Alaska 7.0 - July 6

 And THAT'S A Wrap!

Much like nearly everything else on this adventure the morning was virtually seamless.  We sailed into Vancouver in the early morning hours and docked just before 7am, right on schedule.  I can't remember for sure, but I believe in the past, even on this itinerary where we spend the night in Vancouver, I'm remembering that we had color-coded luggage tags and got off at an assigned time slot.  But because we had booked the hotel through our wonderful travel agent Nancy Nelson on our own, we opted to be in the "we'll do it ourselves" category, meaning we could disembark any time prior to 9:30.  We had some coffee, finished the last of our packing and by 8:30am we were ready to exit with the final groups on board.  We knew we had to allow "some time" to pick up the confiscated steamer and figured there would be some waiting in line.  Neither of those took any time at all.  The elevator came quickly, we wound around the exit path quickly, flashed our key cards and right off the ship Kim presented her paperwork and signed for the steamer.  Literally every twenty feet was someone pointing the way and we followed the line all the way out to the street.  The GPS directions to the hotel indicated we simply followed "Canada Way" outside the terminal, around the bend and make one turn to arrive at our hotel, the Pinnacle Hotel Harborfront in about ten minutes.  Went exactly as it was laid out and we were at the front desk around 9am.  Our rooms were not ready and we were told it could be as late as 3pm but checkout for the current guests was at noon.  We asked about a close-by coffee place and walked about three minutes to a local spot, ordered iced and frozen coffee then logged onto their Wi-Fi.  As we sat there I completed our check-in for our 8:45am flights and then we headed back to the hotel lobby.  We waited about two hours and went into the hotel restaurant at 11:30am for an early lunch, AND cashed in two $15 vouchers off our meal - and it was even lower because of the US dollar-to-Canadian dollar conversion.  We didn't think the room would be ready but I asked any way.....AND it was.  We picked up our luggage rather than wait the half hour to forty-five minutes for it to be delivered and headed up to the fifth floor.  As we opened the door we were greeted by a huge, wall-to-wall window with a balcony that overlooks the harbor.  We quickly opened the doors to let the 60-ish temp fresh air fill the room.  We spent the afternoon relaxing, gearing-up for the long day of travel tomorrow (we were told that for an 8:45 flight we should be at the airport at 5:45am, which means leaving the hotel a little after 5am!).  We opted to bypass our "usual spot" in Gastown - about a fifteen minute walk - to have dinner on the waterfront this time, and we arrived shortly before our 5:45pm reservations.  This will be our new "must go to" dinner spot - the views were amazing as we had waterfront dining....had an outstanding meal, with good wine - all the while enjoying the fresh air off the water.

And we've arrived

It's an easy walk to the hotel

We found it!  Easy-Peasy-Pie!

Our harborfront room

The balcony view

The Cactus Club Cafe - EXCELLENT choice!

Toast to an excellent adventure

Another "dinner with a view" photo op

The actual view we had during dinner

Thanks Vancouver for a great ending to our adventure!

And so wraps our seventh Alaskan adventure.  Have to admit we - especially Kim - had fears about what the glaciers and massive chunks of ice would look like, but we were not only NOT disappointed but surprised at how stunning it all was.  We will forever remember this Alaskan trip for the spectacular "Glacier Trifecta"......

Hubbard Glacier - June 30

Glacier Bay National Park - July 1

Tracy Arm Fjord - July 3

Alaska 7.0 - Thanks For Following Us!

For those of you who regularly follow our adventures, we are about a month and a half away from a five day getaway to Napa Valley which will be a reunion of couples (MP & Tom, Pam & Bob) who we met in 2019 on the Viking Portugal trip.  Then in September we will be rejoining Viking Rivers to explore Southeast Asia on the "Magnificent Mekong" itinerary.  We will meet our good friends Valerie & John whom we met on our Egypt trip for that adventure.  My youngest son Brad and I will have a long weekend at the end of October/early November to go to San Diego for the Breeders' Cup World Championships.  And Kim and I will top off the year's adventures by joining the Murrays for a Christmas Markets trip with Viking Rivers along the Elbe River in Germany.  We'll see you on the next trip - thanks for joining us!

Upcoming Adventures

Napa Valley - SE Asia - Euro Christmas Markets

Breeders' Cup World Championships - San Diego

Alaska 7.0 - July 5

The Final Day of the Cruise

Today was a complete "day at sea" as we continued our voyage we began yesterday around dinner when we departed Ketchikan and won't arrive until tomorrow morning in Vancouver where we will disembark from the Noordam, ending our cruise.  Today is billed as "Sailing the Scenic Inside Passage" but in all but one of our previous trips I found it less than scenic.  I must say that today I saw more legitimate scenic views than on any other inside passage segment.  And I would add that IF we were just starting and heading north towards Ketchikan today would have been a BIG WOW kind of day.  But compared to the views we've had over the previous week, these were just "really good."  Passed a lot of islands and mountains in the distance.  By 5pm we were ready to head to the Crows Nest on Deck 10 for the panoramic views while we enjoyed our final pre-dinner drinks.  We had dinner reservations at Canaletto, an Italian themed specialty restaurant.  On previous Holland America voyages we've eaten here, and I was never impressed that it ranked as good as the Pinnacle Grill.  But tonight, dinner was superb, from the appetizer to the main course to the cheesecake dessert.  It was a wonderful final day.

Tomorrow we disembark around 9am and will walk about ten minutes to our Vancouver Hotel on the waterfront.  We'll spend the day in the city and then Monday morning we'll head to the airport.  One last set of photos tomorrow!

Alaska 7.0 - July 4

 Happy Independence Day From Ketchikan!

We will not come to Alaska with any cruise line or on any cruise itinerary which does NOT include a stop here in Ketchikan where today's excursion is not offered.  We were "rookies" on the first trip here, but from that point on - six consecutive visits we've made the trip to the George Inlet Lodge when visiting Ketchikan.  Why is that?  Well if you don't know, read on my friends!  We actually slept a little "later" this morning and that was nice because the past two days we had to be off the ship early.  But today we were not arriving until 11am and our meeting time wasn't until 11:15am.  The sunrise that greeted us was an indication that today was truly going to be a good day; and when I was enjoying my morning coffee while sailing through the waters of Alaska with the snow-capped mountains in the distance I was truly appreciative of how fortunate we are to be able to do what we do and experience what we experience in all of our travels.

After a laid back morning - well, Kim went to the gym and I "worked" on the computer - we were off the ship to meet our group.  We arrived at our destination within half an hour and then descended the 79 steps to the lodge/dock.  Side note - for those of you who know about Kim's double knee replacement, while she is nearly 100% many things are still a struggle.  Going down stairs one of them so Kim took the courtesy shuttle van to the bottom while I made the "reverse climb."  We boarded our awaiting boat and headed out into the inlet where we saw eagles fly around the ship.  Got a great panoramic view of the area the the Tongass National Forest.  It is the largest natural forest in the US, about the size of the state of West Virginia and is a temperate rain forest!  And the crew showed us how they catch the Dungeness crabs.

We returned to the lodge for THE highlight of the excursion - the All-You-Can-East Dungeness Crab Feast!  As you can see in the collage, we've enjoyed this on every trip to date!  We sat at a table with two ladies who, sadly were with another cruise line on their first ever cruise.  Why sadly?  Because their ship had experienced engine troubles causing them to completely miss one port and were unable to see a single glacier because of the interruptions to their trip.  WOW how awful is that?  None the less we made their trip (or so they said) by explaining to them how this feast is also a contest to pile up the highest number of scraps.  And while we didn't win, we were one of the top three, piling them up to over 36 inches off the table - you'll note there are NO rules :)

Two final side-notes.  First, for those of you who know us and follow our travels, we always shop for two items to bring home from every trip we take:  (1) a Christmas ornament and (2) a pair of socks for me.  With limited on shore time, even less time to even consider shopping today had to be the day, and BINGO - success!  Secondly, for those who know me, you know I'm a big thoroughbred racing fan.  Sometimes on trips I still play the races, sometimes not.  I was up in the air about it on this trip but once we got started and I realized how much "free time" we'd have on board I thought I'd play the holiday races.  But then, uh oh - all thoroughbred racing sites and wagering platforms are blocked on board.  But not to worry - I am so clever sometimes!  I was able to see who was running in the big races today at Saratoga and once off the ship, opened my phone and got my bet in on Zulu Kingdom in the Grade 3 Manilla Stakes.  Won for fun and I cashed for almost $10 profit while enjoying my crab feast!

Tomorrow we will be sailing all day, so we'll see how scenic it is for photo purposes.  But I can tell you we will be posting pics from our overnight stay in Vancouver!  Hope everyone had a great 4th of July holiday!

Alaska 7.0 - July 3

 Tracy Arm Fjord
     We Complete The Glacier Trifecta!

So I'll start today's comments by saying it was an excellent day, and so many cool photos of what we saw.  But I must add that in spite of how wonderful it was, it fell short of expectations we had from this identical excursion six years ago.  But let's go with the positive view and go through the pics - at the conclusion I'll explain why it fell somewhat short of what we expected........  The day started as I stood on our balcony and watched the ship dock - seamlessly and without even the slightest bump.  Just amazing.  The small ship we boarded for our adventure had plenty of seating inside where it was comfortable and about a dozen seats on the observation deck up top (which were covered and some what sheltered) where it was MUCH colder with the wind whipping around.  As we left the area around Junean we saw multiple waterfalls....I had some hot chocolate (with a marshmellow tossed in!)....and we stopped to spy a whale in one of the inlets.

As we entered Tracy Arm Fjord you could tell we were in a different area because of the ice that began to show up in the water as we cruised by.  And we continued to see amazing waterfalls.  The chunks of ice were massive - the photos do not do them justice.

This is about 30 feet tall - and with only 10% of the ice showing that means that from top to bottom this is about 350 feet or over 30 stories tall :O

Soon we came to THE waterfall highlight of the trip.  We remembered this from our trip here six years ago and were as thrilled as Captain Sarah pulled the bow of the boat right up to the rock edge of the water.  Of course we posed for pics!  We passed more stunning waterfalls as we got closer and closer to entering the highlight portion of the fjord.

We rounded the bend and there was Sawyer Glacier.  We couldn't wait to get up close and personal.  I said to Kim that seeing that ship amongst all the ice was encouraging that we too could navigate our way to become up close and personal!

But as we got close to the ice field, the other boat was on it's way out and I thought we were just waiting for it to clear.  But they had radioed that the ice was closing in and they were having a difficult time finding safe passage out, so our Captain told us it would not be safe to get any closer.  I was "glad" that it seemed most of the guests did not know what they were missing by not being able to get up close to this amazing glacier.  And I'm sure most were thrilled when soon we were very close to the "North Glacier" segment of Sawyer Glacier.  The "North Glacier" isn't as big, and isn't as colorful....but it is massive and it IS a glacier, let's remember.  Good photos of it sealed the deal on our visiting three amazing glaciers on this trip!  And as we left the fjord we saw every more massive chunks of ice.  Just WOW.

So to compare.....and why we were so excited to repeat this excursion.  In 2019 we did get to round the bend and see the Sawyer Glacier up close......compare this year to then:

What we saw today - using big zoom shot of the glacier

Our up-close view in 2019

Tomorrow is the next-to-last day of the cruise.  We love Ketchikan as we will enjoy cruising the waters around the lodge there and enjoy all you can eat Dungeness crab!