Summer 2024 Updates
A lot has happened in the last year, and some very exciting things come up for the future!
Tag: blog
Mt.Rainier Blog
This morning I was determined to squeak in as much as I possibly could. The time change from Alaska to Seattle caught me off guard again though, and I ended up getting up at 6 instead of 5 AM. I was able to film the rest of the ship tour for Youtube before the rest of the ship was up and about. Ben and I grabbed breakfast from the buffet and ate on our balcony for the last time. It was bittersweet. We had to be out of our stateroom by 8AM, and our disembarkation time was 8:15AM. The disembarkation was relatively easy, we lined up on deck 6 with the rest of the people with that time slot, headed through the check point on the jogging track, and walked off the ship. I wasn’t sure how long it would take us to get through the baggage pick up area and ended up ordering our Uber a little too soon.
We made the decision this morning that we weren’t going to stick with our original plan, to store our luggage and explore Seattle. Our new plan is to rent a car and visit Mt. Rainier. We rented our car through Enterprise again, but the pickup location was on the outside of Seattle due to the holiday weekend. We got our Starbucks and began the journey to Mt. Rainier National Park.
The views approaching Mt.Rainier from Paradise were breathtaking. We don’t have those sorts of views in Maine and I couldn’t stop staring. Our first stop in the park was the gift shop, obviously. I had to get my National Park stamp for our book, and a few stickers. The main goal for our visit is to do the Skyline Trail, so we are going to drive by the other stops on the way out there and catch them on the way back if we have time. The parking lot was already filling up and we had to park at one of the lower lots. I was thankful we were even able to get a spot. The weather today could not be better for visiting Mt.Rainier and I thought there would be more people here to be honest.
We hiked all the way to Glacier View on the Skyline Trail. I wanted to return with enough time to see some other spots. I also made the mistake of hiking in a sundress and white sneakers. The trail was a little bit muddy from snowmelt but otherwise it was fine. It also caught us by surprise that it was SO hot out, It was about 80 degrees with direct sun and no wind. We took a bunch of pictures and turned back for the visitor center. I could have hiked here all day but we were on a tight timeline. On our way out of the park we stopped at Christine Falls, Narada Falls, and the Trail of Shadows. The Grove of Patriarchs was closed on our visit, but the Trail of Shadows is the next best thing. The giant trees were beautiful, and we had the trail entirely to ourselves.
The return trip is never as fun as the trip out. We stopped at Panera Bread for dinner, with all intentions of stopping at another brewery before heading to the airport. By a stroke of luck we checked the return details for our rental car. The Enterprise drop off location at SeaTac was not actually at SeaTac. They offer a free shuttle service to the airport. We skipped the brewery and booked it back to SeaTac. This part of the trip got a little bit stressful, we were going to be cutting it close for time. Turning in the car went fine, but waiting for the shuttle to arrive, then transfer us to the airport was like waitting for paint to dry. The shuttle dropped us off at the international arrivals terminal for some reason…and there was absolutely no signage as to where we were.
After finding the Delta baggage check we were only able to take one deep breath that we were at least in the airport. This experience makes me never want to check bags again. There was one person checking people in and almost every person needed to rearrange the weight in their bags. Getting through security took almost a third of the time it took us to check our bags. We got to our gate with only enough time to get a beer at the bar and wait for the rest of the plane to board before us. Our boarding time was 10:47 PM, take off at 11:30 and landing in Boston at 7:30 AM. This was my first ever true red-eye flight and I now know where the name comes from.
Victoria, British Columbia Blog
The last day of our cruise, and we get to spend the afternoon in Victoria, British Columbia.
Skagway Alaska Blog
Skagway is the port day that I was looking forward to the most. Unfortunately we hit the point in the cruise that we aren’t as ready to get up bright and early like we were in the very beginning. We began getting ready around 6:00 AM, and went up to the buffet to grab some food to eat in the room. Just as we were getting into the buffet there was a ship wide announcement that if you were ready you could get off the ship early. We grabbed a couple quick snacks and ran back to the room to grab our backpacks and took off for the dock. We were among the first couple people off of the ship at 6:45 AM. It seemed like our ship was the only one letting people off early as well, and we were able to do a couple laps around town without the cruise-port level crowds.
We grabbed coffee at Glacial Coffee shop and walked around town a little bit more, picking out which stores we wanted to come back to when they were open. By the Skagway Museum we found an older model of the White Pass train on display. We spent some time there admiring it and planning out our next steps. Our excursion time was originally booked for 9:00AM, but since there wasn’t anyone in port we asked if we could get on the 8:00 AM train.
Our excursion of the day is the White Pass and Yukon Route Scenic Railway ride to the Canadian border. The staff at the train station were great and switched our ticket time with no issues. We bought our tickets directly through them though, not through a cruise line. The only difference is the train has the ability to pick you up right next to the ship, or right next to the train station. We got on at the train station and the car we were in was only half full. The only downside to picking an earlier time to ride was the clouds. The clouds were only beginning to lessen by the time we arrived back at the train station. I wouldn’t say that we missed out on a -ton- but we did miss out on some of the breathtaking views. The clouds added an ominous feel that I rather liked. They weren’t so bad that we weren’t able to see the bridges, tunnels and waterfalls though.
The trailhead to the Lower Dewey Lake trail is just across the tracks from the train station, and on our to-do list for Skagway. I wasn’t sure how far we’d actually make it but we did the entire loop. The trail started out a little bit steep and leveled out for the rest of it. I was surprised at the amount of people on this trail (my fault for assuming). A lot of them were in day sneakers and flip flops and plugged up the trails a little bit. We did the whole loop in a little over an hour and a half- 4.5ish miles.
Walking back into town, we headed back over to the stores we picked our earlier to get our postcards, and I found the “Alaska” sweatshirt I had been looking for. It was about lunch time when we rolled into Skagway Brewing Company for a beer and some lunch. We tried the spruce tip beer, hoping it would be similar to some that we have in Maine but it was based on the “spruce tip tea” that is famous in Alaska. A slightly different flavor profile. We opted for a smoked salmon dip to go with it, that came out really good. We still had a lot of time left in port after lunch, and we made our way over to Yukatania Point and Smugglers Cove. The fog and clouds have rolled back in and limited the views but Smugglers Cove would have made for a great spot for a picnic. We were both fading fast from walking all day, and agreed to fit another beer into our schedule. This time we checked out Klondike Brewing Co. while we waited for the rain showers to slow down. The spruce beer here was slightly more sprucy, but a bit more sweet. The rain wasn’t supposed to ease up so we headed back to the ship to dry off and relax.
Back on the ship we changed for dinner at the Seven Seas main dining room. The experience was a little bit different than the last few nights. Our table was squished between two other tables in the middle of the room. When I say squished, I mean I could have reached over and eaten off my neighbors plate. I understand this is a cruise ship with limited space but that was way too close for me- especially since we picked this cruise line for the “freestyle” dining. Dinner itself was spot on, Ben had a New York Strip and I opted for Lemon Tilapia. Buffet ice cream was on the agenda for dessert- I’m slightly addicted to it. The hot tubs were empty as we walked by after ice cream, and they were also empty when we came back up with our bathing suits and towels. What luck. The evening plan is to catch the comedy show and play cards in the sports bar. Tomorrow we are spending the entire day in Juneau, there will be a lot of walking so I imagine we’ll retire early tonight.
Alaska Cruise Day at Sea
Our first full day on our 9 day Southern Alaska cruise, onboard the Norwegian Sun. Today is an at sea day as we cruise up to Ketchikan.
Alaska Cruise Boarding Day
Today we traveled from Leavenworth, Washington, to Seattle to board our cruise to Alaska. We made some beautiful pit stops along the way.
Icy Strait Point Blog
Today we’re docking in Icy Strait Point. We went to bed early last night, and were up early this morning. We did some laps around the inside of the ship while we waited for the Seven Seas dining room to open. We were able to get another window seat with a view of the coast. I got a mushroom, spinach and cheese omelet and Ben had biscuits and gravy while we shared the french toast. We still had time after breakfast to do some laps around the ship before we docked in port. They’ll be letting us off the ship around 10:00. Today was a little bit different, we weren’t able to just walk off the ship like yesterday. Everyone was ready and waiting in line to get off, probably because it was 10:00 and not 7:00.
We got in line at just the right time and were still among the first few people off the ship. Our ship docked at the Wilderness Landing dock so we will need to either walk or take the gondola over to the main area. Our plan is to take the gondola over and walk back later this afternoon. Walking around Icy Strait Point before the crowds start in is highly recommended. We walked around the pier and through the cannery museum before we went to the meeting point for our excursion. Icy Strait Point is a cruise destination designed similarly to how cocoa kay is in the Bahamas. We waited for our shuttle to come pick us up at the excursion hub and took a 15 minute ride into Hoonah.
We boarded our whale watching boat, which had two seats on one side and four on the other. We opted for the four because some of our friends we met were on that side. We ended up regretting this choice because we weren’t able to get out of our seats quickly when we needed to. We stood outside for most of the tour though, and only had to stay inside when the boat was moving. We saw nearly a dozen whales and no less than 40 spouts. A few of the humpback whales were bubble feeding close to shore. Right before we began to head back to Hoonah we saw a whale breach right next to our boat. I was too slow with the camera but it was amazing to see in person. If you are ever in Hoonah, check out Huna Adventure Company.
The tour ended in Hoonah, and we opted to take the mile and a half walk back to Icy Strait Point. There isn’t much left for us to do here other than explore so we might as well take our time. We had a couple beers at Icy Strait Point Brewing Company then meandered back. There was a really cool rock formation on the beach inbetween ICP and Hoonah. I had read about Lil’ Gen’s donuts in my research of the area, and we got in line once we got back. It is located right outside the cannery and they serve dozens of different flavored mini donuts. We opted for maple and apple cider flavored.
Our afternoon in Icy Strait Point was wrapping up, and we began making our way back to the ship when we got lured into the Duck Point bar. It overlooks the water and there had been several whale sightings right from the porch. Taking the nature trail back to the Wilderness Landing dock gave us some extra time to see the natural landscapes of the forest around us.
We got back on the ship somewhere between lunch and dinner, and since it wasn’t late enough for dinner we headed for the buffet. We tried to sit in the hot tubs but pre-dinner and heat didn’t mix well. We did a couple laps on the jogging track as we port before we headed for our “official” dinner. The newlywed game show is tonight, and that is always my favorite one to watch. After that I imagine we will crash early again tonight.
