food was overall really good.  We didn't go to many of the shows, because they didn't interest us really.  I think my favorite part of the ship was the atrium.  One of my biggest complaints were the temperatures of the hot tubs, they were pretty mild.  No one was ever in the ones outside, because they weren't hot enough.  We used the gym almost everyday.  We signed up for spin classes and the instructors worked us out pretty hard!  This was our second cruise and we really liked the ship!


SAN FRANCISCO, 1ST PORT

We've been to San Franciso several times, so we didn't plan an excursion.  We just wanted to visit some friends.

We tried to wake up early to watch us go under the Golden Gate Bridge, but we couldn't wake up at 5:30am when our alarm went off.  We got off the ship after a quick breakfast and a work out at about 10am to meet up with some friends by lunchtime.  We walked a little down Fisherman's Wharf before grabbing a cab to the Mission area.

We got to Mission and had coffee at The Corner coffee shop. We had 2 huge cups of their french press coffee.  It was delicious.  They offered us a carafe of water for our table as well.

After finishing our coffee, we went 2 doors down to meet our friends for lunch at Weird Fish (Yelp Review).  This is a great restaurant with sustainable fish and vegetarian options.  It's a little on the small side, so it gets busy pretty easily.  After lunch, our friend took us for ice cream at a supposedly famous creamery, Bi-Rite Creamery.  I'd never heard of it before, but I had the cinnamon ice cream with snickerdoodles and it was amazing!

We left our friends to head back to our ship by using the Bart.  We stopped at Union Square to ride the cable car, which is one of my favorite things to do in San Francisco.  I like to ride on the outside in the front, but that part fills up fast.  We got off around Columbia St. and walked back to our ship.

We left San Francisco about 5:30pm and stood on our balcony to watch us go back under the Golden Gate bridge.  No reason to have gotten up so early in the first place, we had to go back under it to get out!

ICY STRAIT POINT, 2ND PORT

The cruise ship called this port Icy Strait Point.  At the point is a historic cannery that serves as a museum now with shops, a couple of restuarants, and it has a zipline.  The small village a mile away is Hoonah.  This village is an authentic Alaska village.  This town was the only place that wasn't touristy on our trip.  It's just a small town with a few stores, a bar, and a trading post.

We got off the ship about 2:30pm.  We decided to walk through Hoonah and look around.  We visited a local liquor store, a thrift store, a souvenir store, the trading post, and, of course, the bar.  We were just browsing around the different stores.  Everyone working in Hoonah was very nice and said hello and bye to us.  We stopped in the bar, The Office Bar, for a drink before heading back to our ship.

On the way back to the ship, we saw our first Eagle in Alaska.  After that, we saw them all the time.  We toured the cannery and shops after returning from Hoonah and got back onto our ship about 6:30pm.

HUBBARD GLACIER

We were scheduled to view the Hubbard Glacier from 10am to 2pm.  We got up and went to breakfast around 9am.  As we were enjoying our breakfast, we started noticing floating ice in the ocean going past our window.  We got up and went outside to check out the view and we'd started our approach of the Hubbard Glacier.  It was pretty windy outside and everyone was crowding around the front of the ship.  We stood there for quite a while until we finally decided to view the area from other parts of the ship.

With all the floating little icebergs, we didn't think we'd get that close to the Glacier.  The ship kept going and getting closer and closer.  We finally got within 400 feet!  We heard and saw the glacier calving.  It is a moving glacier, so it is always calving.  The sound it makes, "white thunder", was awesome!

The ship stayed on the port side for a while, then turned to the starboard side for a while.  All while we were within the 400 feet of the glacier.  Finally, we headed out of the bay and towards our next port.

JUNEAU, 3RD PORT

Our trip to Alaska on the cruise ship was all about seeing the glaciers while they were still around.  So, our plan for Juneau was to visit the Mendenhall Glacier.  Our original plan was to take the public bus to the visitor center and find some trails to go hiking.  We were watching the travel channel one day and saw a story on this company, Above & Beyond Alaska, that took visitors to actually hike on the glacier.  We immediately booked a trip with the company (TA Review).

We hiked though the forest for about 2 miles then climbed up some steep rocks and down the other side before reaching the glacier.  We stopped to put on our crampons and climbed onto the glacier.  Our guide taught us how to walk on the ice in the crampons and we followed him around the glacier to see some of the amazing things on the glacier.  We hiked on the glacier for about an hour before making the hike back to the trailhead.  We all filled up our water bottles with glacier water before heading back.

We ended up having a couple of people on the tour that went a little slower and we ended up 2 hours behind schedule.  One lady didn't make it to the glacier, because the steep climb up the rocks became too difficult for her.  This delay made for a long day with only snacks provided by the tour company (trail mix, granola bar, 2 mini candy bars, gummi fruit snacks), a bottle of water, and no bathroom break!  We made it back to the trailhead about 5:30pm.  Regardless, it was the greatest part of our whole trip and something that I will never forget and would do again in a heartbeat!

Our guide, Ed, was born and raised in Juneau and he was very educated about the area, glacier, and vegetation.  He said he's been hiking on the glacier since he was 8.  And, he made the trek on the ice fields from Juneau to Skagway in 10 days pulling all his supplies on a sled!

SKAGWAY, 4TH PORT

We got up early to meet a private tour guide off the ship that was going to take us to explore Skagway, the Yukon, and Emerald Lake outside of Carcross (Yukon Territory of Canada).  Dyea Dave was highly recommended on TripAdvisor and I read great reviews of his trips and how funny he was on his tours.  I didn't hesitate to email him and set up a tour during out stop in Skagway.

We got off the ship about 7:30am and looked for our guide.  Dave had said it would be easy to find him as he'd be standing there in a black top hat.  It took a while to find him, because he sent someone else in his place.  We finally found his van and his sister, Ruth, who was going to be our guide for our trip.  After getting loaded in the van, we headed to another ship to pick up another couple.

We headed into town and stopped at the Visitor Center to watch a film on the history of Skagway.  The town has a very interesting history that relates to the Klondike Gold Rush.  Ruth took us through the town to point out some historic buildings.  Then, we took of for the Canada border and Yukon Territory.


We stopped along the way to take pictures.  We saw the WP&Y railroad and a train moving along the moutainside.  We ended up taking the train back down to Skagway from the Canada border in Fraser.

We crossed the Canada border and drove to Carcross and Emerald Lake.  After visiting the lake, we stopped in Carcross to have lunch at a little diner connected to a gas station.  We drove through Carcross, got our passports stamped and headed back to Fraser to catch the train back to Skagway.


After getting off the train, we headed to the Red Onion Saloon for a drink and walked through Skagway before getting back on our cruise ship.  We stopped at one ice cream shop for a snack and they'd run out of ice cream!  They told us to come back the next day after they got their delivery!

KETCHIKAN, 5TH PORT

We arrived in Ketchikan an hour and a half earlier than planned.  We scheduled a boat tour to see the Misty Fjords that was going to take up our whole time in port, so this gave us the opportunity to get off the ship and explore Ketchikan a little.

We got off and headed to Creek St, a former red-light district.  It's a very scenic street, sort of reminded me of something you'd find in Silver Dollar City.  We took the elevator train up to the Cape Fox Lodge.  We orginally planned on eating lunch up there, but saw the Ketchikan Fish Market on the way and decided to go back down to eat there instead.  We did order a marshmallow latte from the little coffee shop in the Lodge first, it was very tasty!

For lunch at the Fish Market, we had halibut fish tacos and a halibut sandwich.  After lunch, we got back on board to get ready for our excursion to the Misty Fjords.  


We boarded the boat to the Fjords and found only 30 people or so on a rather large catamaran. It was an hour and a half to the heart of the Misty Fjords.  Along the way, we stopped to see an Eagle's Nest and EddyStone Rock (made out of volcanoes).  In the Fjords, we saw amazing scenery, waterfalls, and a mountain goat.  We stayed about 1/2 hour before heading back to Ketchikan.  On they way back, they stopped to see Harbor Seals and an Indian pictograph.

The tour had a snack bar onboard and they gave out strudels, vege chili, clam chowder, and smoked salmon on a cracker.  They also had free flowing coffee, hot tea, and cocoa to keep you warm.

It was a long trip, but I was too afraid to get in a floatplane to make the trip.  I heard it was a 2 hour trip that way.

VANCOUVER, DISEMBARKATION

We disembarked from our cruise in Vancouver on a Friday morning.  We got off our ship a little after 10am and got through customs and the taxi line in about an hour.  We were at our hotel by 11:30am.  Our room at the Hampton Inn (TA Review) wasn't ready, so we went out exploring.

We walked to the Marina in Yaletown to catch the Aquabus to Granville Island to visit the public market.  We spent a couple of hours there checking out all the booths and enjoying some food from one of the sandwich and sausage stands.  


We took the aquabus back to Yaletown and from there, we walked to Chinatown and on to Gastown.  We stopped to have a couple of drinks at Chill Winston and people watch before walking back to our hotel to check in.  We had dinner in Kitsilano at a fabulous place called Bishop's (Yelp Review) and spent some time soaking in the hot tub before calling it a night.

The next day, we walked back to Yaletown and rented bikes to cruise along the seawall bike paths.  There were so many people on the paths.  It was a great day to get out and ride up through Stanley Park.  We went 15 miles in about 2 and 1/2 hours.  After our ride, we had a drink and some fish and chips along the bike route.  This is a very fun thing to do as there are so many different people and bikes along these paths.  We had dinner in Gastown our second night at Water St. Cafe.

Our flight out was on Air Canada and it was non-stop to San Diego.