so long, farewell

Well here we are.....at the airport in Seattle. I guess it's time time say goodbye to Seattle and all the great things that started here. We had an incredible vacation! I can't wait to come back and experience ALASKA again! It's such a neat place. Our flight boards in about 10 minutes. We have a connecting flight in Phoenix and we will be back in Dallas around 4:30 this afternoon. I have about a week or so until I pick up and go on another vacation for a week and a half. Mom only has a few days before she leaves again for vacation for a few days. Life is short, so experience all you can while you can. Thanks for following us and our adventures. Be on the lookout for pictures from the trip that will hopefully be added to our photo album and probably on facebook too. ALright I'm out.....I hope you enjoyed our journey as we EXPERIENCED ALASKA!!!!

Back in Seattle

Well we made it off the ship this morning right before 9:30 am. We were scheduled to disembark anytime between 8 am and 9:30 am. We tried to stay on the ship as long as possible because we weren't sure if we were going to be able to check into our hotel or not when we got there. We took our chances and we were able to check in early. We are staying in Seattle for 2 extra nights so that we can see as much as we can here. So far, I love this city! The weather has been GREAT!!! It was nice when we were here before the cruise and now it's great again. I've heard people from seattle say before that their little secret is that the weather really isn't as bad as people think it is. After we checked into the hotel, we went down towards the space needle to "ride the ducks." It's one of those land and water tours. We went on one in Ketchikan but this one was way better. It was so cheesy but that's what made it good :) After that, we rode the monorail to where they let you off the monorail and went to lunch. When mom was here before she found a mexican restaurant that she liked. Well we found it again. It was really good! Then we went to Top Pot Doughnuts (again) for dessert. If you remember, we went there before the cruise. The doughnuts are the best doughnuts I've ever had. Then we walked back to the hotel and have been here since then. Upstairs on the top floor, they have free snacks from 3-7pm along with free wifi. We went up there and spent about an hour up there. When we got back to the room I got out the CD with all of our ship pictures that the photo people took on board. I decided to see if we still got wifi and lo and behold, WE STILL HAVE WIFI......SOOOOOO, we don't have to go up there for wifi. We aren't really doing much now. Mom made me get up really early this morning so we could be at breakfast by 7am, so I'm so tired. I'll fill you in tomorrow on what we decide to do. I know we are going on a tour tomorrow afternoon. But for now, we are done experiencing alaska. Now we are working on experiencing SEATTLE :)

Last few days on the high seas!

Hi there from the high seas! :) Today is our last day onboard the MS Amsterdam. We are at sea until 4 pm when we arrive in Victoria BC. We were at sea all day yesterday too. Yesterday we relaxed some, but Mom never would let me take a nap. We woke up and had breakfast in the upstairs dining room. After breakfast we went to a seminar (more like a Q & A) entitled "Life at Sea." It was all about living and working at sea. That was pretty interesting. I learned that many of those people work as long as 10 months at a time without a day off at all. They get a few hours off every now and then, but when they are at sea all day long, they work all day long. After that, it was time for the Mariner's Brunch. We got there early, because we are always early. We were able to get a table for 2 which was nice. The wine steward skipped right over me when he was passing out champagne. I really didn't even want any, but I made them give me some because I wanted to prove a point, haha! We had really good quiche at the brunchean. We had it back in November too and it was just as good this time as it was in November. After that, we came back to the room to rest a little before our afternoon event. The Blind Side was on TV so we watched that. We didn't get to finish it because it was time for the cupcake tea at 3pm. The movie was rerunning all day long, so I knew we would finish it later….and we did. Anyways, back to the cupcake tea……..it was just regular high tea in the afternoon but instead of the little fancy snacks they serve, they served cupcakes. They were really good. We went to a cupcake cooking demonstration earlier in the cruise, so we knew how they made those tasty cupcakes, but it's much easier to let them make them for us :) After that, we went to jackpot bingo, and let me just say that we did not win, yet again. Maybe today will be our day. We have one last chance! Then it was about time for the Master Chef's Dinner. Mom told me it was kinda hokey, but I like hokey :) We had to get there 30 minutes early because they put on a show during dinner in between when they served us. When we got there, the waiter put a chefs hat on both of us, and gave us the fun menu to order from. When I say fun I mean that it wasn't the normal fancy menu. It was just different. The dinner itself was really really slow. Some people had to wait a really long time to get their food. Then when they were getting their food, it was time for dessert! Anyways, I just wanted to get out so that we would have time for the spa. We made it to the spa in time and then came back to rest and such.

Then today…….this morning we got up for breakfast and ate in the upstairs dining room. There were only 2 people eating when we got there but a ton of people came in after us and they were bombarded with people that they had to serve. They had to go get another girl to help out. After that we needed to take care of a few pictures in the photo gallery and then it was time for the big Disembarkation speech. We needed to know how tomorrow would work. After our cruise director Jimmy gave the speech, the HAL crew did their normal "Love in Any Language" show/singing thing they do on every cruise ship. Next HAL cruise I go on, I'm going to get up there and sing with them :) Then after that we decided to stay for "Win a Cruise" Bingo. We didn't win :( Oh well…..at least we tried. Then back to the cabin for a little down time, well about 15 minutes of down time. Then it was time for our lunch reservation at Pinnacle. It was so good and two of our favorite waitresses were there to serve us lunch. Melyssa and Tina are two of our favorites on board. They are both from Indonesia and are both always so happy to serve us. I will miss them! After lunch we tried again one last time for jackpot bingo. This time it was worth 100,000 dollars. No one one it…..booooo! I should have been us. Then it was time for Amsterdam Superstar. It's just like American Idol but much more entertaining. The people really couldn't sing all that well, but it was fun watching them try. There was a middle aged woman named Reba, an old man named Chris and a young girl named Danielle. The girl will probably be on American Idol one day…..she wasn't perfect but with some training she will be really good one day. Just about that time, we docked in Victoria. If you notice this blog is a little all over the place. You see, I start typing it, and then come back later to finish before I post. So I started typing this earlier right before lunch and then now that we've been into victoria, I'm finishing it. There were SO MANY people trying to get off of the boat when we first got into Victoria. We had a tour so we needed to be off by 4:30 to make our tour. There were a couple of hundred people at least trying to get out one door of the ship. We finally made it in time to get to our tour. We got on the bus, took a city tour, and then made our way to Craigdarroch Castle. They told us a little history behind the castle but I don't remember it all. Basically, a man was really rich and built a big house to show that he was rich but he died before the house was finished so his widowed wife and unmarried children moved in or something like that. The were 4 stories to the castle and we had to walk up all those steps. There were too many people in the castle at one time and it got really hot in there. We had about 45 minutes to look in the castle but we finished in about 20 and went back to the bus almost 30 minutes early. After the castle visit, we drove around for a little more of our city tour. There wasn't much to see so after our bus driver took us back to the ship, we just got back on and here we are. We tried to go to the spa, but they closed down the jacuzzi (or what they call the hydrotherapy pool) early. So we went to dinner instead in the Lido and it wasn't all that appetizing. We just picked up the last of our pictures from the photogallery and now we are back in the room and mom is packing while I'm finishing the blog. Tomorrow is going to be an early morning. Breakfast is only served until 8 in the dining room so I'm going to have to get up and get moving which means and early bedtime for me, after I pack of course. Good thing I pack pretty light. Tomorrow we will arrive in Seattle and probably get off the ship around 9am. Then make our way to our hotel to hopefully check in. We don't leave seattle until June 30th. I'm hoping to meet up with an old friend that I haven't seen in probably 19 or 10 years. She lives in Seattle and we went to school together from 3rd grade (I think) through 12th grade….we go way back :) Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed our trip. We might have new pictures uploaded soon. Mom actually uploaded a few new ones yesterday I think, so look for the photo link and check them out! :)

Juneau

So yesterday we spent a good amount of time admiring Hubbard Glacier. It was so neat and we saw more calving that we did at Glacier Bay. The weather was perfect starting around lunch time. There were people on deck in shorts. We definitely didn't need to wear our big winter coats like we did at the other glacier. I got some great pictures. While we were on our balcony, we saw some seals in the water. They looked so small because the ship is so big. I'm sure the seals were bigger than they really appeared. Yesterday around 4pm we went to bingo. We should have won the game. On the jackpot bingo mom was set for B13 on two different cards. For you non bingo players, that means she needed only one number and that number that she needed was B13. We didn't win :( We also went to some sort of Juneau shopping port seminar. They usually give away free things at the seminars. This time they were giving away free things from Del Sol. For those of you who aren't aware, Del Sol sells things that change color in the sun. It's overpriced and not worth it, but its neat for kids. So the first thing he handed out was a canvas tote bag. Then he handed out a stuffed bear, and guess who he decided to give that to? Yep, me….i'm sure he thought I was about 15 and I would just love a bear. Well, newsflash, I'm not 15 and I don't want the bear, haha! Whatever will I do with the bear? I don't need a stuffed bear that changes in the sunlight. Anyways, we last night after bingo, we decided to change into our casual attire for dinner and go take pictures. I told mom this is the last time besides port that I would make her take picture. We saw them tonight and they were pretty good….we both had on our pink :) So after dinner last night, we went to the spa and then went to "name that tune." Name that tune wasn't easy for me or mom. You had to name the artist. I DO NOT know artist names. I knew song titles for the majority of the songs but did not know the artist. So, our solution was to make up the artist. We (I) started making up names for the songs. Thought I'd make the game a little more fun. I was always taught in school to never leave an answer blank, always make a guess. However, when it was time to switch papers with another team, we kept our own paper :) After that we came back to the room for the evening. I wasn't feeling too good and didn't really think I would be of much use around the ship.

This morning we pulled in to Juneau around 7am. We woke up shortly after. We got ready and had our breakfast down in the upstairs dining room. Let me back up a little and say that at this point, my throat was hurting pretty bad. Mom said maybe I should go to the doctor on the ship, but I was afraid that they might try to quarantine me because I might be contagious. So I didn't go. When we got off the ship, we were too early for our excursion, so we walked down the street to find some medicine for my throat. Nothing else was hurting besides my throat…..no coughing, no runny nose, no fever. But I did have blister looking things in the back of my throat. Thank you daddy for making sure I was prepared with a flashlight. It looks painful in the back of my throat, no wonder if hurts. Anyways, we found a drugstore but they didn't have what I was looking for. I got some Cepacol lozenges and they help, but not as much as I would like. So after the drugstore visit and a pit stop at McDonalds, we went back to the ship to drop off our coats. We thought we might need them, but we didn't end up needing them. At that time, it was almost time for our excursion. So we went to check in. For them to check us in, we had to show them our tour ticket, and then they wrote our weight on the ticket with blue sharpie. The reason you might wonder…..well we were going on a float plane right. I guess the planes can only hold so much weight. Some people made the joke, "do you want our weight BEFORE the cruise or AFTER the cruise?" Haha!!! That was my question. So we went on a short, like 3 minutes short, ride down to the dock. They divided us into groups and we go on our planes. There were as many as 10 on each plane. Two planes only had six people. We loaded the plane and took off towards Taku Lodge. This is a lodge on the Taku River, I think. We flew over icebergs and saw some incredible views from way up in the air. At the lodge, we met the other planes and enjoyed our fresh salmon bake. There were tons of mosquitoes at the Lodge. There was also a BIG BLACK BEAR named Lois at the Lodge. Mom and I went to the gift shop for a short time and when we came back out, we saw people walking to the back of the lodge so we thought that they were serving the food back there but they were all looking at Lois who had climbed up into the tree back there. They told us that she would come down once everyone went inside. Apparently every time they have a salmon bake at the logde, Lois comes and cleans the outside grill afterwards. Sure enough, we all were inside waiting to eat and we looked over and saw Lois on the grill cleaning it off. It sure was a sight to see. The food was delicious! We ate and had some time to walk around the lodge area. We just went back to the gift shop again, then we didn't have much time to walk around before our planes came back to get us. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, we heard our planes coming back. Then we all headed back to get on them. We went back to the dock and walked through downtown. We went in a few gift shops, but didn't buy anything. It was raining a little and we were pretty much done so we went back to the ship. There were 3 other ships in port as well today. The Volendam was in port along with 2 Princess ships. They have this funicular in Juneau that would be kind of neat to ride but it was foggy so we weren't sure what kind of view we would have if we rode it. Anyways, when we went back to the ship, we just came back to the room, Mom talked on the phone and I took a nap. My throat was STILL hurting. We had decided that I would go ahead and go to the doctor. We have a sea day tomorrow and we are in victoria for half a day on Sunday, so if I was to get quarantined then it wouldn't be in a major port. Anyways, a little after 5pm (which is when the doctor was on duty) I went down to the medical center. I had to wait for at least 30 minutes to see the doctor. When he saw me, he said they couldn't do a strep test because they didn't have a rapid strep test, and basically all they could do was treat me and hope it would get better. So they gave me some amoxicillan that I'm supposed to take 4 times a day. Hopefully my throat will start feeling better ASAP! Nothing else hurts on me, just my throat. We ordered room service from the dining room for dinner. They said it would take 45 min- 1 hour. It took about 15 minutes. It was really really good! We ate our dessert first because we ordered ice-cream. We didn't want it to melt. I have a friend who does that at chickfila. She orders ice-cream and eats her ice-cream first :) Now we are just finishing the movie "It's Complicated." It was the movie that was on last night and mom wanted to go see it, but I wasn't feeling up to it. We knew it would come on tonight, so we just figured we'd watch it tonight. We are just hanging, I'm drinking hot tea and we are taking it easy. I'm thankful the doctor didn't make me put a big red X on the door that said I had to stay in my room and couldn't come out.

Tomorrow should be relaxing, it's a sea day and the Master Chef's Dinner. I'm looking forward to another relaxing day tomorrow at sea as the cruise is coming to an end quicker than I would like it to.

Kodiak and Hubbard Glacier

Sorry about not posting yesterday. We were so tired! I took a nap yesterday afternoon for a few hours. Then I went to be pretty early yesterday around 8:30. Yesterday our excursion group met at 7:15. The boat docked at 7:00 in Kodiak and we were ready to get off as soon as we were able to. So we got off and found our tour guide. They directed us to get into a small minivan. I personally thought we should have been able to choose our own seats but nope, they made us crawl into the back. There were going to be 4 other people that had to squeeze into the van with us. Once we were all there, we drove across the bridge to the dock. We signed up for a Kodiak Wilderness Cruise. Our captain was Larry and his brother was his helper. His brother lead us to the boat and we got on. The boat was one that they take out on fishing tours. There were 2 double beds in the boat with a living area and a small kitchenette. THere was also 2 small restrooms. Then upstairs where the captain drove the boat, there was a small sitting area. We started off in the inside living area. Captain Larry gave us safety directions like all of our boat drivers have done this cruise. He informed us of where the restrooms were and he also informed us that if we went to the restroom, we would need to brown bag it. What he meant by that was that no paper could go down the toilet. We had to put that in a brown paper bag and fold it up there and leave it by the toilet. Needless to say, I was able to refrain for using the restroom while I was on the boat. Once we heard all of the safety instructions, we left for the open waters. Larry took us to see sea otters, birds, and sea lions. He really wanted to show us some whales but we never saw any. Our excursion lasted for about 4 hours. Then we went back to the pier to get back on the ship. There were tons of people in line to get back on the ship. We waited, of course, because we had no choice. The ship photographer was taking pictures of people getting back on the strip with a brown bear. Our turned out ok :) Once we got back on the ship, we found some lunch. They were having a salmon bake on the lido pool deck. We got our lunch and took it back to our room to eat. After lunch, I took a nice nap :) and mom worked on her pictures. I think we may have posted more pictures on the pictures site. If we haven't posted them yet, they should be posted soon. We went to bingo yesterday afternoon and Mom needed about 4 numbers on the jackpot bingo. On jackpot bingo, you have to get a bingo within 46 numbers or less. At about 35 numbers, she only needed 4 or 5 numbers. Then she was down to 1 number at about #62 and then someone else got the bingo and won about $500. It should have been us! Oh well. Dinner was good, and then we went to the spa. That was nice too. We came back to the room and just relaxed. We started watching the movie Extraordinary Measures but we both fell asleep. During the night, the ship blew its horn a few times. Mom said it was because it was so foggy and they didn't want anyone to run into the ship.

This morning when I woke up, I wasn't feeling so great. My throat is hurting and I'm really tired. I guess I'll try to drink lots of hot tea today. We had breakfast in the upstairs dining room. Then we went to the deck sale by the lido pool. Of course there wasn't anything I needed. Now we are hanging in the neptune lounge waiting for them to clean our room. The crew just had an emergency fire drill so its taking our room stewards a little longer to finish cleaning our room because they had to stop.

We just entered Hubbard Glacier area. Our park ranger just got on board and he is now narrating. I think we are going to head out to the deck to take pictures and see whats going on. Hopefully we will be able to find the picture people later on around 2pm to take our picture with the glacier in the background. If I don't update later today, I'll update tomorrow after our Juneau visit to Taku Lodge on a floatplane.

Oh and Aunt Carol….yes I can show you the teacher look, but let me warn you, it's not as easy for non teachers to get that perfect look., hehe! It's much easier to perfect when you have children to practice on :)

The Homer Spit

This morning came way to early. I went to bed around 11 pm last night after being out on a tour all day. I was TIRED!!! Mom wanted to be at breakfast at 8am in the morning. Well in order to be there by 8 am I needed to be up and at it by 7am. I need my time to get ready. It's not easy being beautiful :) In all reality though, I needed about 45 minutes to get ready. Anyways, so I woke up at 7:15….too early after going to bed late (yes 11ish is late if I need to get up at 7). I didn't get my complete 8 hours of sleep. So I got up and got ready and we went to the upstairs dining room. The waitress, who also works in the Pinnacle at night, asked me if I had just finished school. Of course, being used to this question, I explained that I am almost 30 and I just look really young. We all laugh and its a good time, and then we eat our breakfast and go on about our morning. Next on the agenda was a cupcake cooking demonstration. We learned how to make the cupcakes they make on board. They even gave us the recipe card. So, at our next family gathering, you can all expect Mom to make a bunch of Holland America Line cupcakes :) I know she will be thrilled to try the recipe on her own. Ask her about the cupcakes :) We finally go off the boat a little after 10. Our boat docked in Homer, Alaska. There weren't many tours that were interesting at this port, so we decided we would do our own thing. So we took the free shuttle, which also happened to be a school bus, to the Homer Spit. We were greeted by some friendly folks there. The Homer Spit is basically just a bunch of family owned restaurants, guest rooms above the restaurants, handmade shops, boats, and stuff like that. There were a lot of locals with their dogs out walking around. There are only about 5,000 people that live in the town of Homer. It was a quaint place. Apparently people that live in Alaska come to Homer to vacation. When we got off the boat, we were greeted by lots of white birds. Don't ask me what they were. They were loud, and the smelled. The left their markings on the dock. It was stinky!!! A lot of them were sitting on bird nests. Anyways, once we were at the Spit, not to be confused with Spot, we walked around and visited the shops. We first had to go to The Salty Dawg gift shop to get a shirt. Yes, they were overpriced but how many people can say they have been to Homer Alaska to The Salty Dawg….not many! Basically after we walked around for a little while, we came back to the ship. We had our spa treatments at 1:30. My facial was wonderful and Mom seemed to enjoy her seaweed wrap. We met back up in the room and rested a little. Then we went up to the Lido. We didn't eat lunch because we weren't hungry but we were getting hungry then. My pants are getting tight on me, haha! I opted for some fruit. I knew I would gain weight on the trip. For the next few days, I'm going to make better choices so that my pants begin to fit again, hehe! So here we are, in the room, resting before dinner. There wasn't anything going on this afternoon that we were interested in. It's formal night so that means we will need to dress up tonight. I'm not exactly looking forward to wearing my heals. I'd rather be wearing flip-flops. Oh well, how often do you get to dress up. I'm not sure if we will go to the spa or the show tonight. I guess we will decide later. Tomorrow, we are going to Kodiak. Our tour meets at 7:15 am….yikes that's early, so it may be an early night around here!

Anchorage

Today we pulled into Anchorage pretty early. It was around 10 till 6am this morning when I was awakened by my lovely mother :) The room service was early today. Normally it's delivered around 6am. Yes it is early, but we are both morning people. It gives us time to lounge a bit before getting ready and going about our day. This morning we had to meet in the Queens Lounge at 9:15 to make our tour. We were there early…..anyone surprised, haha! So we checked in and they gave us our sticker which would indicate which tour bus to get on when we got off the boat. We also got our assigned train seats. Let me add that in Anchorage you are not allowed to leave the port by foot. You can only leave by taxi, free shuttle to downtown, or by tour bus. It is an industrial area and very unsafe for you to walk around. So when they called our tour we went down to the gangway and exited and made our way to our tour bus that would take us to the train station. Of course, 2 obnoxious kids were on our bus which also meant they were on our tour. They were so rowdy and uncontrolled by their parents. Their mom would tell them to stop doing something and the kids would not. She would tell them that they were embarrassing her but then would do nothing to enforce their horrible behavior. Once we got on our tour bus, we drove to the train station which was not far at all. We got on the train and found our seats. The train wasn't bad at all. Definitely different than the White Pass Railway. The seats were big and comfortable and we had a decent amount of legroom. The one unfortunate thing about the ride was that the kids were right behind us….ugh! The girl, who was probably about 10, was a brat….wait, no, she was a spoiled brat. I love kids and all, but if they are bad and their parents do nothing, it makes me want to give them and their parents a big spanking with a big leather belt, haha! Anyways, they were rowdy on the train ride and their dad didn't really do anything to help with their behavior. They ran wild on the train. We made a few stops before actually getting to our tour spot. When we stopped in Portage, our tour guides go on to debrief us on what would be taking place. They didn't actually fill us in until we made our 45 minute stop in Whittier. Once we were in Whittier, they fitted us with our boots. Wait, let me back up a little bit. We signed up for a scenic float. We didn't know what to expect. Well we were in white water rapids type boats. I was ok with that, but I think mom was a little worried..not so much at first, but once they started giving safety instructions on what to do if you fall out of the boat. So anyways, in Whittier that got our boot sizes and started having us fill out waivers. The first thing they said when they got to my row was, "Now, are you over 18?" Of course, I wasn't surprised. No matter what I do, I cannot look my age. Which I guess I will appreciate that one day, but it gets really annoying sometimes. Anyways, I assured her that I was almost 30…yikes, I'm getting old! She apologized, but I wasn't offended. I'm used to it :) Ok, so now we had another 1.5 hours left on the train before getting to Spencer. Once we were there, we got off the train and got on a big blue school bus (yes I did take a picture) and that took us to Spencer Lake where we would load our raft. When we got to the lake, we had deli style lunches. We made our sandwiches and had some delicious tomato soup and brownies. It was a pretty tasty lunch. Then they did some safety briefings down by the water. This was where mom started to get concerned. It really was nothing to worry about. No on had ever fallen out of the boat on our tour and it was pretty calm. We did not hit any rapids. There was some water that flowed a little faster than the rest but it was fine. Before we heard the safety briefing, one of the guides had asked if there were certain groups that had come together. We said that we didn't want to be with any kids. I'm glad we said that, because they had us on the obnoxious kids boat. Instead we were on the boat with 2 men and a lady. There were just 5 of us on our boat plus our guide. Some of the other boats had 9 people, so it was nice to be in a boat with a smaller number of people. Anyways, we floated down the river, saw some pretty amazing scenery, saw some icebergs and glaciers. It was a really neat tour. Once we made it back to our place that we would get back on, everyone got off their rafts and we caught the train. One little dilemma that they didn't tell us about before we left our ship, was that we would not be able to take anything on the float with us. Of course, had I known what type of float trip it was, I would have realized that and left my nice expensive camera on the ship. Well, I did not know, so I brought it with me. Well they said I needed to leave it on the train. I was not about to leave my expensive camera on the train while I got off for 2 hours. No one new would be getting on, but I didn't know those people. I wasn't about to let anything happen to it. So, I was asking the guide what to do, and she said there was a safe on the train. So, lucky me, I got to lock it up in the safe. The only one with the key was the conductor of the train. So, I knew it would be safe. After our train ride and my seat being kicked quite often when the kids were in their seat, we made it back to portage and got off to get back on a tour bus. For some reason those kids thought it was necessary to sit behind me once again. I'm on summer vacation for crying out loud. I need a break! Well I finally gave the girl my "teacher look" and she knew I meant business. She settled down and so did the brother. Actually I think he moved seats. So we finally made it back to the ship around 7pm after leaving the ship around 9am this morning. It was a long day, and we NEEDED to go to the spa. We soaked in the hot tub and rested on the heated beds. Then we came back to get ready for our 8:30 Pinnacle dinner reservations. It was just as good as it was last time if not better. We ordered chocolate souffle for dessert which needed to be ordered with dinner so that it would be ready in time. It was delicious. Now I'm stuffed and we are waiting for sail away. It's around 10:45pm and it looks like its about 7pm. It's so bright outside. It's crazy the way it is here. So that is our day. I'd say we made the most of our longest day of the year! :)

Day at Sea...Gulf of Alaska

Last nights entertainment was so good! We didn't really know what we were going to see. We knew it was going to be Jeff Trachta but we didn't know what he was going to do. Well he sang for us and did some really great impressions. I know that doesn't sound that great, but look him up on youtube. He was great!!!

Today was a sea day. We woke up a little after 7am and then went to breakfast in the dining room like yesterday. The food was just as good as it was yesterday and so was the service. Much better than dinnertime dining service that's for sure. After that, we went to a cooking demonstration where they showed us how they made the cinnamon rolls on board. They gave us samples and they were pretty good. They weren't out of this world cinnamon rolls like they have at cinnabon but they were pretty good. We didn't do anything until we went to a seminar with our future cruise consultant Jayne. She's the one that I said that was from Dallas and her mom is a kindergarten teacher. The seminar made me TIRED. She had a lot of really great information on future cruises. I want to go on one, but the ones I REALLY want to go on are only offered while I'm teaching. I love cruising so I think any cruise would be really fun! After that it was time for our suite lunch. It was so good. There were a lot of little appetizer type things. Then the dessert included chocolate covered strawberries which you all know are my FAVORITE! :) After lunch we went back to hear Jeff Trachta talk about his life and the way he got into the things he has done in life such as his different soap operas. That was really really interesting. Afterwards we came back to the room before another seminar on watches….there was nothing else to do at that time. Then we went to BINGO….Mom didn't win and I didn't play. After Bingo we had just enough time to come back to the room to get ready for dinner. We had reservations at the Canneletto for dinner. It's one of the specialty restaurants on the ship that is no extra charge to eat at. It is italian and it was pretty good. After dinner, we got ready for our daily spa visit. That was very pleasant once again. The view from the spa is really nice so we did some whale watching while we were in there but we didn't see anything. We made our way back to our room after we left and decided to spend our evening out on the balcony doing some whale watching. There are tons of whales outside right now and we are enjoying watching them and trying to take pictures. It's a great sight to see! :)

Tomorrow is Anchorage. Hopefully I'll get some time to blog at the end of the day but we have a very busy day with our excursions starting around 9am and it's 10 hours long. Then we have reservations at The Pinnacle at 8:30 and I'm sure at that point we will be exhausted. We might not make it to the spa tomorrow but we don't know if our schedule will allow our daily visit. So, if you don't hear from me tomorrow, you will certainly hear from me on Tuesday when we stop our our port in Homer. Check back for more pictures in a few days too. I'm sure we will have more to add.

Glacier Bay

So today was a day at sea but we got to spend it seeing glaciers at Glacier Bay. Around 7 am a park ranger from Glacier Bay National Park got on the ship. I'm not exactly what time he started talking about the things we were seeing. We got up around 7. We slept in some since we didn't have any excursions that we had to rush to get off the ship for. We got ready for breakfast and were going to go eat at The Pinnacle again. When we got there, there was no one there, so we decided to go to the dining room. We went down to the 4th floor to eat. There are 2 floors for the dining room…floor 4 & 5. You have to go downstairs and request a table to be seated at. They usually will seat you with someone else if there are only 2 people. When we walked up, they asked for our room number and we told it to them. They told us that because we were in a suite, we got to go upstairs and eat. We were escorted up there but the matr d (sp?). When we got up there, we were treated really really well. We got top of the line service. You see, we had not been getting very good service in the dining room, and they brought us a comment card to fill out. They wanted to know if there was anything at this point they could do to make our cruise better. I said that although we were pleased with most aspects of our cruise, we feel that our dining room service could be better. I said it in a polite way. I didn't want to be rude. Well, they inquired about the problem and tonight when we went to dinner, the situation was much better. You could tell that our waiters had been talked to. We got our food quickly and didn't have to wait around, and we were in and out in a reasonable amount of time. Anyways, back to breakfast. Yes, we were treated great! And the food was delicious. They asked if we wanted coffee and they misunderstood me and thought I wanted coffee so they poured me some. I didn't want to be rude and not drink it even though I don't like coffee. So I decided to add a bunch of creamer and sugar to it and it was actually bearable. Actually, I might even order coffee again, haha! So after breakfast, we spent lots of time on deck. We watched the glaciers and tried to see them breaking off into the water. We also went up on deck for the deck sale. At one point, I think it was around 10:30 am. they were serving Dutch Pea Soup on all outside decks. So, of course I needed to try this pea soup. It looked gross, but smelled good. We went out on deck to eat it in our big winter coats because it was COLD! We sat in the little reclining type chairs and covered up in blankets and watched the glaciers melt. We came in a few times and went back out. We went to the front of the ship at some point too because they had it open. It's not open normally. Lunch was small, because I had a big breakfast and some pea soup. After lunch we came back up and mom worked on her pictures and I decided to go for a walk on deck. I made it about a mile. It was good exercise, the only exercise I have done so far besides snorkeling and walking the stairs. I haven't been pigging out too much so I'm not feeling like a total cow just yet, haha! We went to the Tea Time at 3pm this afternoon and then I think we just came back to rest. We got ready early for dinner so we could have our picture taken. And tonight dinner was lobster. It was really good. Then we went for our normal evening routine spa visit. We are hanging out now before we go see Jeff Trachta in the showroom tonight. Apparently this is a "must see" show. He played Danny Zuko on Broadway and Thorne on The Bold and The Beautiful. So, we CAN'T miss out, haha! So, that's our evening. Tonight is formal night, so I need to go change back into my formal dress that I had on before going to the spa, uggggh! I'd rather put on jeans :)

***More pictures were posted so check the link down below. Enjoy! :)

Best of Skagway

***We didn't get a chance to upload new pictures today. Hopefully we will get a chance to do that in the next day or two. We took lots of good pictures today.

So last night after I posted the blog, I laid down to take a nap. I was so tired. Going on wildlife watching tours are tiring :) Soon after I woke up from my nap it was time for dinner. Dinner was slow!!! Our waiters have had some trouble getting their act together. We finally said something about it so hopefully when we go back tomorrow night it will be better. Tonight we are going to the specialty restaurant called The Pinnacle. Anyways, after dinner we went back to the spa for our nightly visit. No one was there in the thermal suite. It's really nice when no one is there….it's like a private little oasis. Afterwards, we changed and looked around at the shops and the russian bazar. Nothing was for sale that I needed so I didn't buy anything. We finally made our way to the showroom for the comedian show that was supposed to start at 9. We didn't make it until 9 because we got tired of waiting. So we just relaxed the rest of the evening.

This morning we woke up at our usual time of 6am. Room service was good and our order was right. The first 2 days our order was wrong. We pulled into Skagway shortly after we got up. There are two other ships here today. One is Carnival Spirit and the other is Island Princess. Anyways, once we got off the boat this morning, we had to go meet for our tour. Our tour was Best of Skagway. We first loaded the big tour bus and made our way up to the Summit where we would get on White Pass Railway. The scenery was just beautiful! It wasn't like anything I'd seen before….well actually it reminded me a lot of the beautiful scenery in Austria. So we rode up and got on the train. Then we rode the train back down. We had great seats. We had researched and knew that it was best to sit on the right side going down if we wanted to have the best view. We went through customs going up to the summit and we went through customs again on our way back into the US. We were in canada for a portion of our trip. When we first left the US, the canadian checkpoint wasn't until 12 miles later because of weather conditions in the winter. So basically that land doesn't belong to anyone and they call it "no mans land." So once we rode the train back into town, we got back on our bus and went to a place called Liarsville. We had some really good food on an all you can eat buffet. They served grilled salmon right off the grill. Then we went across in Liarsville to see a show they put on. They told us all the history behind Liarsville and about how they would pan for gold there and other stuff. They gave people the opportunity to pan for gold, but I opted not to because I've done it before and at this point I was ready to be back on the bus. Once we got back on the bus, we headed to the Red Onion Saloon which used to be a brothel(sp?) in town. We took a tour and learned all about the way they ran that brothel back in the day. After our tour of the Red Onion, we did some shopping before heading back to the ship. We were pretty tired. The walk back was a beating…….the wind was so strong that it was tough to make our way back. When we got back, we decided to ride the elevator back up…..I'm sure you could care less how we went up to our cabin, haha! We've been walking the stairs constantly so that we will stay active. We've done really good. Mom has been the one making me walk the stairs. Sometimes I'd rather ride the elevator, but she talks me in to walking the stairs. So tonight our agenda was a little different. We went to the spa early. We went around 5:30. There were people in there tonight….boooooo! We like to be the only ones in there because its nicer that way :) Oh well, we were nice and shared. After the spa, we came back, and took our time getting ready for dinner. We went to The Pinnacle and it was delicious. First of all, the service there was MUCH BETTER than the main dining room. It's a classier place to dine. Their menu consists of fancy appetizers and nice juicy steaks. They prepare some of what you order right in front of you. I got a seafood skewer of goodness and Mom got steak diane. Hers was a nice juicy steak with mushrooms on top. She let me taste it and it was really good. For dessert I got creme brulee and Mom ordered cheesecake but they were out of cheesecake so she had the chocolate lava cake and it was so good…..she let me taste that too :) So after a really nice dining experience, we stopped by the showroom but didn't stay, and then got some future cruising brochures. It's fun to look :) We had really nice weather today. It was pretty chilly this morning. The wind was the rough part. We took our heavy coats but only wore them for a short time (well I did, but I don't think Mom did). Then it warmed up and the sun came out. We have been so lucky with our great weather!!!

Tomorrow we are cruising through Glacier Bay. I'm REALLY looking forward to that. We will probably take it easy tomorrow. I think we will eat at The Pinnacle for breakfast tomorrow since we don't have to be anywhere in the morning. My neck is still really sore. I'm not sure what I did to it, but I wish it would get better. Skagway is such a neat place. Apparently a lot of college students come up here to work for the summer. Our bus driver guide was from washington state and just came up for the summer. What a fun summer job working in beautiful alaska! I'm charging the camera battery tonight and ready for beautiful Glacier Bay! :)

Sitka, AK

***Mom posted new pictures so check the picture link in the post from yesterday.****

So yesterday afternoon I went snorkeling in Ketchikan. It was a neat experience. I've been snorkeling before in Hawaii and in Grand Turk, but this was a little different. We were dressed in a full body wetsuit because it gets very cold in the water. We had a hood, mask, gloves, booties, and fins. The guides were great and we saw a good amount of marine life. We saw tons of jellyfish. I was afraid of getting stung but they don't sting you through your wetsuit. We saw a lot of starfish and even saw a sun starfish (or whatever its called). While we were snorkeling, one lady wanted to get out early. She started calling her daughters name to tell her there were whales out there. We looked over and there were about 5 or 6 whales that were about 50 feet from us. It was so neat. I tried to get pictures but I'm not sure if I got any or not. You can't tell what you have with an underwater camera. After we finished snorkeling we went back and got changed again. Then headed back for the ship. I was exhausted after the snorkeling adventure. I actually strained my neck at some point and it still is pretty painful today. I'm hoping that tomorrow or the next day it will start feeling better. While I snorkeled, Mom used her magic internet powers and managed to find free internet. She spent her time uploading pictures to her MobileMe account so that you all could see what we were doing and feel like you are on vacation with us. When I got back to the ship at snorkeling, it was close to dinner time. I got changed and we got ready. Dinner was just as tasty as always and this time I ordered 2 desserts. Yes you read that right….2 desserts. I couldn't decide and wanted to taste both, so I ordered both. They were both good, not great, but good. Dinner seems to get longer and longer each night because our waiter takes forever. We like to get in, eat, and get out so that we can be on our way to do other things. They don't pay much attention to us either. Hopefully things will go smoother tonight. After dinner we went to the spa and spent some time in the jacuzzi and on the heated beds. Other than that, we just kinda relaxed the rest of the evening.

This morning we got up early again. The morning scenery is just beautiful! Actually the scenery all day long is absolutely breathtaking! We order our usual room service and lounged a little before getting ready and heading out for our excursion in Sitka. Today was a tender port. That means you don't dock right up at the dock. They don't have a dock big enough for our ship so we have to tender in. We get on small lifeboats and ride those to the dock. We saw sea otters, seals, bald eagles, and we saw a whale today. It wasn't as great of an experience seeing that whale because he didn't cooperate too much, but it was still neat. Then we went back and got on a bus to go see some bears. We went to a bear place where they have 2 bears in captivity. They are treated really well and living in great conditions. That was very interesting. Then we rode back into town and when we got off the bus, we were hungry. We walked into town for a reindeer dog. It was delicious! AND they had diet dr. pepper so Mom got one. We did a little shopping in town and then came back to the ship and that brings us here. I'm not sure what we are about to do, probably wander around. Dinner looks tasty tonight. We get the daily menus each morning, so we get to prepare our taste buds for our evening meal :) They have baked alaska on the desert menu. They've actually had that on the menu each night. It's been a different kind though each night but it sure is good! So this is all, from Sitka…..we are leaving here in about 30 minutes.

Picture Link

Ok....we are having trouble posting pictures directly onto the blog. So, we have uploaded them into Mom's MobileMe account. Here is the link.

http://gallery.me.com/maryf.anderson/100048 (Hopefully this link will work)

Oh, and by the way, while I was snorkeling today, I saw WHALES!!!!!! We were about 50 feet from about 5 whales. It was so neat!!!!!!

Ok, we are about to leave Ketchikan and lose our free internet connection. We like free connections.....it's much cheaper than the ship rate to connect :) Check back tomorrow for new updates!

One more thing......I have changed the settings so you can comment if you would like even if you do not have a google ID.

Ketchikan, AK

Last night was pretty uneventful. We went to dinner and I had a rack of lamb and Mom had "surf and turf." Both were tasty. It was too much work to eat the lamb so I didn't eat much of it. They had baked alaska again and it was pretty good. It was definitely better with chocolate sauce. After dinner we walked around for a little bit and had our picture taken. We'll see today how those turned out. We went to bed early last night. We were tired! We decided not to see the show. My mom has seen it several times before and I'm sure I've seen it or variations of it. So this morning we had room service delivered at 6am. When we woke up we were already in Ketchikan. We had an excursion on the duck boat for 8:30. So we took our time eating, went outside to take some pictures and then got ready to head out. We headed out around 8am. It was a little misty this morning but it quickly cleared up. Ketchikan is a nice little town. There are little shops that line the streets. The houses are all different colors. There weren't any stoplights in this town. There were people standing out in the road telling us when we could cross the street. It's quaint here. There are 4 other ships in port today. One of them is the HAL Zaandam, RC Radiance of the Seas, and then Island Princess ship. The duck tour was neat. After driving around on land for a short time, we drove straight into the water. Then we rode around in the water for a little while and came back on land for the rest of our tour. They showed us where the salmon swim upstream. It was interesting. I think they shorted us some on the time of our excursion. It was supposed to be 1.5 hours but it was only 1 hour long. After walking around to the shops, we came back on board for lunch. They didn't start serving lunch until 11:30. So we waited. We hung out in the neptune lounge for a little while (pictures coming soon). Then when it was time for lunch, there were TONS of people acting like they had never eaten food before trying to get to the front of the food line. I could easily see that they had eaten plenty of food before. Anyways, after Mom came back and I attempted to get food, I opted for the dessert line instead. It was really short….actually there was NO ONE in line. They had bread pudding again today and I loved it yesterday, so that's what I had for lunch….a little bit of fruit and then some bread pudding. Now I am waiting until time for my excursion. I have to be down at the end of the gangway in about 30 minutes to go snorkeling. I think Mom might rest some or maybe she'll go explore while I'm snorkeling. I'm hoping we have time to visit the spa again this evening or maybe when I get back from snorkeling. Who knows…..but I would LOVE to go sit in the jacuzzi and just relax.

Inside Passage

Greetings from the Inside Passage! We are having a great time so far. Let me give you a little recap yesterday after I blogged. Yesterday, at 4:15 we had to report to our muster station. This is where you go in an emergency. Once we were there we had to wait for instructions from the crew on board and listen to them tell us what to do if we have an emergency on board and have to use the lifeboats. I think it would be a great thing if after so many cruises, you could opt out of these muster drills. They are all the same. We go, we stand, we listen, we fight the crowds to get to where we need to be after the drill. Anyways, after the drill we headed up to the greenhouse spa. This is one of my favorite places on board the ship :) They were having a drawing for free services at the spa. Well it just so happens that Mom won the very first prize of a seaweed wrap massage. We were both so excited!!! Now I just needed to win. And guess what……I DID!!!!!!!!!!! I won a 25 minute facial. Go me!!! :) I was just talking yesterday about how I would really like to get a facial on this cruise, and then I won one. So, we will be taking full advantage of our free services next week. After that, we went to dinner. It was tasty. We weren't that hungry but of course we ate. Check out the pictures…….Can you guess who ate what? After dinner, we headed to the shops. We looked around, checked out what there was to see and then headed back to the room for a little bit. Then it was time for free Bingo. Yes, you heard me, FREE BINGO. One winner would get $500. We thought we should go see if we were lucky again. So we went. No such luck on winning. Oh well. By this time, I could barely keep my eyes open. But we stayed in our seats and waited to watch the show. The dancers danced a little jig and a magician that is supposed to be really good (he's been on a ship before that Mom has been on) came out and did a few magic tricks. Then it was time to call it quits for the night. So that brings us to today. Today began with room service being delivered at 6:30 am. For those of you that have never cruised before, room service is included for free. You just have to fill out the paper the night before and hang it on the door. We did just that. What a better way to start the day than breakfast served to my room overlooking the Alaskan seas. Of course I had to have my hot tea and mom had her pot of coffee. I know 6:30 sounds early and it is, but why waste your morning sleeping when there is so much to see and do. Plus the sunrise time was about 4:30 or something like that. After breakfast we got ready to spend the morning in the spa. We bought passes for the whole trip to use the thermal suite (pictures coming soon). So we went to use the jacuzzi for about 15 minutes and then spent about 10 minutes on the heated beds. The view was wonderful as we looked out the window. It was very relaxing. Then it was time for our full body massage and facial. It was an hour and a half of heaven. Yes, it was so nice!!! I haven't had a massage in forever and a I've never had a facial, so it was definitely a nice treat. After our morning at the spa, we went to a Suite Welcome Reception where we met the captain and hotel manager. We were asked on our invitation to "please refrain from hand shaking at this event in an effort to avoid transmission of common person to person germs." They don't want the Norovirus to outbreak on the ship and neither do I! We thought there would be lunch there but it was just a place to mingle with other people that were staying in suites and meet some of the crew on the ship. The future cruise consultant came up and started talking to the people next to us while we were there. After she talked to them, she made her way towards us. When she asked where we were from, of course we just say Dallas. People that aren't from Dallas don't know Wylie and Rowlett. Well it just so happened that she was from Dallas too, born and raised there. Her mom is a teacher at an elementary school close to Bishop Lynch. She asked where I taught and I told her, and she has rental property that she rents to a family in Wylie. Crazy!!! It's such a small world. We stayed there chatting with the people next to us for a little while, then we went up to the Lido for a burger (yes Ruthie and Amy, you can be jealous). I actually had a veggie burger and it was delicious. So for now, I'll leave you with this. I'll update the rest of our day tomorrow. Enjoy! :)

***Pictures are taking awhile to upload so I'll have to upload those later. Sorry!

Finally.....

Well here we are. We finally made it on the ship. We got here around noon and went through security before getting on the ship. Mom held up the line with your computer. She didn't have it out of the case. In her defense though, there were NO signs anywhere to tell us that it needed to be removed from her bag. This is her first trip traveling with a computer. Anyways, we got checked in with Holland America. We got our room keys and a special invitation for Mariners (which is people that have been on Holland America before) to have lunch in the dining room. They were sending everyone else up to the Lido pool deck to eat. We really weren't that hungry so we didn't eat much. Remember, we made a trip to the donut shop this morning too and that was after breakfast :) After lunch which consisted of shrimp cocktail, soup, chicken, and salmon (this was what we had all together, not just me, haha!), we were able to go to our cabin. It's a nice cabin with a nice balcony. I took pictures, and I'll try to get those uploaded and organized tonight or during our sea day tomorrow. We just got back from the Greenhouse Spa where we each booked the "Absolute Face and Body Experience" which sounds like an hour and a half of heaven :) We are just hanging out now, resting, preparing ourselves for our lifeboat drill in about an hour. I guess I need to start working up an appetite too because at 5:45 we will be heading to eat dinner and I'l certain it will be delicious as it always is. Tonight at 9pm they have a complimentary game of Bingo and the winner will win $500. Then the show tonight is at 9:30. We've got a busy evening ahead of us, followed by a nice and relaxing sea day tomorrow. I'll try to get pictures uploaded and post a few. We are looking forward to EXPERIENCING ALASKA (again, for Mom:))

new blog

I saw Top Pot Doughnuts on the travel channel a few days ago and I just had to try tgem before we left for the cruise. I love doughnuts! This might be one of thebest doughnuts I've ever had.

new blog

We made it to Seattle. we checked out Pikes Place. There were tons of people there. We walked up and down hills to find it so I got my workout in for the day, haha! This is the best picture I've got for today. I cant upload my others until tomorrow so for now you get to see our view from the hotel....exciting I know :)

organized

I consider myself an organized traveler. Like mother like daughter.

Shore Excursions

One of my favorite things about being in port are the shore excursions. I'm going to do a quick rundown of the excursions we are going on at each port. There is only one port that we will not be doing a shore excursion. I'll explain these each day after we go on our excursion.

Day 1, Monday June 14: Seattle - Embarkation

Day 2, Tuesday June 15: Cruising through the Inside Passage (At Sea)

Day 3, Wednesday June 16: Ketchikan - Duck Tour (we will tour Ketchikan on land and in the water. Then later that afternoon I will be snorkeling in a full wetsuit.)

Day 4, Thursday June 17: Sitka - Fortress of the Bear and Sea Otter Quest

Day 5, Friday June 18: Skagway - Best of Skagway (we will be traveling on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad)

Day 6, Saturday June 19: Glacier Bay - At Sea

Day 7, Sunday June 20: At Sea

Day 8, Monday June 21: Anchorage - Spencer Glacier Scenic Float.....We will be in Anchorage on the longest day of the year.

Day 9, Tuesday June 22: Homer - This is the only port that we don't have any excursions planned....we'll make our own excursion.

Day 10, Wednesday June 23: Kodiak - Kodiak Wilderness Cruise

Day 11, Thursday June 24: Hubbard Glacier - At Sea

Day 12, Friday June 25: Juneau - Taku Glacier Lodge, Feast and Flight by Floatplane

Day 13, Saturday June 26: At Sea

Day 14, Sunday June 27: Victoria BC - Victoria Highlights & Craigdarroch Castle

Day 15, Monday June 28: Back to Seattle to Disembark

what should i take?

I've really started to think hard about what I'm taking on the trip. We are flying first class there and back. We won't have to worry about paying for checked luggage. I guess if I overpack for any trip, this will be the one that I'll overpack for. I've never been on a vacation for this long I don't think. I'm getting more and more excited every day. This time next week I'll be in Seattle. I guess I should start packing so I'm not packing everything at the last minute.

One thing.....

One of the things I am really looking forward to....check out this website to see what it is.