BeachClubDee

6 hours ago, Mediterranean_Honeymooner said:

 

We booked for our 10th anniversary! Ours will be early instead of belated, though (going in May, were married in October).

That's fantastic!  Hope you have a wonderful adventure.  Happy planning! 

On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 2:30 PM, Bajan Keith said:

Its next April so the cruise will actually be a belated anniversary gift to ourselves. We were thinkingthe same thing 😄

Congratulations!  Enjoy your planning and have a fantastic trip! 

20 hours ago, Mediterranean_Honeymooner said:

Just stumbled across this review searching for Alaska Legend reviews since we just booked fir April/May.  Then I got to looking at your pictures and I thought “hey, I know them!”.  Love your reports over on the Disboards.  I mostly lurk these days due to the chaos of a full time job and 2 small kids, but I have been following your reports for years! ❤️  (I am Disneyparklover over there.)

Hi!!!

Good to see you over here.  

I appreciate your comments about my reports.  Glad you have enjoyed them. 

I had a busy 2017 of travel-  this cruise, my first Disney cruise with my pal Teena in early October and a trip to WDW with a few of my buddies at the end of October.  No Disney trips in 2018 though.  First time in 10 years I haven't been to the world. 

Thanks again for your post, especially since it got me back to replying to this report. 

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 1:59 PM, Bajan Keith said:

Great Review and Fantastic Photos. (y)

 

My wife and I are doing a bucket list Alaska cruise for our 10th anniversary and this has made us want to move it up!!

 

Great job!!

Thank you! 

When is your 10th anniversary?  An Alaska cruise would be a great way to celebrate. 

On ‎4‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 7:27 PM, shebring02lx said:

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this pictorial review up. I absolutely love finding these things while researching destinations.

Thanks for your kind comments!  I hope there is some Alaska in your future after your research. 

On ‎4‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 7:11 PM, krc99080 said:

 

Thanks for such a thoughtful review of this tour. We’ve booked it for our May Alaskan Cruise! Makes me even more excited to go. I liked the idea we could stop at scenic points for pictures and not just drive by. Plus still have time for the town.

Skagway was incredible!  So many interesting, scenic and different things to see.  We all enjoyed learning the history of the area.  I would say it was the highlight of our tour, and it would have been if not for the bears.  

How was your tour of Skagway?

On ‎2‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 3:46 PM, Matlily said:

Thank you very much for your review, we are booked on the same cruise in August the last one of the season! were so excited having only done the Carribean and Mexico before. We are due to get to Seattle on Saturday from Texas is that too long in Seatlle? we are flying directly back after the cruise?

How was your cruise?  What did you do for excursions?

I didn't get to answer your question about Seattle.  My husband has been a few times for work, but it was the first time for the rest of us.  I really loved the city and I thought there was a lot to do.  The Space Needle, Pop Culture Museum, Aquarium and Waterfront, Zoo, Harbor cruise, the ferris wheel and EATING! 

What did you think of the city?

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 5:14 PM, Marie83 said:

Wonderful review of your Alaska cruise and the photos were beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much for your kind words!  Thanks for reading. 

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 9:50 PM, riclop said:

Thanks for the review.

My pleasure! It is fun to re-live a trip by writing about it.  

On ‎1‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 2:11 PM, CheckersMidwest said:

My son graduated from Mizzou in 2015 and works for the Conservation Department. He worked a few years as a temp/seasonal worker for a couple of years for them then started full time. Yellowstone is a great opportunity ! I remember reading about Alaska & Montana jobs.....one of the job requirements was "Be able to run from predators." Definitely different than a desk job !

I hope your cruise in August was fantastic!  What did you do in the ports?

That is great to hear about your son's job with the Conservation Dept.  My son Nate spent the summer between his sophomore and junior year at UNH working for the Wyoming Conservation Corps.  He loved it.  He was on a team that had 6 10 day hitches.  He spent time building fences, making trails, breaking trails, felling trees, uprooting invasive plants, painting.  He didn't have to run from predators, but the highlight for him was seeing moose.  He is studying abroad in New Zealand for the Spring 2019 semester. 

Not a bad gig! 

Oh my gosh!  I can't believe I haven't visited this thread for almost a year and I have failed to reply to several of your comments.  I am so sorry!   I wish I could say it was because I spent the year travelling the world, but that was not the case.  I didn't see any notifications until I got one this morning. 

Replies coming! 

Thanks for your review ~ my son is a Wildlife Biologist too ! We are taking this cruise in August but he won't be going with us .

Wishing you a great trip!

That is cool about your son. Where is he studying and/or working?

My son is interviewing for an internship at Yellowstone this summer.

Just saw this thread and wanted to complement you on the narrative and the photos.

Keith

Thank you so much for the kind words and reading along!

I enjoyed reading your great review and looking at your fabulous photos. We were on the Legend in mid-August. Sorry you had so much rain, it really does put a damper on things. The whale watch we did in Juneau was in the rain. Our captain told us "The whales don't mind- they are already wet!" Your crab combo from Tracy's looked incredibly delicious! Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

The only question I can answer definitively is that yes, the dining room waiters dance several nights, as mentioned above. We were had YTD (Your Time Dining) rather than the set dining times.

I just finished my trip report from our August Alaskan cruise with two teenaged sons- ages 19 and 16 at the time of the trip.

Have a fantastic trip!

Thanks for finishing this up! FYI, the drinking age in most of Canada is 19. In Alberta, Manitoba and Québec it's 18. Hope your son enjoyed his first legal drink. :D

Heather

You are welcome! Sorry it took awhile- life!

Thanks for the drinking age info. I had a sip of Nate's drink- it was good. And he downed it like a pro. ;)

We had decided the night before that we would carry off our own luggage so that we didn’t have to pack frantically the night before or hunt for our suitcases at the dock. After breakfast, we went back to our cabin to wait for the call over the intercom that it was our turn to disembark. I think they were doing it floor by floor.

This was the view from our balcony once we pulled into the pier.































There were a bunch of otters swimming and putting on a show just off this jetty. Even with my very telephoto lens, I didn’t get a great shot.



















We had reserved a shuttle to bring us back to the Hampton Inn, downtown Seattle. We were staying another night so we could explore the city more and fly home the next morning.





We met the greeter for our shuttle, but it took quite a while, maybe up to an hour, before our ride arrived. There was a large family of around 12-15 people with accompanying luggage who did not have an advanced reservation who I think jacked our van from Seattle Shuttle. We had been waiting longer at the curb and they ended up getting out of there before we did. Good thing we weren’t in a rush to catch a flight!





We arrived at the hotel and checked in. I believe that there was a room ready for us, so we dumped off our stuff and got ready to head out for more sight-seeing in Seattle.









Upon our arrival in Seattle, pre-cruise, we purchased a Seattle City Pass, which included admission to:









· 1 Space Needle (2 same day visits)





· 2 Seattle Aquarium





· 3 Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour





· 4 Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) or Woodland Park Zoo





· 5 Chihuly Garden and Glass or Pacific Science Center

On the first day, we visited the Space Needle twice, took the light rail to the waterfront and visited Pikes Place Market and spent a little bit of time at the Museum of Pop Culture. For dinner, we did takeout from Ten Sushi.

Post cruise, our activities in Seattle were a visit to the Aquarium, lunch at Fisherman's Restaurant, a quick stop at the Pacific Science Center (IMAX: Ancient China and the Terra Cotta Warriors). We enjoyed our meal from Ten Sushi so much that we ate at the restaurant again that evening.

We still had one coupon left in our City Pass booklet- a harbor tour through Argosy Cruises. I would have loved to do that to see the city skyline from the water and hear about the Seattle waterfront. I also like to maximize the value I get from my purchases. But we had just spent 7 days on a boat, and frankly, we were all too exhausted to move once we finished our meal at Ten Sushi (covered in a previous update).

We packed up our bags and called it a night in anticipation of our return flight to Boston.





Just a couple of pictures and anecdotes from that:





Mark proves how much he loves me every time we fly together. He is a nice guy and all, but he doesn’t necessarily want to interact with the general public. But he knows how important the window seat on the plane is to me, so he sucks it up and takes the center seat. He is definitely a keeper!





Here’s why I love the window seat

That concludes the report of my family's trip to Seattle and cruise on the Carnival Legend to Glacier Bay and the Alaskan/Canadian ports of Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan and Victoria.

Thank you for reading and please let me know if you have any questions.

:cool:

Continued:

We were hanging out, playing cards, when an announcement was made that we were traveling through an area where whale sightings were possible.

For the next hour, we saw a lot of whales in groups of 1 or 2, most a fair distance from the ship, but a couple were quite close. I didn’t have my DSLR/telephoto lens, so my pictures are from my point & shoot.













































There are 3 whales in this picture- one had just gone underwater alongside a second whale. There is a blow off to the left as well.









Because we would be in port in Victoria starting at 7:30 that night, there were a lot of people waiting to get into the main dining room as soon as the doors opened at 5:30. Once again, the hostesses handed out pagers to everyone and once again, there was no warning to diners that tables were not ready until the pager lights up. So when the pagers all started making sounds simultaneously, everyone returned to the host station only to be told it was not time to be seated.





We were finally seated for dinner, which lasted close to 2 hours. Service was REALLY slow, worse than it had been all week. I think most people with My Time Dining were dining early tonight so they could go into Victoria.













Next Up: Victoria, BC Canada: Cheers to Nate, eh!

Great review!

 

 

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Thank you for the kind comment. I have more to post, so stay tuned.

:cool: