Juneau, Alaska

07.13.2015

On Saturday we embarked the Crown Princess in Seattle.  We went early for a stress free check in.  Colleen, with her seven years experience with the terminal, knew where we should position ourselves.  After about a 30 minute wait, they opened the ship to us.  There were only four people , out of 3,400 ahead of us.  We dropped our hand carries off in our cabins and headed to the buffet for lunch.  After lunch we took Mick and Georgette for a tour around the ship, and gave them tips on how to negotiate themselves around the ship for the next week, it is their first cruise.

Sunday was a sea day, filled with talks from a US Forest Ranger who has been working in Alaska for 23 years and an Alaskan Naturalist who lived on an uninhabited Alaskan island for many years.  Of course, we participated in trivia, did well, but not good enough to win the prizes.

It's Monday and we docked in Juneau at 10:30 am, our first port on this Alaska cruise.  This morning we entered the Inside Passage at 6 am and soon the ship encountered hump back whales and Orcas.  We were able to see Orcas from our balcony, but at quite a distance.

THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT

John was booked on a fly fishing float plane trip in the early afternoon.  When he went to check in shortly after noon, he was told it had been cancelled due to weather.  It was foggy and rainy and the plane couldn't safely fly.  Maybe we'll need to schedule another trip to Alaska post transplant just to get that fishing in.

So the four of us took a shuttle bus in to see the Mendenhall Glacier.  We spent a couple of hours there and hiked a mile to the Nugget Waterfall.  It was a beautiful hike but it started raining pretty hard on our way back to the Visitor Center.  We went inside to dry out and sit for a bit, then caught the shuttle back to Juneau.  We wandered around a bit before heading back to the ship.  According to John's fitbit, we walked 6.25 miles before dinner.  Not bad!

We were both a bit irritated with Verizon Wireless today.  We were supposed to have service here, but tried without success today.  Georgette was able to connect with her AT&T service once we got into town.

Tomorrow is Skagway for another full day.

Colleen & John