Excursions HAL Alaska May 13

I've been going over the tours to see - hindsight - which I should
have taken.

Ketchikan - we took the duck at 8:30 and I am satisfied with that
choice. The early duck was better as the later ones were crowded.

There was a plastic overlay with round portholes in it that we could
open or close. But it was still very hard to take pictures as the
holes were up above head level so I either had to hold the camera over
my head, or stand up. It was a bright sunny day and was soon quite
warm in the Duck. We could take off our coats that we had put on in
anticipation of it being cold. We only had 11 passengers so we were
able to spread out and even change seats. Our guide was Lily and she
was really amusing. First we had a tour through town, looked at the
salmon ladder, went by Dolly's House (whorehouse), Gas was only
$3.959 - Lily said that was because they got it from Canada.

Then we went into the water, and motored out of the marina. We saw
some bald eagles on the breakwater, but I didn't get a photo. When we
got back to land, they had to clean the Duck off and they got some
bull kelp out from the wheels and showed it to us.

We could also have taken the trolley and would have seen more of Creek
Street (former red light district), and we could probably have bought
a ticket for that on the docks too. All the docks seem to have people
selling non-ship-excursion tours which I did not know before I went.

Juneau - we had the Grand Tour of Juneau with the Mendenhall Glacier,
Juneau Gardens and the salmon hatchery.

Just like in Ketchikan on the dock there were all kinds of booths for
various tours - whale watching, zip lining, fishing, and glacier and
city tours. As soon as the bus came, we got on - we were the first
ones on and got the front seats. The driver gave us all a wrist band
so we could get into the Mendenhall Glacier visitor's center.

The bus driver was a cute little girl named Camille. She told us
about various points of interest in the town, including the capitol
which she said was one of 11 without a dome. Of course, you can't
drive to Juneau - they have roads but they don't go anywhere except in
the area. You either have to come by boat or by air so a dome would
have been too expensive to ship. She pointed out the governor's house,
and it seems like every tour driver said that they saved money on the
initials because the current governor's initials were also S.P. like
Sara Palin's.

The weather was really good and we could see the range of mountains in
the distance which are usually snow covered. We got to the Mendenhall
Glacier, and had some time to go to the museum and walk around and
take photos. They had an elevator and I took that and Bob walked up
the steps. We could have walked out to the waterfall if we did it
quickly, but neither of us tried it. At the visitor's center, we saw
the film, and it explained that the glacier ice is blue because it is
so dense that it absorbs all but the blue light spectrum.

After the glacier we went to Juneau Gardens, which had upside down
trees - due to a landslide that blocked the road, all the debris and
logs were pushed onto this property and the man (Steve) who owned the
property conceived the idea of sticking the top down in the ground and
using the roots that were in the air as a kind of planter. They took
us on a tram ride up the hill and then we walked up to a platform to
see out over the Juneau.

Then we went back to the garden center. There I saw that I could have
had a wheelchair and not had to walk up the hill. They had a little
cafe there and Bob and I got some chili (came out of a can and was
heated up in the microwave) as we weren't getting back to the ship
until afternoon. They also had a web cam of their eagles nest.

Next we went to the salmon hatchery and they explained how they raised
salmon. They collect the eggs and milt and then raise the small
salmon to a certain size and let them go out to the ocean and swim
around for a couple of years and then they come back to the hatchery
to spawn. They had a little aquarium there.

Camille was a wonderful guide and it was a good tour, but we probably
would have been better to do the City, Glacier and Salmon Hatchery
which was half the price and leave out the Gardens and gotten lunch
somewhere else than the Garden Cafe.

Camille dropped us off at the Tramway which we had tickets for. After
I had signed up for the tickets someone said that we shouldn't go in
bad weather - fortunately we had really good weather. You can buy the
tickets there on the dock - we wouldn't need to get them in advance.

We also did the Salmon Bake in the evening, and I did not think it was
as good as the one I had in Seattle 20 years ago, but the salmon was
good and they had very good cornbread.

Icy Strait Point - we took the Whale watching, but we saw whales
everywhere and closer, so I might have opted for the Forest and Nature
Tram at about 1/3rd the price. We didn't need tender tickets since we
went early. The very hardest part of this excursion was going down
the steps to the tender and climbing the ramp to the dock.

Anchorage - we did the train and I enjoyed it. The train was supposed
to go up to Grandview but because of avalanche danger we only went to
Whittier and had some money refunded. We had a very short bus ride
out of the port (including passing Elmendorft AFB) to the Anchorage
depot which is on the National Register of Historic Places where we
picked up our box lunches and got on the train.

Our seats were on the left side and I felt that most wildlife
sightings were on the right side. They saw moose and Beluga whales.
We saw Dall sheep up high on a crag, and a bald eagle on a nest. But
we stopped for the eagle, and all the people on the right got a chance
to take photos, which we didn't get for the moose. It was difficult
to take photos anyway because of the reflections in the windows,
although the windows were clean.

We could go into the bumper section between the trains to take a
picture if we wanted it to be without glass, and there was a food car
which had a double decker area, but I didn't go up there.

They announced that they would sell a book for $5.00 which had a mile
by mile list of what there was to see, but they didn't get to car C to
sell it to us before we left at 10:00 am. They did give us a free
brochure which had some information on it.

The weather was nice and sunny when we started out from Anchorage. As
we left the city was passed (on the right side) and air strip which
went between houses in a community. People had their planes parked by
their houses.

We passed Potter Marsh which is officially called the Anchorage
Coastal Wildlife Refuge. Apparently the city wanted to make it a
dump, but the school kids saved it. We saw lots of ducks and geese
but didn't get photos of them. We went past Beluga Point (where the
whales were sighted in the river) and then arrived at Girdwood. I
didn't see anything there so it must have been on the other side of
the train.

We entered the Chugach National Forest which was where we saw the Dall
sheep, and the track ran along Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet which has
40 foot tides. There is a bore tide every day. After that was
Portage. I didn't see anything there either. The guides told us that
during the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, this area registered 9.2 on
the Richter scale - it shook for 12 minutes and dropped 12 feet.

We went through two fairly substantial tunnels and got to Whittier
where it was cold and rainy. The guide said they got an average of
1.25 inches per day of rain and 20 feet of snow. They have tunnels
between buildings.

We started eating lunch before we got there - it was a good lunch with
a turkey sub, chips, and apple and a cookie. We did not get off in
Whittier although we could have done.

We left Whittier going backwards (and the seats did not switch) and
went back to Portage at which point we switched ends again and went
forwards to Spencer to see the glacier there. The only way to get to
this glacier is on this train. I did get some pictures. Then we went
back to Portage (backwards), and got on buses to take us back to
Anchorage. Bob didn't care for the train. He would probably have
liked the Anchorage highlights and Aviation Heritage Museum better.

Homer - We did Gull Island and Seldovia. We could have done it
without Seldovia and it would have been half the time, but only $15
cheaper, so I don't know if it would have been better. I did like
Seldovia, but they weren't really prepared to have us that early in
the season.

The ship docked way out on Homer Spit. The ramp was very steep
getting off the ship, and then I had to walk from the ship over to
where they were loading the vans. It was cold and I could feel the
cold air getting into my lungs, but it was sunny. We were driven
over to the marina where I had to go down another steep ramp - this
one had cleats in it. I finally turned around and went down it
backwards.

Everyone had crowded into the cabin and there was no place to sit by
the time I got there, but a couple people got up and gave me their
seat. Bob stood for most of the trip. Some people went up topside.
We went to gull island and saw gulls, kittiwakes, terns, puffins and
a couple of bald eagles. I think I got some good photos of them. We
also saw sea otters floating around on their backs - some of them
with pups.

There were only two restaurants open in Seldovia and the one we ate at
had a very limited menu although the food was good. It was clean-up
day in town and some local women brought their children in for rainbow
sherbet. After we finished, Bob took some photos of the chain saw
sculptures and we walked over to the "museum" which was also the ferry
terminal. The ferry was just starting up for the season. We looked
around at the museum posters, and then I thought Bob could get a
sweatshirt, but it was $66.00 and made in China. I would have liked
to go up to the City Cemetery, but there were no taxis on the island
and I couldn't walk that far.

Kodiak. . I couldn't get on the tour with the Russian tea. We did
the early city tour and that was the tour to take. The guide was
amusing and the tour was short. Had I known what we would see in
Sitka, I might have scrapped a second tour and just taken a taxi into
town.

I originally signed up for a Wildlife and Historical cruise but had to
switch to the Marine Wildlife Sightseeing because there were not
enough people for the Wildlife-Historical at noon. The Marine
Wildlife was on a fishing boat and there were not enough seats inside
and the seats that there were faced into the boat so I couldn't see
because I couldn't turn my neck without pain. I ended up sitting up
in the wheelhouse with the captain which was the best seat on the
boat.

Sitka - they charged us an additional $25.00 to go to the Raptor
Center, but I was glad I went as I missed all the other rehab centers
on the tours.

At the Raptor Center, we saw the flight cage where the birds that they
are preparing to release are housed. We were not to use cell phones
or flash because we were behind one way glass. It was hard to take
photos because of the reflections on the glass from the sunlight in
the flight cage.

Then we went into a demonstration room and saw a short video, and then
they brought in an immature eagle to show us. This eagle was dropped
off when she was about 2 months old. She was starving because she had
a malformed beak and couldn't tear her food into small enough bites to
eat. So she can never be released. I bought a shirt in the shop (an
eagle with the caption "I AM smiling"). Bob meanwhile was walking
around the outside cages where the birds that can't be released are
kept. I went out and sat on a bench in the sun to wait for the bus to
come back. I saw a truck come with a travel container (like a big cat
carrier) and one of the workers said that they had gotten an eagle
from Juneau.

The bus came back and delivered us to the docks where we boarded a
catamaran with about 80 other people who had just signed up for the
Sea Otter part of the tour. They would have had a chance to eat lunch
before they came, which we did not. Bob had a couple of chocolate
chip cookies that he saved from his box lunch in Anchorage so we each
ate one of them.

The catamaran had a naturalist on board and he kept us entertained
with narrative between sightings. It was cooler, so I put my coat
back on. We saw humpback whales really really close, and I actually
got some pictures of them. We also saw some sea otters, a bald eagle
nest with two chicks in it, and even some starfish (which I didn't get
any pictures of as my camera was too slow to focus). They served us a
sample of smoked salmon, a scone and hot chocolate.

He brought us right back to the tender dock on the ship, which was
good as we didn't have to go up the ramp from the excursion dock and
down the ramp to the tender dock and then ride the last tender back to
the ship. Also one tender wouldn't have held all of us. The last
tender was waiting for us to leave the tender dock so it could unload
the last group of people.

I was sorry that we didn't get to go to Glacier Bay which is the prime
location for glaciers and went to Tracy Arm instead. HAL and Princess
split up the available slots for that (a limited number is available)
and we went to Tracy Arm instead as HAL apparently decided not to
waste one of the available spaces on us. Also Disney is up here this
year and may have taken some of the places.

Some ladies from my church were on this cruise, and I haven't seen them
since they came back, but I'm enjoying reading all about it anyway.


wrote in message
news
I've been going over the tours to see - hindsight - which I should
have taken.

Ketchikan - we took the duck at 8:30 and I am satisfied with that
choice. The early duck was better as the later ones were crowded.

There was a plastic overlay with round portholes in it that we could
open or close. But it was still very hard to take pictures as the
holes were up above head level so I either had to hold the camera over
my head, or stand up. It was a bright sunny day and was soon quite
warm in the Duck. We could take off our coats that we had put on in
anticipation of it being cold. We only had 11 passengers so we were
able to spread out and even change seats. Our guide was Lily and she
was really amusing. First we had a tour through town, looked at the
salmon ladder, went by Dolly's House (whorehouse), Gas was only
$3.959 - Lily said that was because they got it from Canada.

Then we went into the water, and motored out of the marina. We saw
some bald eagles on the breakwater, but I didn't get a photo. When we
got back to land, they had to clean the Duck off and they got some
bull kelp out from the wheels and showed it to us.

We could also have taken the trolley and would have seen more of Creek
Street (former red light district), and we could probably have bought
a ticket for that on the docks too. All the docks seem to have people
selling non-ship-excursion tours which I did not know before I went.

Juneau - we had the Grand Tour of Juneau with the Mendenhall Glacier,
Juneau Gardens and the salmon hatchery.

Just like in Ketchikan on the dock there were all kinds of booths for
various tours - whale watching, zip lining, fishing, and glacier and
city tours. As soon as the bus came, we got on - we were the first
ones on and got the front seats. The driver gave us all a wrist band
so we could get into the Mendenhall Glacier visitor's center.

The bus driver was a cute little girl named Camille. She told us
about various points of interest in the town, including the capitol
which she said was one of 11 without a dome. Of course, you can't
drive to Juneau - they have roads but they don't go anywhere except in
the area. You either have to come by boat or by air so a dome would
have been too expensive to ship. She pointed out the governor's house,
and it seems like every tour driver said that they saved money on the
initials because the current governor's initials were also S.P. like
Sara Palin's.

The weather was really good and we could see the range of mountains in
the distance which are usually snow covered. We got to the Mendenhall
Glacier, and had some time to go to the museum and walk around and
take photos. They had an elevator and I took that and Bob walked up
the steps. We could have walked out to the waterfall if we did it
quickly, but neither of us tried it. At the visitor's center, we saw
the film, and it explained that the glacier ice is blue because it is
so dense that it absorbs all but the blue light spectrum.

After the glacier we went to Juneau Gardens, which had upside down
trees - due to a landslide that blocked the road, all the debris and
logs were pushed onto this property and the man (Steve) who owned the
property conceived the idea of sticking the top down in the ground and
using the roots that were in the air as a kind of planter. They took
us on a tram ride up the hill and then we walked up to a platform to
see out over the Juneau.

Then we went back to the garden center. There I saw that I could have
had a wheelchair and not had to walk up the hill. They had a little
cafe there and Bob and I got some chili (came out of a can and was
heated up in the microwave) as we weren't getting back to the ship
until afternoon. They also had a web cam of their eagles nest.

Next we went to the salmon hatchery and they explained how they raised
salmon. They collect the eggs and milt and then raise the small
salmon to a certain size and let them go out to the ocean and swim
around for a couple of years and then they come back to the hatchery
to spawn. They had a little aquarium there.

Camille was a wonderful guide and it was a good tour, but we probably
would have been better to do the City, Glacier and Salmon Hatchery
which was half the price and leave out the Gardens and gotten lunch
somewhere else than the Garden Cafe.

Camille dropped us off at the Tramway which we had tickets for. After
I had signed up for the tickets someone said that we shouldn't go in
bad weather - fortunately we had really good weather. You can buy the
tickets there on the dock - we wouldn't need to get them in advance.

We also did the Salmon Bake in the evening, and I did not think it was
as good as the one I had in Seattle 20 years ago, but the salmon was
good and they had very good cornbread.

Icy Strait Point - we took the Whale watching, but we saw whales
everywhere and closer, so I might have opted for the Forest and Nature
Tram at about 1/3rd the price. We didn't need tender tickets since we
went early. The very hardest part of this excursion was going down
the steps to the tender and climbing the ramp to the dock.

Anchorage - we did the train and I enjoyed it. The train was supposed
to go up to Grandview but because of avalanche danger we only went to
Whittier and had some money refunded. We had a very short bus ride
out of the port (including passing Elmendorft AFB) to the Anchorage
depot which is on the National Register of Historic Places where we
picked up our box lunches and got on the train.

Our seats were on the left side and I felt that most wildlife
sightings were on the right side. They saw moose and Beluga whales.
We saw Dall sheep up high on a crag, and a bald eagle on a nest. But
we stopped for the eagle, and all the people on the right got a chance
to take photos, which we didn't get for the moose. It was difficult
to take photos anyway because of the reflections in the windows,
although the windows were clean.

We could go into the bumper section between the trains to take a
picture if we wanted it to be without glass, and there was a food car
which had a double decker area, but I didn't go up there.

They announced that they would sell a book for $5.00 which had a mile
by mile list of what there was to see, but they didn't get to car C to
sell it to us before we left at 10:00 am. They did give us a free
brochure which had some information on it.

The weather was nice and sunny when we started out from Anchorage. As
we left the city was passed (on the right side) and air strip which
went between houses in a community. People had their planes parked by
their houses.

We passed Potter Marsh which is officially called the Anchorage
Coastal Wildlife Refuge. Apparently the city wanted to make it a
dump, but the school kids saved it. We saw lots of ducks and geese
but didn't get photos of them. We went past Beluga Point (where the
whales were sighted in the river) and then arrived at Girdwood. I
didn't see anything there so it must have been on the other side of
the train.

We entered the Chugach National Forest which was where we saw the Dall
sheep, and the track ran along Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet which has
40 foot tides. There is a bore tide every day. After that was
Portage. I didn't see anything there either. The guides told us that
during the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, this area registered 9.2 on
the Richter scale - it shook for 12 minutes and dropped 12 feet.

We went through two fairly substantial tunnels and got to Whittier
where it was cold and rainy. The guide said they got an average of
1.25 inches per day of rain and 20 feet of snow. They have tunnels
between buildings.

We started eating lunch before we got there - it was a good lunch with
a turkey sub, chips, and apple and a cookie. We did not get off in
Whittier although we could have done.

We left Whittier going backwards (and the seats did not switch) and
went back to Portage at which point we switched ends again and went
forwards to Spencer to see the glacier there. The only way to get to
this glacier is on this train. I did get some pictures. Then we went
back to Portage (backwards), and got on buses to take us back to
Anchorage. Bob didn't care for the train. He would probably have
liked the Anchorage highlights and Aviation Heritage Museum better.

Homer - We did Gull Island and Seldovia. We could have done it
without Seldovia and it would have been half the time, but only $15
cheaper, so I don't know if it would have been better. I did like
Seldovia, but they weren't really prepared to have us that early in
the season.

The ship docked way out on Homer Spit. The ramp was very steep
getting off the ship, and then I had to walk from the ship over to
where they were loading the vans. It was cold and I could feel the
cold air getting into my lungs, but it was sunny. We were driven
over to the marina where I had to go down another steep ramp - this
one had cleats in it. I finally turned around and went down it
backwards.

Everyone had crowded into the cabin and there was no place to sit by
the time I got there, but a couple people got up and gave me their
seat. Bob stood for most of the trip. Some people went up topside.
We went to gull island and saw gulls, kittiwakes, terns, puffins and
a couple of bald eagles. I think I got some good photos of them. We
also saw sea otters floating around on their backs - some of them
with pups.

There were only two restaurants open in Seldovia and the one we ate at
had a very limited menu although the food was good. It was clean-up
day in town and some local women brought their children in for rainbow
sherbet. After we finished, Bob took some photos of the chain saw
sculptures and we walked over to the "museum" which was also the ferry
terminal. The ferry was just starting up for the season. We looked
around at the museum posters, and then I thought Bob could get a
sweatshirt, but it was $66.00 and made in China. I would have liked
to go up to the City Cemetery, but there were no taxis on the island
and I couldn't walk that far.

Kodiak. . I couldn't get on the tour with the Russian tea. We did
the early city tour and that was the tour to take. The guide was
amusing and the tour was short. Had I known what we would see in
Sitka, I might have scrapped a second tour and just taken a taxi into
town.

I originally signed up for a Wildlife and Historical cruise but had to
switch to the Marine Wildlife Sightseeing because there were not
enough people for the Wildlife-Historical at noon. The Marine
Wildlife was on a fishing boat and there were not enough seats inside
and the seats that there were faced into the boat so I couldn't see
because I couldn't turn my neck without pain. I ended up sitting up
in the wheelhouse with the captain which was the best seat on the
boat.

Sitka - they charged us an additional $25.00 to go to the Raptor
Center, but I was glad I went as I missed all the other rehab centers
on the tours.

At the Raptor Center, we saw the flight cage where the birds that they
are preparing to release are housed. We were not to use cell phones
or flash because we were behind one way glass. It was hard to take
photos because of the reflections on the glass from the sunlight in
the flight cage.

Then we went into a demonstration room and saw a short video, and then
they brought in an immature eagle to show us. This eagle was dropped
off when she was about 2 months old. She was starving because she had
a malformed beak and couldn't tear her food into small enough bites to
eat. So she can never be released. I bought a shirt in the shop (an
eagle with the caption "I AM smiling"). Bob meanwhile was walking
around the outside cages where the birds that can't be released are
kept. I went out and sat on a bench in the sun to wait for the bus to
come back. I saw a truck come with a travel container (like a big cat
carrier) and one of the workers said that they had gotten an eagle
from Juneau.

The bus came back and delivered us to the docks where we boarded a
catamaran with about 80 other people who had just signed up for the
Sea Otter part of the tour. They would have had a chance to eat lunch
before they came, which we did not. Bob had a couple of chocolate
chip cookies that he saved from his box lunch in Anchorage so we each
ate one of them.

The catamaran had a naturalist on board and he kept us entertained
with narrative between sightings. It was cooler, so I put my coat
back on. We saw humpback whales really really close, and I actually
got some pictures of them. We also saw some sea otters, a bald eagle
nest with two chicks in it, and even some starfish (which I didn't get
any pictures of as my camera was too slow to focus). They served us a
sample of smoked salmon, a scone and hot chocolate.

He brought us right back to the tender dock on the ship, which was
good as we didn't have to go up the ramp from the excursion dock and
down the ramp to the tender dock and then ride the last tender back to
the ship. Also one tender wouldn't have held all of us. The last
tender was waiting for us to leave the tender dock so it could unload
the last group of people.

I was sorry that we didn't get to go to Glacier Bay which is the prime
location for glaciers and went to Tracy Arm instead. HAL and Princess
split up the available slots for that (a limited number is available)
and we went to Tracy Arm instead as HAL apparently decided not to
waste one of the available spaces on us. Also Disney is up here this
year and may have taken some of the places.

On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:56:06 -0400, wrote:

I wrote the outline for this after Sitka and forgot to include
Victoria which I hadn't done yet. I had been to Butchart Gardens
previously and didn't think I wanted to do it again. My previous
visit to Victoria was on Victoria Day and I tried to have tea at the
Empress but it was too expensive. So that's what we did this time -
Tour of Victoria (I had only seen the area around the harbor before)
and tea

The city tour was a pretty extensive tour but mostly of residential
areas which somehow I didn't expect. We went to the top of Mt. Tolmie
which according to the driver was not really on the tour. We stopped
there, and then she drove really slowly over the top. She showed us
some churches and a cathedral, and spent a lot of time describing the
neighborhoods and how much homes there would cost. at the Empress.

Since we started the tour at about noon, we didn't get lunch. We made
up for it at the Empress tea. They seated us at a table with four
others. On the table were strawberries and whipped cream and cups for
tea which the lady kept filled up. They put two big stands with three
tiers at each end of the table. The bottom had sandwiches (and the
lady told us which were which - I only remember that there was an egg
salad croissant. There were no cucumber sandwiches though. The
second tier was scones with jam and clotted cream, and the top layer
had little cheesecakes and tarts and petit fours. Afterwards they
gave us a box with tea.

We did some more touring after the tea and got back a little before
dinner.

I've been going over the tours to see - hindsight - which I should
have taken.

Ketchikan - we took the duck at 8:30 and I am satisfied with that
choice. The early duck was better as the later ones were crowded.

There was a plastic overlay with round portholes in it that we could
open or close. But it was still very hard to take pictures as the
holes were up above head level so I either had to hold the camera over
my head, or stand up. It was a bright sunny day and was soon quite
warm in the Duck. We could take off our coats that we had put on in
anticipation of it being cold. We only had 11 passengers so we were
able to spread out and even change seats. Our guide was Lily and she
was really amusing. First we had a tour through town, looked at the
salmon ladder, went by Dolly's House (whorehouse), Gas was only
$3.959 - Lily said that was because they got it from Canada.

Then we went into the water, and motored out of the marina. We saw
some bald eagles on the breakwater, but I didn't get a photo. When we
got back to land, they had to clean the Duck off and they got some
bull kelp out from the wheels and showed it to us.

We could also have taken the trolley and would have seen more of Creek
Street (former red light district), and we could probably have bought
a ticket for that on the docks too. All the docks seem to have people
selling non-ship-excursion tours which I did not know before I went.

Juneau - we had the Grand Tour of Juneau with the Mendenhall Glacier,
Juneau Gardens and the salmon hatchery.

Just like in Ketchikan on the dock there were all kinds of booths for
various tours - whale watching, zip lining, fishing, and glacier and
city tours. As soon as the bus came, we got on - we were the first
ones on and got the front seats. The driver gave us all a wrist band
so we could get into the Mendenhall Glacier visitor's center.

The bus driver was a cute little girl named Camille. She told us
about various points of interest in the town, including the capitol
which she said was one of 11 without a dome. Of course, you can't
drive to Juneau - they have roads but they don't go anywhere except in
the area. You either have to come by boat or by air so a dome would
have been too expensive to ship. She pointed out the governor's house,
and it seems like every tour driver said that they saved money on the
initials because the current governor's initials were also S.P. like
Sara Palin's.

The weather was really good and we could see the range of mountains in
the distance which are usually snow covered. We got to the Mendenhall
Glacier, and had some time to go to the museum and walk around and
take photos. They had an elevator and I took that and Bob walked up
the steps. We could have walked out to the waterfall if we did it
quickly, but neither of us tried it. At the visitor's center, we saw
the film, and it explained that the glacier ice is blue because it is
so dense that it absorbs all but the blue light spectrum.

After the glacier we went to Juneau Gardens, which had upside down
trees - due to a landslide that blocked the road, all the debris and
logs were pushed onto this property and the man (Steve) who owned the
property conceived the idea of sticking the top down in the ground and
using the roots that were in the air as a kind of planter. They took
us on a tram ride up the hill and then we walked up to a platform to
see out over the Juneau.

Then we went back to the garden center. There I saw that I could have
had a wheelchair and not had to walk up the hill. They had a little
cafe there and Bob and I got some chili (came out of a can and was
heated up in the microwave) as we weren't getting back to the ship
until afternoon. They also had a web cam of their eagles nest.

Next we went to the salmon hatchery and they explained how they raised
salmon. They collect the eggs and milt and then raise the small
salmon to a certain size and let them go out to the ocean and swim
around for a couple of years and then they come back to the hatchery
to spawn. They had a little aquarium there.

Camille was a wonderful guide and it was a good tour, but we probably
would have been better to do the City, Glacier and Salmon Hatchery
which was half the price and leave out the Gardens and gotten lunch
somewhere else than the Garden Cafe.

Camille dropped us off at the Tramway which we had tickets for. After
I had signed up for the tickets someone said that we shouldn't go in
bad weather - fortunately we had really good weather. You can buy the
tickets there on the dock - we wouldn't need to get them in advance.

We also did the Salmon Bake in the evening, and I did not think it was
as good as the one I had in Seattle 20 years ago, but the salmon was
good and they had very good cornbread.

Icy Strait Point - we took the Whale watching, but we saw whales
everywhere and closer, so I might have opted for the Forest and Nature
Tram at about 1/3rd the price. We didn't need tender tickets since we
went early. The very hardest part of this excursion was going down
the steps to the tender and climbing the ramp to the dock.

Anchorage - we did the train and I enjoyed it. The train was supposed
to go up to Grandview but because of avalanche danger we only went to
Whittier and had some money refunded. We had a very short bus ride
out of the port (including passing Elmendorft AFB) to the Anchorage
depot which is on the National Register of Historic Places where we
picked up our box lunches and got on the train.

Our seats were on the left side and I felt that most wildlife
sightings were on the right side. They saw moose and Beluga whales.
We saw Dall sheep up high on a crag, and a bald eagle on a nest. But
we stopped for the eagle, and all the people on the right got a chance
to take photos, which we didn't get for the moose. It was difficult
to take photos anyway because of the reflections in the windows,
although the windows were clean.

We could go into the bumper section between the trains to take a
picture if we wanted it to be without glass, and there was a food car
which had a double decker area, but I didn't go up there.

They announced that they would sell a book for $5.00 which had a mile
by mile list of what there was to see, but they didn't get to car C to
sell it to us before we left at 10:00 am. They did give us a free
brochure which had some information on it.

The weather was nice and sunny when we started out from Anchorage. As
we left the city was passed (on the right side) and air strip which
went between houses in a community. People had their planes parked by
their houses.

We passed Potter Marsh which is officially called the Anchorage
Coastal Wildlife Refuge. Apparently the city wanted to make it a
dump, but the school kids saved it. We saw lots of ducks and geese
but didn't get photos of them. We went past Beluga Point (where the
whales were sighted in the river) and then arrived at Girdwood. I
didn't see anything there so it must have been on the other side of
the train.

We entered the Chugach National Forest which was where we saw the Dall
sheep, and the track ran along Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet which has
40 foot tides. There is a bore tide every day. After that was
Portage. I didn't see anything there either. The guides told us that
during the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, this area registered 9.2 on
the Richter scale - it shook for 12 minutes and dropped 12 feet.

We went through two fairly substantial tunnels and got to Whittier
where it was cold and rainy. The guide said they got an average of
1.25 inches per day of rain and 20 feet of snow. They have tunnels
between buildings.

We started eating lunch before we got there - it was a good lunch with
a turkey sub, chips, and apple and a cookie. We did not get off in
Whittier although we could have done.

We left Whittier going backwards (and the seats did not switch) and
went back to Portage at which point we switched ends again and went
forwards to Spencer to see the glacier there. The only way to get to
this glacier is on this train. I did get some pictures. Then we went
back to Portage (backwards), and got on buses to take us back to
Anchorage. Bob didn't care for the train. He would probably have
liked the Anchorage highlights and Aviation Heritage Museum better.

Homer - We did Gull Island and Seldovia. We could have done it
without Seldovia and it would have been half the time, but only $15
cheaper, so I don't know if it would have been better. I did like
Seldovia, but they weren't really prepared to have us that early in
the season.

The ship docked way out on Homer Spit. The ramp was very steep
getting off the ship, and then I had to walk from the ship over to
where they were loading the vans. It was cold and I could feel the
cold air getting into my lungs, but it was sunny. We were driven
over to the marina where I had to go down another steep ramp - this
one had cleats in it. I finally turned around and went down it
backwards.

Everyone had crowded into the cabin and there was no place to sit by
the time I got there, but a couple people got up and gave me their
seat. Bob stood for most of the trip. Some people went up topside.
We went to gull island and saw gulls, kittiwakes, terns, puffins and
a couple of bald eagles. I think I got some good photos of them. We
also saw sea otters floating around on their backs - some of them
with pups.

There were only two restaurants open in Seldovia and the one we ate at
had a very limited menu although the food was good. It was clean-up
day in town and some local women brought their children in for rainbow
sherbet. After we finished, Bob took some photos of the chain saw
sculptures and we walked over to the "museum" which was also the ferry
terminal. The ferry was just starting up for the season. We looked
around at the museum posters, and then I thought Bob could get a
sweatshirt, but it was $66.00 and made in China. I would have liked
to go up to the City Cemetery, but there were no taxis on the island
and I couldn't walk that far.

Kodiak. . I couldn't get on the tour with the Russian tea. We did
the early city tour and that was the tour to take. The guide was
amusing and the tour was short. Had I known what we would see in
Sitka, I might have scrapped a second tour and just taken a taxi into
town.

I originally signed up for a Wildlife and Historical cruise but had to
switch to the Marine Wildlife Sightseeing because there were not
enough people for the Wildlife-Historical at noon. The Marine
Wildlife was on a fishing boat and there were not enough seats inside
and the seats that there were faced into the boat so I couldn't see
because I couldn't turn my neck without pain. I ended up sitting up
in the wheelhouse with the captain which was the best seat on the
boat.

Sitka - they charged us an additional $25.00 to go to the Raptor
Center, but I was glad I went as I missed all the other rehab centers
on the tours.

At the Raptor Center, we saw the flight cage where the birds that they
are preparing to release are housed. We were not to use cell phones
or flash because we were behind one way glass. It was hard to take
photos because of the reflections on the glass from the sunlight in
the flight cage.

Then we went into a demonstration room and saw a short video, and then
they brought in an immature eagle to show us. This eagle was dropped
off when she was about 2 months old. She was starving because she had
a malformed beak and couldn't tear her food into small enough bites to
eat. So she can never be released. I bought a shirt in the shop (an
eagle with the caption "I AM smiling"). Bob meanwhile was walking
around the outside cages where the birds that can't be released are
kept. I went out and sat on a bench in the sun to wait for the bus to
come back. I saw a truck come with a travel container (like a big cat
carrier) and one of the workers said that they had gotten an eagle
from Juneau.

The bus came back and delivered us to the docks where we boarded a
catamaran with about 80 other people who had just signed up for the
Sea Otter part of the tour. They would have had a chance to eat lunch
before they came, which we did not. Bob had a couple of chocolate
chip cookies that he saved from his box lunch in Anchorage so we each
ate one of them.

The catamaran had a naturalist on board and he kept us entertained
with narrative between sightings. It was cooler, so I put my coat
back on. We saw humpback whales really really close, and I actually
got some pictures of them. We also saw some sea otters, a bald eagle
nest with two chicks in it, and even some starfish (which I didn't get
any pictures of as my camera was too slow to focus). They served us a
sample of smoked salmon, a scone and hot chocolate.

He brought us right back to the tender dock on the ship, which was
good as we didn't have to go up the ramp from the excursion dock and
down the ramp to the tender dock and then ride the last tender back to
the ship. Also one tender wouldn't have held all of us. The last
tender was waiting for us to leave the tender dock so it could unload
the last group of people.

I was sorry that we didn't get to go to Glacier Bay which is the prime
location for glaciers and went to Tracy Arm instead. HAL and Princess
split up the available slots for that (a limited number is available)
and we went to Tracy Arm instead as HAL apparently decided not to
waste one of the available spaces on us. Also Disney is up here this
year and may have taken some of the places.

Thanks for your very interesting trip report. I've done Tea at The
Empress too. My favorite were the smoked salmon finger sandwiches. Did
you have those?

Brian

wrote On 6/3/2011 9:37 AM:
On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:56:06 -0400, wrote:

I wrote the outline for this after Sitka and forgot to include
Victoria which I hadn't done yet. I had been to Butchart Gardens
previously and didn't think I wanted to do it again. My previous
visit to Victoria was on Victoria Day and I tried to have tea at the
Empress but it was too expensive. So that's what we did this time -
Tour of Victoria (I had only seen the area around the harbor before)
and tea

The city tour was a pretty extensive tour but mostly of residential
areas which somehow I didn't expect. We went to the top of Mt. Tolmie
which according to the driver was not really on the tour. We stopped
there, and then she drove really slowly over the top. She showed us
some churches and a cathedral, and spent a lot of time describing the
neighborhoods and how much homes there would cost. at the Empress.

Since we started the tour at about noon, we didn't get lunch. We made
up for it at the Empress tea. They seated us at a table with four
others. On the table were strawberries and whipped cream and cups for
tea which the lady kept filled up. They put two big stands with three
tiers at each end of the table. The bottom had sandwiches (and the
lady told us which were which - I only remember that there was an egg
salad croissant. There were no cucumber sandwiches though. The
second tier was scones with jam and clotted cream, and the top layer
had little cheesecakes and tarts and petit fours. Afterwards they
gave us a box with tea.

We did some more touring after the tea and got back a little before
dinner.

I've been going over the tours to see - hindsight - which I should
have taken.

Ketchikan - we took the duck at 8:30 and I am satisfied with that
choice. The early duck was better as the later ones were crowded.

There was a plastic overlay with round portholes in it that we could
open or close. But it was still very hard to take pictures as the
holes were up above head level so I either had to hold the camera over
my head, or stand up. It was a bright sunny day and was soon quite
warm in the Duck. We could take off our coats that we had put on in
anticipation of it being cold. We only had 11 passengers so we were
able to spread out and even change seats. Our guide was Lily and she
was really amusing. First we had a tour through town, looked at the
salmon ladder, went by Dolly's House (whorehouse), Gas was only
$3.959 - Lily said that was because they got it from Canada.

Then we went into the water, and motored out of the marina. We saw
some bald eagles on the breakwater, but I didn't get a photo. When we
got back to land, they had to clean the Duck off and they got some
bull kelp out from the wheels and showed it to us.

We could also have taken the trolley and would have seen more of Creek
Street (former red light district), and we could probably have bought
a ticket for that on the docks too. All the docks seem to have people
selling non-ship-excursion tours which I did not know before I went.

Juneau - we had the Grand Tour of Juneau with the Mendenhall Glacier,
Juneau Gardens and the salmon hatchery.

Just like in Ketchikan on the dock there were all kinds of booths for
various tours - whale watching, zip lining, fishing, and glacier and
city tours. As soon as the bus came, we got on - we were the first
ones on and got the front seats. The driver gave us all a wrist band
so we could get into the Mendenhall Glacier visitor's center.

The bus driver was a cute little girl named Camille. She told us
about various points of interest in the town, including the capitol
which she said was one of 11 without a dome. Of course, you can't
drive to Juneau - they have roads but they don't go anywhere except in
the area. You either have to come by boat or by air so a dome would
have been too expensive to ship. She pointed out the governor's house,
and it seems like every tour driver said that they saved money on the
initials because the current governor's initials were also S.P. like
Sara Palin's.

The weather was really good and we could see the range of mountains in
the distance which are usually snow covered. We got to the Mendenhall
Glacier, and had some time to go to the museum and walk around and
take photos. They had an elevator and I took that and Bob walked up
the steps. We could have walked out to the waterfall if we did it
quickly, but neither of us tried it. At the visitor's center, we saw
the film, and it explained that the glacier ice is blue because it is
so dense that it absorbs all but the blue light spectrum.

After the glacier we went to Juneau Gardens, which had upside down
trees - due to a landslide that blocked the road, all the debris and
logs were pushed onto this property and the man (Steve) who owned the
property conceived the idea of sticking the top down in the ground and
using the roots that were in the air as a kind of planter. They took
us on a tram ride up the hill and then we walked up to a platform to
see out over the Juneau.

Then we went back to the garden center. There I saw that I could have
had a wheelchair and not had to walk up the hill. They had a little
cafe there and Bob and I got some chili (came out of a can and was
heated up in the microwave) as we weren't getting back to the ship
until afternoon. They also had a web cam of their eagles nest.

Next we went to the salmon hatchery and they explained how they raised
salmon. They collect the eggs and milt and then raise the small
salmon to a certain size and let them go out to the ocean and swim
around for a couple of years and then they come back to the hatchery
to spawn. They had a little aquarium there.

Camille was a wonderful guide and it was a good tour, but we probably
would have been better to do the City, Glacier and Salmon Hatchery
which was half the price and leave out the Gardens and gotten lunch
somewhere else than the Garden Cafe.

Camille dropped us off at the Tramway which we had tickets for. After
I had signed up for the tickets someone said that we shouldn't go in
bad weather - fortunately we had really good weather. You can buy the
tickets there on the dock - we wouldn't need to get them in advance.

We also did the Salmon Bake in the evening, and I did not think it was
as good as the one I had in Seattle 20 years ago, but the salmon was
good and they had very good cornbread.

Icy Strait Point - we took the Whale watching, but we saw whales
everywhere and closer, so I might have opted for the Forest and Nature
Tram at about 1/3rd the price. We didn't need tender tickets since we
went early. The very hardest part of this excursion was going down
the steps to the tender and climbing the ramp to the dock.

Anchorage - we did the train and I enjoyed it. The train was supposed
to go up to Grandview but because of avalanche danger we only went to
Whittier and had some money refunded. We had a very short bus ride
out of the port (including passing Elmendorft AFB) to the Anchorage
depot which is on the National Register of Historic Places where we
picked up our box lunches and got on the train.

Our seats were on the left side and I felt that most wildlife
sightings were on the right side. They saw moose and Beluga whales.
We saw Dall sheep up high on a crag, and a bald eagle on a nest. But
we stopped for the eagle, and all the people on the right got a chance
to take photos, which we didn't get for the moose. It was difficult
to take photos anyway because of the reflections in the windows,
although the windows were clean.

We could go into the bumper section between the trains to take a
picture if we wanted it to be without glass, and there was a food car
which had a double decker area, but I didn't go up there.

They announced that they would sell a book for $5.00 which had a mile
by mile list of what there was to see, but they didn't get to car C to
sell it to us before we left at 10:00 am. They did give us a free
brochure which had some information on it.

The weather was nice and sunny when we started out from Anchorage. As
we left the city was passed (on the right side) and air strip which
went between houses in a community. People had their planes parked by
their houses.

We passed Potter Marsh which is officially called the Anchorage
Coastal Wildlife Refuge. Apparently the city wanted to make it a
dump, but the school kids saved it. We saw lots of ducks and geese
but didn't get photos of them. We went past Beluga Point (where the
whales were sighted in the river) and then arrived at Girdwood. I
didn't see anything there so it must have been on the other side of
the train.

We entered the Chugach National Forest which was where we saw the Dall
sheep, and the track ran along Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet which has
40 foot tides. There is a bore tide every day. After that was
Portage. I didn't see anything there either. The guides told us that
during the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, this area registered 9.2 on
the Richter scale - it shook for 12 minutes and dropped 12 feet.

We went through two fairly substantial tunnels and got to Whittier
where it was cold and rainy. The guide said they got an average of
1.25 inches per day of rain and 20 feet of snow. They have tunnels
between buildings.

We started eating lunch before we got there - it was a good lunch with
a turkey sub, chips, and apple and a cookie. We did not get off in
Whittier although we could have done.

We left Whittier going backwards (and the seats did not switch) and
went back to Portage at which point we switched ends again and went
forwards to Spencer to see the glacier there. The only way to get to
this glacier is on this train. I did get some pictures. Then we went
back to Portage (backwards), and got on buses to take us back to
Anchorage. Bob didn't care for the train. He would probably have
liked the Anchorage highlights and Aviation Heritage Museum better.

Homer - We did Gull Island and Seldovia. We could have done it
without Seldovia and it would have been half the time, but only $15
cheaper, so I don't know if it would have been better. I did like
Seldovia, but they weren't really prepared to have us that early in
the season.

The ship docked way out on Homer Spit. The ramp was very steep
getting off the ship, and then I had to walk from the ship over to
where they were loading the vans. It was cold and I could feel the
cold air getting into my lungs, but it was sunny. We were driven
over to the marina where I had to go down another steep ramp - this
one had cleats in it. I finally turned around and went down it
backwards.

Everyone had crowded into the cabin and there was no place to sit by
the time I got there, but a couple people got up and gave me their
seat. Bob stood for most of the trip. Some people went up topside.
We went to gull island and saw gulls, kittiwakes, terns, puffins and
a couple of bald eagles. I think I got some good photos of them. We
also saw sea otters floating around on their backs - some of them
with pups.

There were only two restaurants open in Seldovia and the one we ate at
had a very limited menu although the food was good. It was clean-up
day in town and some local women brought their children in for rainbow
sherbet. After we finished, Bob took some photos of the chain saw
sculptures and we walked over to the "museum" which was also the ferry
terminal. The ferry was just starting up for the season. We looked
around at the museum posters, and then I thought Bob could get a
sweatshirt, but it was $66.00 and made in China. I would have liked
to go up to the City Cemetery, but there were no taxis on the island
and I couldn't walk that far.

Kodiak. . I couldn't get on the tour with the Russian tea. We did
the early city tour and that was the tour to take. The guide was
amusing and the tour was short. Had I known what we would see in
Sitka, I might have scrapped a second tour and just taken a taxi into
town.

I originally signed up for a Wildlife and Historical cruise but had to
switch to the Marine Wildlife Sightseeing because there were not
enough people for the Wildlife-Historical at noon. The Marine
Wildlife was on a fishing boat and there were not enough seats inside
and the seats that there were faced into the boat so I couldn't see
because I couldn't turn my neck without pain. I ended up sitting up
in the wheelhouse with the captain which was the best seat on the
boat.

Sitka - they charged us an additional $25.00 to go to the Raptor
Center, but I was glad I went as I missed all the other rehab centers
on the tours.

At the Raptor Center, we saw the flight cage where the birds that they
are preparing to release are housed. We were not to use cell phones
or flash because we were behind one way glass. It was hard to take
photos because of the reflections on the glass from the sunlight in
the flight cage.

Then we went into a demonstration room and saw a short video, and then
they brought in an immature eagle to show us. This eagle was dropped
off when she was about 2 months old. She was starving because she had
a malformed beak and couldn't tear her food into small enough bites to
eat. So she can never be released. I bought a shirt in the shop (an
eagle with the caption "I AM smiling"). Bob meanwhile was walking
around the outside cages where the birds that can't be released are
kept. I went out and sat on a bench in the sun to wait for the bus to
come back. I saw a truck come with a travel container (like a big cat
carrier) and one of the workers said that they had gotten an eagle
from Juneau.
The bus came back and delivered us to the docks where we boarded a
catamaran with about 80 other people who had just signed up for the
Sea Otter part of the tour. They would have had a chance to eat lunch
before they came, which we did not. Bob had a couple of chocolate
chip cookies that he saved from his box lunch in Anchorage so we each
ate one of them.

The catamaran had a naturalist on board and he kept us entertained
with narrative between sightings. It was cooler, so I put my coat
back on. We saw humpback whales really really close, and I actually
got some pictures of them. We also saw some sea otters, a bald eagle
nest with two chicks in it, and even some starfish (which I didn't get
any pictures of as my camera was too slow to focus). They served us a
sample of smoked salmon, a scone and hot chocolate.

He brought us right back to the tender dock on the ship, which was
good as we didn't have to go up the ramp from the excursion dock and
down the ramp to the tender dock and then ride the last tender back to
the ship. Also one tender wouldn't have held all of us. The last
tender was waiting for us to leave the tender dock so it could unload
the last group of people.

I was sorry that we didn't get to go to Glacier Bay which is the prime
location for glaciers and went to Tracy Arm instead. HAL and Princess
split up the available slots for that (a limited number is available)
and we went to Tracy Arm instead as HAL apparently decided not to
waste one of the available spaces on us. Also Disney is up here this
year and may have taken some of the places.

--
________
To email me, Edit "blog" from my email address.
Brian M. Kochera
"The poor dog is the firmest of friends, the first to welcome the foremost to defend" - Lord Byron

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