Day 8-Whittier & Return

The Alaska Railroad Trip to Anchorage

Today ends our cruise experience. We disembarked the ship very early in Whittier, about 6:45 am, and immediately boarded the Alaska Railroad for our trip to Anchorage to pcik up our flight back to Chicago.

The Alaska Railroad provides a very scenic ride for the breathtaking journey from Whittier to Anchorage. The trip takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes and includes mountain views, a 2.5 mile tunnel (that is closed one day each year for people to walk and bike through it.) as well as stream-side views.

The ride is a must to experience, and goes far too fast. On our trip we saw bald eagles, mountain sheep, salmon and beautiful vistas throughout. The seating is in 4-seat table settings so that you can chat as well as take in all the scenery of Alaska.

Upon arrival in Anchorage, we had lots of time to spend before our 10 pm red-eye to Chicago's OHare Airport. First we did a little shopping and explored downtown Anchorage which seemed to have lots of souvenir shops and restaurants. All in all it was very tourist oriented.

Anchorage is a town of over 250,000 residents and is one of the largest cities in terms of size (square miles) in the world. It is also a very fast-growing city. Our 50-minutes bus tour of the city with the 4th Avenue Theater's Trolley Tour took us around town with an amusing narration from a long-time resident. It included a visit to the airport area, which includes the world's largest marina airport for float planes. We saw hundreds of float planes in the docks just like a boat marina.

The Anchorage airport is quite modern and offers the typical amenities of major airports around the country.

Day 7-College Fjord

View of Harvard Glacier in College Fjord

Our last day of crusing was spent in the area of College Fjord. An area which is comprised of what was once twelve separate glaciers named after American universities. Six were named after female student universities and six after men's universities. Today several of the glaciers have retreated and are barely visible due to melting. The ones that remain, though, are quite amazing. During our cruise into the fjord, we passed numerous pieces of ice, mini-icebergs of a sort, though some were likely thousands of pounds and as big as a Volkswagon.

Day 6-Glacier Bay

Ship Passengers View Glacier Bay's Sights

Today we spent the day at sea. Our ship cruised in and out of the Glacier Bay National Park. Park rangers boarded our ship and provided additional narrative to our visual treat of the many glaciers in the park.

Unfortunately, there were no whales visible during our time in the bay.

Day 5-Skagway

Sally & Friend at Musher Camp

Today we made the last port city stop on our 7-day cruise. The town of Skagway was our kick-off point for a train ride up the mountain as well as a visit to a Sled Dog Musher Camp for an authentic sled dog team ride.

In the morning, we boarded the White Pass & Yukon Railroad right at the ship dock. We sat in comfortable coach cars with great views for this 3 hour, 40 mile roundtrip to the summit of White Pass - a 2865 foot elevation. On the way we were provided with a narration of the various highlights in the history of the railroad and this area.

After lunch, we boarded a bus and began our journey to the Alaska Sled Dog Adventures Mushing Camp. The bus ride took about 45 minutes and at one point we had to transfer to a smaller van to cross an old bridge and then arrive at the starting point for our sled dog ride.

We were loaded into a six-passenger sled on wheels with a single musher and sixteen sleg dogs up front. On command we took off and traveled on a dirt road through the forest for an exciting taste of what those Iditarod drivers face in much more severe conditions for days on end.

The camp we visited has almost 300 dogs in residence, many of whom have run in the famous 1000 mile race best known in the mushing world. Each dog has his/her own dog house and lives year-round outdoors cared for by their musher.

Day 4-Juneau

Sally, Mom & Aunt Elsie at Taku Lodge

We arrived in Juneau about 6:30 am. After an 8:30 breakfast in the Interational Dining Room, we left the ship around 9:30 to walk to downtown Juneau. Since our only excursion departed at 1:00 pm, we had some time to shop and look around.

We arrived at Wings Airways about 12:30 for our flight to Taku Lodge. At 1:00 pm We boarded the float plane for the 30 minute trip to the lodge. Along the flight we listened to an excellent narration of the visuals we were seeing out the window. We passed over a number of glaciers and were impressed with their beauty.

Day 3-Ketchikan

Sal Getting Harnessed for Zip Line Action

Finally we have arrived in Alaska, to the southernmost location at the little city of Ketchikan. There were three other cruise ships in port today. There are no roads out of here, so there are lots of puddle jumpers, float planes, in constant operation in the area.

After a quick breakfast, at about 8 am, Sal and I went exploring the 'downtown' area of the city. It was cool (57 degrees) and raining as it usually is, we were told. We followed a recommended walking tour and saw some shops, totem poles and lots of salmon (dead and alive) in the local river. It is the end of the spawning season.

At about 9:45 we returned to the dock area to meet our tour bus for the day. Today we are doing the Alaska Canopy Adventure Tour. We are bused up to a camp where we will be suited in gear to be attached to what are called 'zip lines'.

The guides gave us training in the techniques, equiped us in the necessry gear, and provided a short test run before we moved to the main event. From high up in the rain forest we traversed large spaces between platforms attached to trees. There were 7 zip lines and 3 bridges high above the forest floor.

The longest run was over 700 feet long and the height of the various sections ran from 50 to almost 150 feet. It was quite an experience, not for anyone afraid of heights. At one point, we did see two black bear cubs feeding on salmon below us in the forest. Cool!

Both Sal and I did very well during our 90-minute adventure high in the Alaska tree canopy.
We returned to the ship barely before it left Ketchikan for its next port, Juneau.

Tonight we will relax and perhaps take in another show.

Day 2-At Sea

On Sunday we spent the day on board the Saphire Princess. It was quiet day, but somewhat crowded on board since everyone was looking for something to do. There are about 2600 passengers aboard. A fully booked ship.

During the day we acquainted ourselves with the ship and all tha it offers. It is an amazing operation, a floating hotel and muh more.

Dinner was an early one and informal since we chose to skip the formal dress dinner plans for the evening. Everyone was pretty tired from the travel and Day 1 activities.
In the evening we went to the show in the Princess Theatre, called 'Piano Man'. A collection of song and dance numbers from the hits of Liberace, Barry Manlow, Billy Joel, Neil Sedaka and Elton John. Four strong singers and a very capable dance troup provided a non-stop 60 minute performance. It was a fantastic show. We all enjoyed it very much.

On top of everything else, we had to turn our clocks back one hour to get on Alaska time. We are now 4 hours behind Florida time. Easy to get up, but a little hard to party at night.

Day 1-Travel

Saturday August 26,2006

The cab came at about 5:25 am. We left O'Hare on time at 8:00 am.

Our flight was 4 hours and although we had seats way back in row 23, all went smoothly. The movie was Inside Man with Denzel Washington. A good one!

Vancouver was beautiful from the air, a nice sunny day. We went through customs quickly and eventually boarded a bus for downtown Vancouver. Our bags went separately. More about that later.

It is about 45 minutes to downtown Vancouver from the airport. There was construction along the way. They are building a mass transit system with above and below ground sections. It is targeted to support the winter Olympics here in 2010. (I think.)

We boarded the ship at the port in Vancouver quite early. Our Princess ship was there along with one from Holland America and one other. They are getting very large. Quite a sight.
Once on board we got to our cabins at about 11:30 am, well before our luggage arrived. Sally's Mom, Maggie and Aunt, Elsie have the cabin next to us. Then we proceeded to look around and find a restaurant to have some lunch. We decided to purchase the unlimited coke ticket for $3.95 a day each(times seven days, what a racket!)

At 4:00 we had an emergency drill and had to go to Muster Station D to hear a review of the procedures in the event of an iceberg or something. We learned how to put on our life jackets and where to go to get on a life boat. This was serious stuff.

We are back in our cabins now and toasting our planned 6:00 or so bon voyage. We plan dinner at one of the informal restuarants. After our delayed departure around 6:45, we went down to get early seats for the preview show in the Princess Theatre. The show started about 8:00 and lasted about an hour, including a short dance number, a comic/magician and the introductions of many of the ship's different areas. The program was hosted by the ship's Cruise Director. What a hoot he was!

Dinner followed at one of the restaurants, but nobody was very hungry and we were all very tired. After getting up a 4:45 am Chicago time, we finally hit the sack at about 11:00, or 2:00 am Chicago time.

Stay tuned for day 2.

Day 0-Cruise Prep

The day before departure, preparation is moving into the final stages. Last minute purchases and packing is the order of the day.

More later....