Just Back from Alaska - 7/3 -7/10/09

[Nutbunch]

All those people who suggested layers, were right. Although I should have packed more shorts, and T-shirts. Juneau was 90 degrees! Sunny and beautiful, but hot. Who would have thunk it?

 

Juneau (bright sunshine 93 degrees)

 

We rented a car with Rent-A Wreck. She picked us up at the dock and we went to ther office, close by Mendenhall Glacier. We drove the wreck (1997 rusty plymouth van) to Mendenhall in about 5 minutes. A real popular place, took a while, but found parking on the side of the street.

 

We walked to the waterfall on the "unoffical trail" -follow this signs that say "this is not a maintianed trail" and you'll find the waterfall right away.

Amazing. It was so sunny and hot, we even put our feet in the chilly iceberg filled water. The waterfall is amazing, the glacer is amazing, had water gushing down the left side as well. The icebergs in the small lake were so pretty and blue.

 

We then drove to the Shrine of St Therese. Not a short drive like you might think. It took us about 20 minutes, which was too long. We could only see the Shrine itself and had to forgo the garden walk and labyrinth. This beacuse my DH had to drop me and DS off at Coastal Helicopters in 30 minutes. Since the drive there took so long we didn't want to be late going to the helicopter.

 

So we got dropped off then had to wait. We waited for the other people to come from the dock and then waited for the pilot to get back from his other mission. Then we waited for a different helicopter. Had I known, we would have spent more time at the Shrine. It was my fault, I should have called and found out if there were on time.

 

We finally got underway. This was my first helicopter ride ever. I was a little scared, okay lots scared when we took off at the lateral movements and bumpyness in general. BUt the views were amazing. My DS an I were in front with the Pilot, Brian. Brian did an amazing job. We landed on blue ice next to a waterfall through the glacier, that ened in a dropoff of blue-ice hole. It was amazing and so clear. It was windy as heck up there, but warm so no jackets or fleece, left them in the Helicopter. We walked all around, took lots od pictures, drank the glacier water:cold and refreshing!

 

If you go, definately find a way to the glacier landing. I booked directly with Coastal so was much, much cheaper than the shore excursion from the ship. My DS was amazed and it made the whole trip for both of us.

 

Glacial Bay (Sunny, Windy 70 degrees)

 

Wow. This place is eye candy. Mountains left and right, each different, each beautiful. Every know and then an ice flow in between these majestic mountiains. Then we get to Margorie Glacier, amazing, huge. thunder sound from calving(even though little ones) Seagulls flying all around because the ship is so close it's churning up the bottom of the water and the gulls are getting the benefits. We take a 100 pictures. We can see the blue of the crevices by eye, we are so close. Then we head off to another through another beautiful channel, to John Hopkins. I saw a bear for a few seconds as we cruised along shore.

 

Sitka (bright sunshine 73 degrees)

 

We walked and walked. If you are easily mobile like us, consider walking. The buses took people to the same places we just walked to. We checked out the tidal pools too, saw starfish, clams, mussels. We went thought Sitka National Park with all the Totem poles strategically placed though the forest hike. On the way around, there's a bridge over Indian River. We took ther bridge at then ended up a little north of the Alaska Raptor Center. We walked up there and saw the Bald Eagles, Owls, Hawks, Ravens and watched the show. Amazing the work they do.

 

We walked back to town a different way. Went to the Totem Center shoping and had lunch over looking the marina at the Two Dragons restuarant. Don't get you hopes up, not real chinese food (thing Chung king). We then walked up to an overlook (Baranof Castle, no castle though). We did some shoping in town and I stopped at the Wells Fargo. Then back to the ship.

 

Ketchikan (foggy 65, then sunny 70 degrees)

 

When we arrived at 7:00am, I though finally can use my raincoat! However once we started walking around to Creek Street, the "clouds" turned out to be nothing more than fog and it burrned off at about 9:30am. So strangley all three Alaska stops where bright sunshine. We too the Cape Fox cable car up. Then waked down to Park Street and folloew the signs to the fish hatchery. Ketchikan has signs all over to let you know where things are and how to return to downtown. You really can't get lost, and I had forgotton to bring my map. We went to the fishery, then across the street to the totem center. The followed the signs back to downtown and watched crazy people fishing off the bridge. We went shopping as this seemed to be the major focus of shops by the pier. I got a nice ring at one of the jewelrey shops (there must have been 50 of them) We got all our souveniers to bring back to friend and family. Then had to rush back to the ship as we were only there 4 hours. The ship was there 6 hours, but we didn't disembark until after breakfast at 9:00am.

 

Victoria (night 65 degrees)

 

We were dissapointed. At first the captain of the Zaandam announces we'll be there around 6:30pm. I go to the shore excursions as we booked the Butchart Gardens tour through the ship, to see if we can leave earlier than the 7:30pm time on our tickets. No we can't. So we're sailing.

7:30pm comes around and we are not even docked yet. 7:45pm we seem to be docked, but the ship isn't cleared from the port until 8:00pm. The passengers are all crowded on the stairwells, atriums, hallways, waithing to get off this ship. After this great footlock, we weren't on the tour bus until 8:25pm. The sun has gone down, but it's still light. Maybe we can get a half hour of light we think.

 

Oh no. The greyline tourguide had to drive the long way around so he can give a speil about the city of Victoria to even point out the douglas fir trees, like they are the only ones who have them. We were so frustrated, all we wanted to see where the gardens. So by the time we get there I can get 2 picture, then it's pitch black. The gardens do have small lights everywhere so you can see around to go from garden to graden, but you can 't really get the scale of the effect of seeing flowers in any distance. And forget pictures. I loved the gardens and would like to go back in the day so I could see them in thier granduer.

 

DO NOT do this excursion with the ship. The time frame is too short. Go yourself later.

 

All in all, despite the Victoria fiasco, the trip was amazing. Alaska is all that's promised and more. We enjoyed each port and meeting the locals and getting to know the place by walking around. Glacial Bay was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, and I've been around a few parks and foriegn cities in my time.

[skankycat]

The late Victoria arrivals seem to be a constant. We'll take your advice and not book the ship excursion. darn!

Glad your trip went so well. How were the seas?

[chachi]

I hope that I get as lucky as you do with the weather. I just started packing for my trip and I only packed 3 t-shirts. I think I might have to add some more. Sounds like you had a great trip.

[Lunur]

Thanks for your review.

Stupid question - How long did you shop in Ketchikan? I am wanting to do a long tour and I am afraid I'll miss my souvenier shopping? Since I wont have a lot of time to look, is there a particular store that is best to shop in?

Thanks

[Nutbunch]

Thanks for your review.

Stupid question - How long did you shop in Ketchikan? I am wanting to do a long tour and I am afraid I'll miss my souvenier shopping? Since I wont have a lot of time to look, is there a particular store that is best to shop in?

Thanks

 

We had about an hour which was long enough. There's an all inclusive shop in Salmon Landing in front of the Lumberjack Show theater. The shop was the one at the back. Lots of souvenier stuff. There are some better shops all around. I got a hand carved bear by an Alaskan artist at a different shop, had to ask them to open the case.

 

Skankycat - The seas were pretty rough the first sea day out of Seattle. I used Bonine and a sea band and was just moderatly queasy. I didn't lose my lunch. My SD, however was queasy a lot. That Sea day, coming out of Juneau into sea toward Glacial Bay, and out to see again going out of Sitka for Ketchikan. However, I think a lot of hers was mental. Her idiot father would remark "WOW, look at those waves, we are really rocking" and surprisingly she'd be nausious almost immediatly after hearing that.:mad:

She had to lie down, but also never lost her lunch.

[lookageless]

Thanks for your advice on layering. I'm from Orlando, going to Alaska at end of July and thought I would need to get my winter clothes out of the closet. But nice to know I can just layer up.

 

I just started planning our tours. In previous cruises we ended up getting the tours off the ship, as it saved us some money and we ended up doing more.

 

We are going on Diamond Princess, and its going from Whittier to Skagway, to Juneau, Kit..,

 

I've decided in Skagway will do the train ride.

 

In Juneau thinking about doing the HarvMarv tour.

 

Not sure what to do in Ketchikan. I can't walk real fast, recovering from knee surgery in March. Any suggestions

[SDBeachLovers]

Very helpful. We are going on 7/26 to the same ports as you (though on the Westdam) and can't wait. If you don't mind, how much was the helicopter trip - I have to balance your comment about "the highlight of the trip" with (unfortunately) cost.:o

[Coolcruise02]

Thanks for your review. We also did the "unofficial" trail to the waterfall and it is worth it to me. On our cruise we had the whole day in Victoria and did a wonderful whale watch with lots of Orca's close to the ship. It is a beautiful city and it is too bad so many ships are there for such a short period.

[LoriPhil]

Your description of the Helicopter Tour sounds wonderful! I was a little nervous about this as well and you addressed my concerns. Did you do the single-glacier walk on Coastal (vs the Pilots Choice with multiple stops), and were there many other Helicopters on the glacier? How much did they charge? We're interested in booking directly with the tour operator since these tours are so expensive, but we realized we really enjoy having something special to do in each port instead of simply shopping our way through town.

 

Thanks for the info - I'm really excited about this excursion now!

[Nutbunch]

Very helpful. We are going on 7/26 to the same ports as you (though on the Westdam) and can't wait. If you don't mind, how much was the helicopter trip - I have to balance your comment about "the highlight of the trip" with (unfortunately) cost.:o

 

It's not cheap, but I booked directly with Coastal (website-email). The shore excursion wanted $430 a pop, Coastal charged $245. It is a lot. We traveled with a family of four. At 2 people it's doable for us, I was lucky the others in my group have a problem with hieghts. However from the moment we lifted off, I never once thought about the cost. Now that I think about it, the experience was totally worth it.

 

We didn't see any other helicopters at first when we started sightseeing. But when we got to another glacier (not the one we landed on) there were 2-3 other helicopters circling, flying over it. Our pilot pulled our helicopter back away from the area and waited for the "flying monkees" to be gone. Then we went over that area then turned back to the landing spot. The pilot was very cautious, which I preferred.

[sunbird51]

 

In Juneau thinking about doing the HarvMarv tour.

 

You might check on this right away! They book fast. Good luck

 

Not sure what to do in Ketchikan. I can't walk real fast, recovering from knee surgery in March. Any suggestions

 

I have done a lot of research and one of the excursions out of Ketch they seem to be excited about is the Bering Sea Crab Fisherman's Trip. http://www.56degreesnorth.com

 

 

Good luck on anything you decide.

[oceanswimmer]

Thank you for your comments on Butchart gardens! Our ship comes into Victoria at 6:30pm (at least that's the planned time :-) and I have been going back and forth about going to Butchart gardens. I love gardens but I am afraid we'll be there too late to see much. I have read that the garden is lit up at night but I would like to see the actual colors of the gardens and I thought it might be pretty hard to see that at night. The only thing really swaying me towards going to the gardens is that we'll be there on a Saturday night and so there will be fireworks which would be nice. Right now I'm thinking we'll just go into the downtown area of Victoria which I've heard is very nice. Your observations were very helpful about the gardens at night!

[mtnbikechick73]

I'm not sure if they're still doing this tour in Victoria, but when my husband and I went to Alaska the first time, we were only in Victoria from 8 PM - midnight. So, we took the "Haunted Cemetery and Museum" tour. It wasn't scary, but it was pretty cool, neat stories, and some of the stories of hauntings in the nautical museum will freak you out. Just an idea, since it's dark and there's not much to see in the dark anyway!

 

Thank you for your comments on Butchart gardens! Our ship comes into Victoria at 6:30pm (at least that's the planned time :-) and I have been going back and forth about going to Butchart gardens. I love gardens but I am afraid we'll be there too late to see much. I have read that the garden is lit up at night but I would like to see the actual colors of the gardens and I thought it might be pretty hard to see that at night. The only thing really swaying me towards going to the gardens is that we'll be there on a Saturday night and so there will be fireworks which would be nice. Right now I'm thinking we'll just go into the downtown area of Victoria which I've heard is very nice. Your observations were very helpful about the gardens at night!

[kathynorth]

The late Victoria arrivals seem to be a constant. We'll take your advice and not book the ship excursion. darn!

 

Glad your trip went so well. How were the seas?

 

I may be mistaken, but the late arrivals seem to be specific to the Zaandam, so you may not be affected if you cruise on a different ship. Also, you may want to check on the status of the Zaandam arrival times if you travel later in the season. Our cab driver said the late arrival was Zaandam specific and due to a temporary situation. There was a change over of officers on Friday, which was expected to improve the situation. I won 't mention the specifics of the discussion since I'm not sure if this came from a reliable source, but there may be some hope of enjoying Victoria if you travel on the Zaandam later in the season.

[skankycat]

I may be mistaken, but the late arrivals seem to be specific to the Zaandam, so you may not be affected if you cruise on a different ship. Also, you may want to check on the status of the Zaandam arrival times if you travel later in the season. Our cab driver said the late arrival was Zaandam specific and due to a temporary situation. There was a change over of officers on Friday, which was expected to improve the situation. I won 't mention the specifics of the discussion since I'm not sure if this came from a reliable source, but there may be some hope of enjoying Victoria if you travel on the Zaandam later in the season.

 

Thanks. We're on the Zaandam leaving August 7. So I'll keep up with the boards and see what the newer travellers say.