Final Port Day: Ketchikan

The first thing we notice about Ketchikan when we looked out the window was the number of sea planes. And since we did not sign up for any tours at this port of call, we took our time to have breakfast and we were lucky to get a table by the window so you could see many sea planes landing and taking off as we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast.
I wonder if it was a good thing that we did not sign up for any tours. It was raining cats and dogs outside. We put on our ponchos before getting off the ship on deck 4's gangway. They were originally bought for the Tundra Wilderness Tour in Denali. But as it was actually a bus ride all the way we were safe from the rain even when it drizzled during the tour. We could not find a poncho or even a raincoat in child's size, especially for a little kids as small as you. Thank goodness in the end Aunty Joey (Brettany's mummy) said that she's got one raincoat. When I first brought it home, I was thinking it was still too big for you, but it was a good thing it was a little bigger for you. Reasons are: it was long enough to cover most of your legs/jeans and also I forgot to consider the fact that you were all bulked up with the warm clothing. This is rainy Ketchikan from our balcony:

We wanted to take the free shuttle into the little town (not as small as Skagway!) but the queue was so long, so we decided to take a slow walk into town. Then we arrived near the tourist information counter daddy dropped by to take a map of Kethikan. It was drizzling and we wandered around to look at shops selling smoked salmon, look at the totems and we were headed to some bridge when we stopped to look at some salmons which were gathered under a bridge. There was a nice man there who shared some information about Ketchikan and also told us to follow that pathway to a place where we could see salmons heading upstream to spawn. We walked and we walked and we walked along the stream and we wondered if we were going the wrong way when we finally saw them:
The poor salmons had to try so hard to go upstream. And when they've finally made it, they were all so tired, they just stopped. You can actually see lots of them resting on the bottom right of the picture below:

Here we are all in our poncho and rain coat while watching the salmons:

After watching them for a while, we finally left and headed towards the hatchery. But after a while, you grumbled about being tired and wanting to head back to the ship. We all took turns to carry you, but in the end we gave up as you were too heavy and the salmon hatchery looked too far for us to walk, especially with Ah Ma and her bad knee and you refusing to walk! As we were walking we were overwhelmed with the stench. There were dead salmon and there were salmons resting before they headed to spawn further upstream. You cannot see them clearly in this picture, but the whole stream was black (not from pollution) because it was full of fishes!

We headed back and had lunch. Lunch for you was as usual cheesy pizza. We've had pizza so often that before I could open my mouth to order, the guy at the pizzeria already knew what I wanted. He only needed to know how many slices I wanted that day!!

We left you at the Kidz Zone then headed to disembark the shop again because I wanted to buy something from Safeway. Daddy and I walked and walked and finally reached Safeway. After that we all had a short nap before dinner time. Dinner was a bit late so we could not make it on time for the 8pm show.

Our Second Formal Night

When we got back from Juneau, the first thing which greeted us was this:

There was supposed to be a celebration and a balloon drop at midnight. Ok, as if we could last so long. Anyway after lunch we went downstairs to have a look at the balloons again and o go to the library. And I just realised that it was your first time entering a library (except for the one in your school, I have no idea what it looks like as I've not seen it). Somehow, you thought that it was a bookshop! We found a book for you and another for me and headed back to the room. As it as too late for a nap, we headed to the pool to use it for the first time. In between swimming, we even stopped for a while to enjoy the freshly baked cookies with milk. Yummy!

Then we headed back to the room and had a shower to get ready for dinner. For the first time in the trip, we were at the Pacific Moon dining room before 6pm. It's the second and final formal night for the trip so we were dressed in our best again: Where is my milk?

Ah Kong & Ah Ma

A family shot

After dinner (yes no shots of the food we had...) we went around for a walk. And of course took a picture with the balloons:

After that we dropped you off at the Kidz Zone then headed to the Skywalkers Lounge for a drinks and a quiet chat. Here's daddy's Ultimate Muay Thai and and my Strawberry Daiquiri:

We walked around the ship (it was super cold, as we were headed to the next port stop) and took some pictures of the scenery and daddy wanted me to pose in the cold and I didn't have a jacket on so after every shot we'd run inside to see if the picture turned out ok. We did that about 4-5 times until I went on strike and refused to go out after that!

Soon it was 10pm and time to collect you from the Kidz Zone. Here you were all tired out posing with your "Bear bear" which you coloured with the fabric markers.

The day may have ended for you and daddy, but not for me. I had another mission to accomplish. You had requested for a balloon and we could not collect it yet. So I had to stay up until 12midnight then I headed to the bubble lifts and headed downstairs. Even from deck 12 I could hear all the music and festivities as everyone sang and danced to the music on deck 5, 6 and 7 at the atrium. When I finally reached the party, I picked up a blue balloon (as per your request) an walked around until I saw more balloons but they were out of my reach. Luckily the nice man saw me gesturing at him and he passed me a red balloon. Mission accomplished. Next is to see your expression when you see the balloons.

Second Port Day: Alaska's Capital - Juneau

Making the right choice of tour to join was certainly difficult. In the end we decided to pick the whale watching tour, which guarantees whale sighting. We had to wake up early and go upstairs for breakfast before we disembarked the ship to wait for our tour. At last it was time to board the bus. It smelled a little fishy but after a while we got used to it and we were soon on our way to Auke Bay. As we drove into the city of Juneau which is the capital of Alaska, the bus driver shared with us jokes about the happening in Juneau and interesting facts about Juneau. And of course a magnificent view of the Mendenhall Glacier:

After a ride of over 30 minutes, we arrived in Auke Bay. We hopped of the bus and onto the catamaran which had a lower and upper deck. We climbed up and settled ourselves down on the seats which had binoculars for our use. Soon our captain briefed us and introduced us to the naturalist and we were off.

Very soon we were greeted by the first Dall's porpoises. They look like little killer whales and they happily swam next to our boat. They love to ride on the waves of the boat and our naturalist even told us to look out for them when we get back to the cruise ship. It wasn't easy to get a clear shot of them, but here's the best that I could find:

Next we saw Steller sea lions. The captain parked as close to the little island as she could. But hey you couldn't miss them as there are so many of them. We both went to the outside of the boat to have a good look.




As we were driving off, daddy spotted this:

Can you see it? I had already zoomed in so that you can get a clearer view of it.. A bald eagle.

The captain told us that the law forbids them from driving the boat up close to a whale if we spot one. But of course, if the whale decides to take an interest in us (as we are of them..) then it is ok. Well we spotted a whale after driving for quite a while, so she stopped the engine and we watched the whale. It was so far away, daddy was complaining about this telephoto lens as it could not zoom as closely as he had wanted.
Rather far, isn't it? Can you see the fin on the back of the humpback whale?

Well we went off after that in search for more humpback whales. And guess what? We were in luck. There was first one whale then more and more whales swimming in the same area. You could see them on the left and the right. And one even decided to come really close to us:

But best of all we could see them making dives after dives. And they even made deep dives which we knew as the naturalist told us that when you see their tails as they made a dive it means it was a deep dive. Here are 2 getting ready for a dive:

See their tails?

We were treated to smoked salmon on crackers with hot chocolate and the naturalist continued to share with us facts about the whales and sea lions and even showed us the baleen which is the "teeth" of the whale which is a filter for the whales for the food they eat.

We soon arrived back at the dock and hopped on another bus which brought us back to the city. As it was still early, we stopped at the city and walked around to look at the city.
We stopped at a fudge shop and watched the man make fudge. Doesn't it look yummy? Of course we could not resist it and ended up buying a piece of fudge and some popcorn which you insisted on buying.
As we headed towards the dock, we stopped to take pictures of the stairs which we would not have noticed if the first bus driver had not brought it to our attention. They were stairs leading to people's houses. Can you imagine climbing up these stairs just to get home everyday? And what would happen if you realise you forgot something only after you've reached the bottom of the stair!!
Oh yes, we also stopped at a shop which sold everything from the Alaskan Brewing Company. Of course daddy had to take a picture to remind him of the yummy beer he's had throughout this trip. And this was the perfect place, as Juneau was the home to the Alaskan Brewing Company.

At last we headed back to the port to the ship for lunch. And of course the lunch menu was cheezy pizza for you and we had whatever was on the buffet table.

Cute Doggy

Forgot to put this picture in the Skagway post. It was standing outside one of the many jewellery shops in Skagway and looked so friendly. It wanted to sniff us, but when you tried to pet it, it got scared and ran just out of reach. Isn't it cute?

First Port Day: Skagway

After so many days of continental breakfast in the room, we decided to go to Horizon Court for the buffet breakfast. This was our first port day since we got on the ship in Whittier. After breakfast we headed back downstairs to our room to shower and get ready to disembark for the day. We had already pre-booked our tour for the day (or should I say "few hours" - it was only for about 2.5 hours).

We had to scan our cards as we disembarked the ship. That's how they tracked how many people had gotten off the ship and how many missed the ship I guess. Everyone including children had a card of their own. And of course, you scanned your own card. The ship had arrived early that morning but the gangway only opened at 10.30am. So at around that time, we headed to Deck 5 and got off the ship. While waiting for our tour bus we took some pictures:

Of course just as we were going to look for our excursion group, you decided that you needed to wee wee. Ok, daddy brought you to the toilet while Ah Kong and Ah Ma went to look for the correct bus. We almost missed them as Ah Kong and Ah Ma got onto the bus and forgot to wait somewhere where we would see them! We finally got onto the bus which was a small one (like the mini buses in Penang) and soon we were on our way to the Skagway town then to the Klondike Highway. We had been reminded to bring our passports as the bus would be bringing us across the border to Canada.

The journey started with us driving through the town of Skagway where the bus driver told us a little about the town and the population and even where to go for lunch or a drink. And very soon we left the town and were on the highway. It was a pleasant drive going uphill with a magnificent scenery and we even caught glimpses of the White Pass & Yukon train. We took one stop and got this beautiful scenery shot:

Lonely and long highway

Then we continued on our journey. There were even people going on a cycling tour on the highway. How tiring! As you can see it was a hilly highway. Then the bus driver mentioned that he felt something was wrong with his bus! Oh no.. so he pulled over and tried to radio for help. Thank goodness the mechanic for the bus company was nearby and checked and confirmed that the bus was spoilt. So we stopped and waited while they tried to radio for another bus for us. Finally another passing bus helped to radio for help. In the meantime, we waited and enjoyed the scenery.

We had stopped nearby a beautiful waterfall and we all got down to take some pictures and some of the passengers even took a drink from the waterfall. We got tired and went back to the bus to sit for a while when the other passengers in the bus spotted a grizzly bear crossing the road. Everyone got excited but the bear which was not bothered about the audience it had gathered, just continued to cross the road and disappeared.

That was when "it" happened. You decided that you needed to poo poo! Yup, in the middle of the highway with NO toilets. I tired to convince you to wait a while but you insisted that you had to go... IMMEDIATELY. Oh-kay.. now what? I asked the bus driver where you could do a "big one" and he kindly brought us downstream from where the water from the waterfall was flowing to a clearing and told me you could do your business there and to please put the tissue paper under a stone.

I didn't think you could do your business there... but I guess you really had to go then and there, so you had no problem doing your business there. When you were done, you even asked me there you could wash your hands! So you washed in the little stream and then went back to the bus and a short while later another bus came to pick us and we went on our way.

We went on towards the border and then we spotted some buses stopped along the side. And guess what they were looking at? A baby grizzly bear having a snack:

The scenery on the way to the border/summit:
We drove past the border and did not stop at customs. We continued until we reached the summit which had an amazing scenery:
Before we left, we used the outhouses which were similar to the ones in Denali National Park only this was smaller and didn't even have the hand sanitizer and er.. I reckon stank even more! We took another stop before reaching the US Customs and had this picture taken:

It took a while as we waited for our turn to clear the US customs and we were soon on our way back to Skagway and the bus driver was telling us about the gold rush in Skagway a long time ago. The bus driver dropped us in town for us to have our lunch. We crossed the road from where we were dropped and went here for lunch.

The Skagway Brewing Co. was one of the places recommended by our bus driver. It must be good as it was so full of customers. We finally got a table big enough for the 5 of us and then we ordered our food and drinks. First came the drinks:
Obviously the left are Ah Kong and daddy's drinks and you also had your drink... milk, a must have for you this whole trip. Finally our lunch came and no pictures as we were too hungry!

We walked around the little town (it was only ONE main road) then did little shopping (a lot of the shops were giving BIG discounts as it was the end of the season). After that we stopped at the train station to look around and even take a picture on a train carriage before taking a short scenic walk back to the ship.

After dinner, we wanted to catch "Alexander the Illusionist" but as we were a little late after dinner, we could not get a seat. There were a lot of empty seats but they were reserved for friends (who never turned up!). Anyway, we gave up any hopes of getting a seat and ended up going back to our room to retire for the day.

Good Morning Glacier Bay National Park

By the time we opened our sleepy eyes, we were already at Glacier Bay National Park. As usual daddy was already up, had eaten breakfast at the dining room upstairs and had already taken lots of pictures by then.

Sunrise at Glacier Bay National Park

Groggily we got up, looked at the scenery and then turned on the TV while waiting for our breakfast. Breakfast arrived and we headed outside to look at the magnificent glaciers. Soon there was announcements that the Glacier Bay Park Rangers were on board the ship. By then I'd dropped you off at the Kids Zone as you had requested.

As we enjoyed the scenery, the park rangers provided a commentary over the PA system on the many interesting sights as we cruised Glacier Bay. At 11.30 we wanted to pick you up for lunch, but found that the Park Ranger was giving the kids a talk and you were sitting right in front listening to him. So we quickly sneaked away before you spotted us and came back at 12pm. By then you were done and the carers passed to me your Pee Wee Ranger Activity Book, Junior Ranger certificate and you even had something special: a Junior Ranger badge as well as a cute little whale.

We had lunch from the buffet line. It was chilly and chowder day. Er.. not something we liked but there were load of other things which we enjoyed from the Horizon Court buffet. Then it was time to take more pictures:

As we relaxed in the room they announced that the Park Rangers were closing their station, so I headed to the pool to have a look at what they may have which would be of interest to you. I found a book and bought it for you, as a reminder of you trip to Alaska on this cruise ship.

As with the days before I had a "great" time getting you up for our dinner at 5.45pm. But good thing by the time you were showered and dress you were in a good mood as we reached the Pacific Moon for dinner. Dinner as always was delicious and the service was great.

Our First Formal Night

Sunday night was the first of 2 formal nights for us. The boat was still rather rocky, but thank goodness we still enjoyed ourselves during dinner. After a lot of difficulty getting you out of bed with lots or promises (which didn't work, so have the threaten) and dressing you up, we headed to our table which was with the spectacular view. We were lucky to get the table by the window. We didn't get it the night before because we were late for dinner. But today we were on time and that was to be our table during the entire cruise.

We went down then realised that we'd forgotten the camera so daddy had to make a trip up to the room to pick up the camera. We took some pictures after putting our orders with Som Chai our waiter. By the time we arrived, he had already gotten the kids menu ready for you too! And just waiting to confirm if you wanted milk to go with your dinner. What service....

So while waiting for dinner, daddy snapped some pictures of us in our formal.

And some of you in your nice shirt too:

You were willing to pose for a few shots. But after a while, it became this:

After that dinner was served: appetizer, soup, main course, dessert and coffee/tea. No pictures because we were too busy eating..

Then Ah Kong and Ah Ma went for a show and we walked around. You wanted to go to the Kids Zone but when we arrived, you decided that you wanted to be there WITH me. Sigh.. So in my sea sick condition I accompanied you while daddy went off to enjoy the cold wind outside.

You played with the toys there. Then you decided that you needed to wee wee. You told me you'd go on your own, but I decided to go with you and just make sure everything was ok. The toilets were child sized. As you were used to lifting the toilet seat up, you did just that. The boat was swaying left and right and I wondered what would happen if the seat and seat cover dropped. Nothing happened.. that is until you were done with your business. Just was you walked back to put on your pants the cover and seat went "wham" and closed. Phew.. that was a near miss!!

We went back to the room to find daddy almost KO-ed from the motion (hehe.. it's his turn) and our beds all turned down and the bunk bed taken our by Jonathan our room steward and the usual 3 chocolates with the breakfast menu all put on our beds.