Alaskan Cruise



We started our cruise on August 29 flying from Dallas to Seattle and onboard to Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas. The first couple of days of cruising were pretty rough going as we were in the open seas. fortunately neither Ned nor I get seasick. We had a small cabin with no window and we were fine with that. we only spent time in the room to sleep and shower.

During the cruise, i played bingo 4 times and won on two of those days. total i won from those two jackpots was over $400. Ned also came in second in the slot machine tournament and did very well on the slots so it was a prosperous casino outing for us.

The food was excellent on the cruise, our waiters in the dining room were excellent and our cabin attendant was also great. If anything was a negative on the whole cruise, it was the port of Prince Rupert, B.C. which was not much of a port so not much to do or see. I understand from somebody on the ship that Prince rupert is being dropped from Royal Caribbean's ports for 2009. we were also a little disappointed in the amount of wildlife we saw = we saw some blow holes from what we knew were whales but did not see the whales, we saw a seal lion in the seattle harbor and saw a small brown bear in Juneau. Otherwise, nothing. We were able to catch an earlier flight home on Friday so got home around 5:30 which was nice.

I am going to post a few pics with some commentary.

First port of call in Juneau:

pictures of us pulling into port, the salmon hatchery we visited, the mendenhall glacier which was amazing, downtown Juneau.

(sorry i think these appear at the top of the blog)

There was also a tram that would take you to the top of Mt. Roberts in Juneau but we didn't have time to do this. we did some shopping in Juneau - cute stores and beautiful flowers. we also saw the home that the current governor of Alaska lives in. She is the vice presidential candidate this year on the republican ticket. Her home looked out of place in Alaska. A white and green colonial type house with white columns out front.


In Skagway, it was the favorite stop of mine. Alot of the town was at you would expect it at the turn of the century. very colorful buildings (wooden), wooden walk ways, horse and buggy rides, touring car town tours, lots of people dressed up in period costumes leading tours through the town. i hooked up with the girl leading the forest service tour and stayed with them for 20 minutes or so until the tour ended. we took the 3 hour ride on the narrow gauge white pass train up to the point where alaska and canada meet. Beautiful scenery, water falls, snow capped peaks, sheer drops down the side. it was up and back on the same tracks but the scenery was worth the trip - again no wildlife spotted on this trip.

did lots of shopping in Skagway - prices great. there are only two more cruises visiting alaska this season so they are practically giving stuff away and i got lots of christmas gifts.

final stop was Prince Rupert. We got off the ship and walked through the downtown area and then to the very small tourist area. Not much really to do or see. we saw quite a few totem poles, a beautiful sunken garden area and a few shops. It ended up being the worst day of our cruise with light rain. we returned to the ship and just had a restful day. There were some tours going out of Prince Rupert that day but they were very pricey and most involved riding in a boat, etc. so we were glad we weren't on the water with rain coming down.

The entertainment on the ship was top notch - a different entertainment act every night.

probably one of the most stunning scenery days was the day we cruise in the fjord. we were supposed to cruise tracy Arm fjord but it was fogged in so the captain took us to Endicott Arm to cruise. We got pretty close to the glacier (Dawes Glacier) as you can see from a couple of photos. Come to find out later that evening the cruise director said during the evening entertainment that it was the first time the captain had gone into Endicott and we really were not supposed to be in there - only cruise ships with 250 passengers are supposed to go in their but we had an upclose and personal view of the glacier.

a couple of pictures of Brice, Judy, Ned and I and one with our waiter (Jaydeep from Bombay) and his assistant waiter. They were superb. It is amazing what these people do to work for Royal caribbean. Since most of the staff is foreign, they work 6 months on the ship and then get 10 weeks off. Jaydeep is married and has two children and calls home whenever we are in port. Guess he can just make much more money to support his family than living in Bombay and working. He has been with Royal Caribbean for 14 years serving on several of their ships.

that is about it. it was a wonderful trip and i highly recommend it to anyone.