Vancouver and Alaska Cruise

Itinerary: Vancouver - Inside Passage - Juneau - Skagway - Hubbard Glacier - Ketchikan - Inside Passage - Vancouver

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This was my 9th visit to Vancouver and first chance to see Lorraine and Roberts' new apartment. They only moved in in mid July. It's right on the waterfront at False Creek and about a 20 minute walk into downtown Vancouver. It's a large place and has great views of False Creek.

A few weeks after sorting my flight I booked a short Alaskan cruise onboard the Celebrity Millennium. About 6 weeks before I was due to leave, Lorraine and Robert booked too. It was great having them on board. The ship was very nice, about the same size as the Jewel of the Seas, which meant that you could see the sea from just about everywhere on board. We played a lot of trivia and even won some games. The prizes were really good, luggage tags, pens and a cap, but hey, they were prizes! We also played Baggo, which is really complicated (yeah right!), it involves tossing a bean bag on to a board. If it stays on the board, you get one point, if it falls into a hole in the board, you get three points. Lorraine won! The food was good, especially in the speciality restaurant Olympic, which is decorated with the original panels from the dining room from the Olympic, a sister ship to the Titanic. The ship and cruise line is definitely a notch up on Royal Caribbean.

Our first port of call was Juneau, which is the capital of Alaska. It's population is only about 30,000 and like many other places in Alaska is only accessible by sea or air. There were 5 cruise ships in that day. I had a short tour of the town and went to the Mendenhall Glacier and saw the Nugget Falls too. The weather in Juneau was a bit damp, but out by the glacier is was really warm and sunny. The glacier is interesting to see, but you can't go on it, which I thought you could. I really wanted to see a bear on the cruise, but I never saw one. Lorraine, on the other hand, saw one in Juneau near the library.

The second port was Skagway. This is another tiny town. There is a railway through the White Pass to Fraser in BC. I took a trip on it and Robert came too. Lorraine went on a glass blowing excursion. The train trip was through some spectacular scenery and when we arrived at Fraser, I had a bit of a shock. I thought it was a town, but it turned out to be about three buildings, with a population of 7, all customs personnel! We travelled back along the Klondike Highway, over a suspension bridge, that was only fixed on one side, as they have earth tremors almost daily and the bridge has to move. We stopped at a place called Liarsville, which was named after journalists, who were supposed to be reporting from the Klondike, but stayed in the camp. In its hey day it was a tent city almost two miles long, now it's just a small place with a few cabins. We ate a salmon lunch there. Under an open sided shelter. It was cold! When we arrived back in Skagway we finished up with a visit to the Red Onion Saloon, which was Skagway's most famous brothel in its day.

The next day was a sea day, but a sea day with a difference. We were sailing to the Hubbard Glacier. The ship seemed to go right up to the glacier, but apparently we were 5 miles away. It's a huge glacier one and a half miles wide. It's blue and creaked and groaned all the time. Bits kept dropping off with huge noises and splashes. There was a lot of of ice floating in the sea and there was some pack ice near by too. It was the highlight of the cruise. Earlier in the day Lorraine and I had joined a group of people for a bridge tour, where the second officer Despoina Devi explained things. After we left the glacier and were cruising to our next port of call there was a Polar Bear Plunge. The staff poured ice into the pool, then people lined up, kissed a dead fish and jumped into the pool. Over fifteen people did this and the last guy to jump was in his 80's!

Our last port of call was Ketchikan. This is America's wettest place with an average of 152 inches of rain a year. Not surprisingly it rained. I asked a local if this was a normal or a bad day and he said it was a bad day. I'd booked to go on a duck tour, but at the weather was so bad, we only did the land based part of the trip. I did get some money back. I saw the town, which is very small, about 14,000 inhabitants. There is a salmon ladder in the Ketchikan Creek, but I didn't see any salmon. I also saw some of the old brothels. With the money that I had back from the tour, I went into the casino and dropped $5 into a slot machine. I won $57.50!!

Back in Vancouver the weather was still great. In fact it never rained the whole time I was there, it was warm and sunny every day. We had lunch with Kathy, dinner with John (a friend of Lorraines, who barbecued a salmon on his balcony four floors up!). It was delicious. We also went to a couple of wineries, walked to Granville Island and rode back on the Aquabus to Yale Town where we walked back over the Cambie Street bridge to the apartment. I had a great holiday and cruise and it was good to see Lorraine and Robert and their new apartment.

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Lions Gate Bridge 144 kb	Lions Gate Bridge 161 kb	Lions Gate Bridge 135 kb	Sculpture 150 kb	Sculpture 115 kb	Lorraine 163 kb

Inside Passage 156 kb	Inside Passage 138 kb	Inside Passage 166 kb	Solarium 181 kb	Wake 146 kb	Juneau sign 206 kb

Smokestack 139 kb	Juneau 176 kb	Cruise ships 168 kb	Juneau 200 kb	Juneau 232 kb	Mendenhall Glacier 158 kb

Mendenhall Glacier 179 kb	Nugget Falls 165 kb	Cabin 171 kb	Skagway 149 kb	Engines 136 kb	Mountains 179 kb

Mountains 128 kb	Train 199 kb	Mountains 139 kb	Mountains 158 kb	Mountains 152 kb	Mountains 141 kb

Bridge 157 kb	Bridge 164 kb	Fraser 147 kb	Suspension Bridge 182 kb	Bridal Veil Falls 175 kb	Robert 201 kb

Liarsville 214 kb	Skagway 213 kb	Skagway 205 kb	Red Onion Saloon 178 kb	Red Onion Saloon 128 kb	Building 178 kb

Fruit carving 169 kb	Cliff 247 kb	Bridge 166 kb	Bridge 135 kb	Bridge 173 kb	Bridge 165 kb

Hubbard Glacier 125 kb	Hubbard Glacier 131 kb	Pack Ice 140 kb	Hubbard Glacier 137 kb	Me 161 kb	Hubbard Glacier 144 kb

Hubbard Glacier 157 kb	Hubbard Glacier 164 kb	Hubbard Glacier 172 kb	Hubbard Glacier 157 kb	Ice sculpture 190 kb	Double rainbow 112 kb

Polar bear plunge 194 kb	Polar bear plunge 196 kb	Polar bear plunge 181 kb	Polar bear plunge 212 kb	Mountains 152 kb	Ketchikan 142 kb

Ketchikan 151 kb	Ketchikan 159 kb	Salmon ladder 173 kb	Brothels 201 kb	Crew 183 kb	Lions Gate Bride 143 kb

Lorraine's view 159 kb	False Creek 186 kb	Aquabus 184 kb	Building 204 kb	Lorraine's Place 217 kb	Inside Passage & Mendenhall Glacier 1 min 27 secs

White Pass & Yukon Railroad 1 min 53 secs	Hubbard Glacier 1 min 27 secs

Page created 22^nd September 2012