Places I have been: Alaska (Part 1)-Cruise

I went on a cruise to Alaska with my family earlier this year.

We left from Vancouver, but only ended up spending a few hours there overnight before we left. I wish we had time to explore the city and see the area before we left. We did get a quick tour while on the bus to where the cruise ships left from which was nice. It seems like a nice city and had great scenery! I hope to return sometime.

Vancouver

Our first stop of the cruise was in Ketchikan, Alaska.

 Our excursion for the day was going on the Deadliest Catch boat tour. We got off the ship and headed to the other part of the dock for our tour. This tour was very informative and exciting! The boat our tour was on was the same boat from the TV show The Deadliest Catch. If you have seen the show, you will know this boat. It is the boat that the giant wave crashed into and damaged. Our tour guides were both fisherman and crabbers, the one tour guide was actually on the show at one point! The premise of the tour was to show everyone how crabs are caught. They showed us how they baited the traps,put them out, and brought them in. They caught all different kinds of crabs. Once caught, there were viewing tanks on board that they put the crabs in to give us all a closer look. They even let us hold some of the smaller crabs! Along the way they also baited fish hooks and caught some fish as well as prawns, starfish, and other sea creatures which we were allowed to touch and hold as well.








At one spot along the way, they threw overboard some fish guts and attracted hundreds of bald eagles!!!!! They were flying everywhere!! I have never seen so many bald eagles in my life! Our joke for the rest of our trip we would always say "Look! AN eagle" as in one eagle. Not the hundreds that we saw that day. What a sight!







After this excursion, we explored the rest of Ketchikan. We walked down historic Creek Street. This area used to be where the prostitutes were.

We saw totem poles, and many touristy gift shops owned by the cruise lines. These gift shops/jewelry stores would be present at every port of call for the rest of the trip.


Our next port of call was Juneau, Alaska.

Our excursion at this post was a "Photo Safari". We started off with a whale watching tour. We saw a few humpback whales, but only one whale tail. Thank god my sister got it on camera!



The next part of the safari was a nature hike through the area surrounding Mendenhall Glacier. We ended the hike with various overlooks of the Glacier. The nature hike was fun! Even though it was late may, nothing was really blooming yet, but the scenery was still very pretty! The Mendenhall Glacier is the first glacier I ever saw. I remember learning all about it in a lot of my classes I have had, so it was cool to get to see it in person!

Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier

Our final port of call was in Skagway, Alaska.

The excursion we chose for this trip was a bus/train ride to the Yukon in Canada.
 We started off with a scenic drive by coach bus to Carcross in Canada. Along the way there was GORGEOUS scenery. Snow topped mountains, bright blue and green water. It was amazing that this exists. It really opened my eyes as to how big the USA really is and how little of the world I have seen.

The Yukon

 I felt like I was on top of the world. The further we drove, the higher we ascended into the mountains. It was neat seeing the scenery around us change as well. Less trees were growing and there was more snow the higher we went up. Our bus driver stopped at various places along the way to allow us to get photos which was great!

Carcross Desert

We passed the "Carcross Desert" as we reached our destination. It really is a desert. There are sand dunes here, surrounded by snow capped mountains.

When we reached Carcross, we walked around and saw the huskies. There were adults giving sled rides and puppies we could pet and feed treats. There was also a museum with taxidermy animals that people caught in the area. There were farm animals and helicopter rides and we got a free meal.

Pretty water

Once we were done looking around this town. Our bus driver took us to the train station so we could board the train to ride back down the mountains to our cruise ship. This was filled with more breathtaking scenery as we descended through the mountains and snow.

Old Bridge the train used to use

Once back to the town of Skagway we walked around a few gift shops then it was time to go and we boarded the ship once again.







Our final 'destination' was Glacier Bay National Park. This was really an 'at sea' day as we were just cruising through the park. But there was a nature guide on board to tell us about the history of the park and all of the glaciers and the natives that live there. This day we got to see the famous Marjorie Glacier. The cruise ship stopped in front of this glacier for a full hour so we could watch it calve and change before our eyes. This park was breathtaking.




Can you believe these are real pictures I took? The water was smooth as glass and reflected the mountains perfectly!

The Marjorie Glacier

We saw many glaciers within the park, but the Marjorie Glacier was the largest.












Our cruise ended in Seward, Alaska. We disembarked and boarded our tour bus to Denali National Park the same day.


Look for my blog entry tomorrow all about the land portion of our trip to Alaska!