Attack of the Cobra Chickens...Our Alaskan Adventure September 16-23, 2024

[Kari0180]

It was then time to check in for our sled dog training session, there were 8 of us in the vehicle, plus the driver. They tied up a few dogs and we were off

Our driver showed us how they command the dogs to go left, right, etc., and then showed us how he gets them to stop, where they had a little water break

We took off after a moment and the dogs were training again. The driver told us how these dogs trained for many races, including the Iditarod. We have a couple of sled dog races here in MN, one of which is in our area and is so neat to watch. It was cancelled last year due to lack of snow and warm weather. As much as I dislike snow and cold, I do hope it happens this winter! Another photo of our training session

This experience lasted about 15-20 minutes and then we were back, telling the puppies they did an awesome job and giving them some friendly pats on the head. Our time was then up, and it was time to get back on the bus to head to our next stop. We didn't have too far a drive until we were stopping at Emerald Lake



My photos don't do this place justice, this lake was green! It really looked like an emerald, it was so beautiful! At Emerald Lake, we started heading back south, we drove past the Carcross desert again before making a stop in Carcross. There wasn't a whole lot here, a few shops and a general store where you had the option to get a stamp in your passport (not a real one, a souvenier one)

They also served ice cream here, we split a cone, it was very yummy! Outside the general store, there was the most adorable golden retriever that was just hanging out on the sidewalk allowing people to pet him and say hi

We had 1 more stop before our bus driver would leave us, we stopped at the Yukon sign

 

[Kari0180]

We then walked (about 200 steps) back to British Columbia

We then headed to our final stop

We were boarding the White Pass railway for our trip back into Skagway! Our bus tour got our own car so we quickly found some seats and relaxed for the ride

There was plenty of bottled water for us to enjoy during the trip. We were asked to stay in our car and not move to a different one. There was an outside area where DH spent a lot of time, but I was content to relax in my seat and enjoy the views from inside. Between DH and I, we took over 500 photos of our train ride. It was very difficult to pick our favorites, so here is a photo dump of probably way too many photos

 

[Kari0180]

Wow! I planned on having a relaxing weekend to get some stuff done and before I know it, it's Sunday night and I have to go back to work tomorrow. But hoping to write up a little more before my work week starts.

I last left off with us on the White Pass Railway, some more photos of our trip








It was then time to say goodbye to our train and head back into town. We were dropped off back at this ship and said good-bye to our driver and tour guide. My thoughts on this excursion are that it was amazing! It was long (almost 9 hours), but I never looked at the clock once. The scenery in the Yukon was beautiful, we had a great lunch, and I got to play with puppies! The train ride back to Skagway was a nice way to relax. Our driver/tour guide did a great job, and we learned so much about the area. If you're doing an Alaskan cruise and are looking for an excursion in Skagway, I highly recommend this one. The only disappointment (and a small one at that) is that I wish we would've made an actual stop at the world's smallest desert.

Once dropped off, we had a couple of hours before the ship would leave, we decided to walk back to town to explore a little. You could tell that Skagway was getting ready to close up for the season, as I mentioned before, our tour guide was headed back home that week and once we got back to town, we saw that a lot of the businesses had closed up for the season. Of the ones that were still open, a lot had already closed for the day. But we still had a few we could explore.
The first stop we made was handing out free samples of popcorn, it was pretty tasty, we didn't buy any of it, but I did purchase some taffy for my mom. We also found a Christmas ornament, and I purchased myself some pajamas. While I was shopping, DH was taking some photos

I love that the Wonder was so close, it made for some nice photos.
I loved how this building looked, all covered in driftwood. It's now a little museum but was already closed for the day. We spent a little over an hour walking through town and shopping, I was hoping to do one of the tours at the Red Onion Saloon, but sadly, those had finished for the day, the downfall of choosing a long tour for the day. We headed back toward the ship and took a couple of photos along the way

 

[Kari0180]

One more photo of the Wonder before we got back on board

Back on board for the evening, we headed to Azure to get a drink of the day and play 90's music trivia. We got a 35 out of 40, but still not enough to win those medals! As we were pulling out of port, it was time to head to dinner. Tonight's meal was in Tritons, and it was finally time to enjoy my favorite menu on the Wonder! Warning, lots of food pictures ahead

We both started with the lobster and shrimp appetizer, as always this is very good, wish there would be more lobster, but a good starter

We then split the deep-fried brie; these are so good! I'm glad we split them, they are so rich, one is enough, even though I could probably eat way more than that.

DH wanted to try the duck confit, so we got that as well. I'm not really a duck fan, have just never come across any preparation of duck that I enjoy. I had a couple of bites, and it wasn't too bad, not something I would go out of my way to eat on my own. Next up was the french onion soup

I miss the old French onion soup that had so much cheese on top, but this is still good. I can only assume they cut down on the cheese because it used to take so long for people to finish. It was then time for our entrees, first up

We both got the chateaubriand steak and as always, this is my favorite steak. It's always cooked perfectly, and I love the flavor. The potatoes were kind of bland, but I didn't really care too much about those

We also split the salmon. I was kind of disappointed in this. Normally, I really enjoy salmon, but this piece was very fishy. It was then time for my favorite dessert

The Gran Marnier Souffle, I enjoy this souffle almost as much as the ones in Palo. I really wanted to order two, but I enjoyed my one souffle and savored every single bite!

This is also DH's favorite dessert; he loves some Creme Brule. He enjoyed this very much. Originally, we had planned on going to Azure to watch the adults only show of Taylor Mason, but we were exhausted and decided to head to bed. Our next day was in Juneau, and we had another busy day planned. We greeted tonight's towel animal and went to sleep.

Up next: Juneau, home of whales, glaciers, and crab!

 

[Kari0180]

Our Skagway vlogs

 

[Kari0180]

Wow! I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. Work has been crazy for both DH and I. DH just got back from Fort Lauderdale, part of his work brought him to the cruise port, but no Disney ships in sight I feel so unprepared for the holidays this year, usually all the gifts are purchased (probably not wrapped). I think we still need to buy at least something for everyone on your list, it's getting stressful.

We also did our online check in for our Treasure cruise, we're boarding group 5. We're taking DCL transportation from Caribbean Beach; we're now 26 days away from Disney World and 29 days from our cruise, it's getting real! I hope to have this report completed before we leave, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, on to our Juneau day...

We had another early departure for our excursion, so our day started with another breakfast in Cabanas. We had a little bit of a time crunch, so it was a quick breakfast and then down to deck 4 to check in for our excursion. Our excursion was Mendenhall Glacier and Whale Quest. We checked in and were quickly brought down to our bus which took us Auke Bay where were boarded our vessel for our 3-hour tour.

Auke Bay was gorgeous, without the whales, the scenery was beautiful!






At one point, we cruised past Mendenhall Glacier


We saw some seals hanging out on a buoy



There was a light drizzle at times, I was surprised that a lot of people chose to stay indoors during the cruise, but DH and I were outside the whole time

 

[Kari0180]

At one point, we came across a pod of Dall's Porpoises. They followed our boat for several minutes; they were so much fun to watch. They were so playful! Unfortunately, they moved very quick, so we didn't get the best photos, but if you watch our vlog, DH got some great video.



But this was a whale watching cruise, we were here to see whales! At first the sightings were slim pickings, for a short time, I thought that we might actually get the $100 they promised if we didn't see a whale. But soon we were seeing several of them. Some of my favorite photos

 

[Kari0180]

More whale photos for your enjoyment




After about 3 hours, our boat turned around it was time to head back to the dock. This was an amazing whale watching experience! We saw so many whales and it was fun to see the Dall's porpoises and seals as well. Once we were back to the dock, we boarded our bus and headed to Mendenhall Glacier.

Once we arrived at the glacier, we were set loose again. We had about an hour to explore the area before we would be picked up again. We had hoped to take the path to Nugget Falls, but our driver cautioned us that it was a 30-minute walk to the falls and back. I was having difficulty with my boots, so I was worried that we wouldn't make it there and back in time. So, we decided to stick with the other trails that were shorter. First stop was a map of the park

We started with the Photo Point Trail; it was a short walk and at the point, we got some great views of Mendenall


DH got some great close-up shots of the glacier


We got some shots of Nugget Falls, while they weren't the up-close ones that we had hoped to see on the trail, but still some amazing views.

 

[Kari0180]

A couple of more photos of Nugget Falls


We then headed to the Steep Creek Trail, on our way, we saw an eagle in one of the trees




More beautiful scenery


We didn't see any salmon (I think actually we saw one dead one). After we finished the trail, we headed up to the visitor's center. We only had a few minutes left, but did a quick walk through, used the restroom, looked at the gift shop before we headed back to the bus. This concluded our excursion, but our driver was nice enough to offer a drop off downtown for those of us who didn't want to go back to the ship. We chose to be dropped off because we had one stop that I was so excited for.

As lovers of crab, we had to have lunch at Tracy's Crab Shack! We joined the line and waited for our turn. Of course, while we were downtown, it had to start raining and not just the drizzle we encountered earlier, this was the real deal. Thankfully, we had our raingear on, so we stayed nice and dry while we waited. The couple in front of us went to the front of the line to see how long they waited and came back to report that it was about an hour wait. Thankfully we didn't have to wait that long, about 40 minutes later we were at the front of the line watching some crab boiling action

 

[Kari0180]

We had a few minutes watching them work before we officially got inside

Once inside, we placed our order and went to find a seat. The nice thing about Tracy's is they won't let you find a place to sit until after you've ordered your food. The inside seating area was packed, I was a little worried we wouldn't find a seat

Thankfully we were able to find a seat on the covered patio outside, they had a bunch of heat lamps on the patio, so it wasn't too bad. We only waited a few minutes until our food arrived

We each got the #1 Crab Shack Combo, this came with a crab bisque, 4 mini crab cakes and your choice of crab. We split the snow and the King crab. The combos also came with garlic rolls and butter. Oh, my goodness, this was the best crab we've ever tasted! The soup and the crab cakes were really good too. This was an expensive lunch, after all was said and done, it was about $200, but it was so worth it. If I ever get to Juneau again, I will be eating here!

After lunch, we explored the downtown area and looked into the shops. A lot of the shops were preparing to close for the season, so they were advertising sales. I found my Christmas ornament, but didn't see anything else that caught my eye. We walked over by the gondola to see about times and tickets, but it was getting near on-board time, so we decided not to ride. We did see the welcome sign and grabbed a quick selfie.
We then headed to our shuttle stop and grabbed the shuttle back to the ship. Once we were back on board, we decided to try our hand at some Bingo. We also grabbed the drink of the day while waiting

This was the Paradise, and I think this was my favorite drink of the day that was served. It was basically an alcoholic fruit punch; I also loved the cherries that were served on top. No surprise, we didn't win at bingo, but we had a great time. I'm not a gambler; I hate losing money, but I'm okay playing bingo because even though I lose, it takes some time to play, and the crew is always very entertaining!

As we pulled out of port, it was time for tonight's show

It was Frozen night, we've seen this show several times now, but I still love it, the cast does such a great job! It was then time for 00's music trivia. We had been talking with a mother-daughter duo over the last few trivia sessions, but for this trivia, we decided to team up to try to win. And we were successful, once again, we tied (with several teams). Unfortunately, this was the one trivia where they decided to do a dance off to NSYNC's Bye, Bye, Bye. None of us were dancers, so we didn't win (the winner did the whole entire dance and had some moves!). However, while we didn't win the medals, we were rewarded with some DCL hats. This made DH very happy as he's lost a few of his DCL hats in the last year or so (the last one was lost on our whale watching cruise when we were in Maui). It was then time to head to dinner, we were back in Animator's Palate for the night, and it was Animation Magic night. We were seated and started drawing our characters, neither of us are artists, but we did the best we could. Soon after, we ordered, and our food started coming out.

I started with the tomato caprese salad, this was very good, I skipped out on the arugula because I don't like it, but loved the tomatoes and cheese

DH went with the Malaysian Chicken Satay. He enjoyed it, I had a bite but wasn't a huge fan of the flavors. Next up were our soups

I went with the White Cheddar and Broccolini soup, I always enjoy this soup, it's very tasty.

DH went with the Lobster Bisque, he also thought this was very good.

 

[Kari0180]

It was then time for our mains

I went with the Chicken Schnitzel. This is my usual go to meal, but I was disappointed this evening. The chicken was just heavy, a little burnt and it just didn't have much for flavor.

We split the Grilled Garlic Marinated Shrimp with linguine pasta. We both enjoyed the shrimp, I thought the pasta was a little heavy, but DH thought it was pretty good.

DH went with the Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb. He enjoyed it, I don't do lamb, but DH had me take one bite, yep, still don't do lamb. It was then time for dessert, my sweet tooth wanted two desserts this evening.
This was the Orchard Peach Tart, this was my first time having it. I had seen a lot of good reviews and decided to try it for myself. This was very good; I really enjoyed all the flavors.

I also indulged in the Very Cherry Chocolate Sundae. I love cherries, so this was right up my alley!

DH went with the Chocolate Decadence. He said it was very chocolatey, but he enjoyed it. It was then time for Animation Magic show. Alway fun to watch

We're the last 2 on the right, as I mentioned, we're not artists, but there were some great drawings

As we headed toward Azure, we had a couple of character opportunities. First, we ran into Belle right outside of Animators. She was nice enough to take a quick photo with me.

Then walking through the lobby, we saw that Goofy and Max were meeting so we jumped in line to meet them

I didn't care about it when it first came out, but The Goofy Movie has really grown on me!

 

[Kari0180]

We also saw Daisy, but we didn't get a photo with her

We then headed into Azure where we watched the game Seriously? And then we watched the adult show of Jon Armstrong. It was kind of cool, he had us use the calculators on our phones for a trick, our end result was this

This was the date, year, and the time. I can't remember how many calculations we had to do, but I thought it was really cool! We then headed down to our room, where our towel animal awaited us

Our next day would be our final port stop in Ketchikan. We had a later arrival time, so we were hoping to sleep in a little. Will that happen? We'll see!

The Junea vlogs

 

[Dreams&wishes]

Thank you this is awesome we really keen to try an Alaskan cruise!

 

[Kari0180]

Thank you this is awesome we really keen to try an Alaskan cruise!

Thank you for following along! My only regret on the Alaskan cruise is that I didn't convince DH to do it sooner! We had an amazing time and is my favorite itinerary so far!

 

[Kari0180]

DH has been nursing a head cold for the last few days. This morning, he woke up and feels pretty miserable. We're supposed to go to his holiday party tonight, but unless he makes a miraculous recovery, I think we'll be skipping it. Oh well, gives me more time to write

We woke up to another rainy morning at sea, today we would be arriving at our last port, Ketchikan. We wouldn't be docking until 11:15, so we had a few hours to enjoy the ship. We slept in a little and decided to spend some time at the hot tubs at the adult pool. We changed into our suits and went to cabanas first for breakfast. Let me tell you, it was so cold walking outside! But we ate a quick breakfast and then headed to the hot tubs. We pulled into port as we were soaking, so we knew it was time to head back to our room to shower and change.
Our view as we pulled into port. As we were walking back to our room, we witnessed a cute moment with Chip and Dale with their handler. Dale pulled out one of the blankets to use as a cape. We thought that he was trying to be a superhero, but Chip then explained that Dale was Elsa. It was a very cute moment and even though Dale kept hitting the handler (accidently) with his cape, she took it in stride and everyone was laughing

After we were dressed, I ran to Cove Cafe to grab a coffee, but the line was very long, and we had places to be. So I went to the French Quarter Lounge, I wasn't able to grab my first-choice coffee but was still able to grab a drink and then we headed to D-Lounge to check in for our final excursion. Today's excursion was the Wilderness Exploration and Crab Feast. We were soon checked in and escorted off the ship to board our bus that would take us to the George Inlet Lodge.

The first part of our excursion was to take a boat ride through the inlet. As we were headed to board our boat, we saw some moon jellies

This was kind of neat since we had just interacted with them a few days ago at the Vancouver Aquarium. We got on board, headed to our seats and were soon off

Good-bye for now, we will see you soon!

I apologize for my obsession with scenery, but once again, just the boat ride itself was surrounded by the most beautiful scenery. One of the first places we went by was the George Inlet Cannery


The cannery is no longer in operation, but we learned about how the business worked when it was open. Now the place is a popular site for parties and weddings. As we went by, we saw our first eagle on top of one of the buildings

We continued our voyage, there was intermittent rain and so there was a lot of fog on the mountains

Eventually, we made our way up the inlet to where the crab pots were located. Our guide asked for a volunteer to help pull up one of the crab pots. A girl went up to help and after a minute or two, they were able to pull up one of the pots

 

[Kari0180]

I believe there were about 7 crabs in this pot. Our guide took one of the crabs out and placed him on his back, this almost instantly put the crab into a comatose like state

He then passed it around for anyone who would like to hold it. I passed, but DH was up for the challenge

DH was able to get an up-close shot

Our guide then asked if anyone wanted a "crab hat", DH once again volunteered as tribute

He also would hold up the crab to people's ears to hear its gastric system. I did take part in this, it was kind of neat, it sounded like a bunch of bubbles. Lastly, he pulled out one of the female crabs in the trap to show the size comparison, the crab that was passed around was a male, he they are next to each other

Female is on the left; male is on the right. The vessel we were on was a research vessel, so the crabs that they caught were released back into the water. He called for volunteers to help, and a bunch of kids had a blast tossing some crabs into the water! We then headed back to the lodge, where it was time to eat lunch! When we were seated, a salad was ready for us

There wasn't a whole lot of flavors to this salad, but I wasn't here to eat salad, I was here to eat crab! While we were eating our salad, the crew gave us a brief lesson on the different parts of crab and how to crack and eat them. Once they finished with our crab cracking lesson, it was time to eat some crab!

They came by 3 times to give us refills of crab and butter if we wanted. I don't think I mentioned, but we were eating Dungeness, and it was so good! There was another couple at our table, so we had a nice conversation with them. The crab also came with a choice of beverage, DH and I both went with the Alaskan cider, we both enjoyed it. There was also a crab stacking contest, our table wasn't too into it because we were busy eating crab. But a couple of other tables were really getting into it. The only rule was crab had to be on top, others were using chairs, glasses, etc., to get their stack as high as they could.

Our sad stack, at some point, it tipped over and most of our shells were all over the table. After they stopped serving crab and a winner of the stacking contest was announced, we were served blueberry cheesecake for dessert. We forgot to take photos because they also announced we needed to board the bus, and I still wanted to go into the gift shop to purchase yet another ornament (sad thing is, our schedules were so busy this holiday season, we never got our tree up and it just feels too late now). There were a couple of other photo ops outside of the lodge


This completed our excursion, and it was time to take us back to Ketchikan!

 

[Kari0180]

As we drove back to Ketchikan, we passed by this amazing waterfall

We didn't have the opportunity to stop, but it looked amazing, the water was really rushing! It was about a 30-minute drive back to Ketchikan and our driver took us back to port. Of course, we had other plans for Ketchikan, so we headed out of port and headed to Creek Street. It was only a few blocks from the port and on our way, we passed the rain gauge.

And of course, the Ketchikan sign


After a few minutes of walking, we arrived at Creek Street. This little area is adorable and even better, we finally got to see salmon swimming!

There were so many salmon, everywhere we looked, there were more salmon! As we ventured further down the path, we even saw a seal swimming around



It was so cute to watch him swim around. We spent several minutes just watching him do his thing before we decided to take the "salmon walk" trail. We saw more salmon and once we reached the top of the trail, we saw a salmon ladder

There were a couple of salmon in the ladder, but there wasn't a lot of action going on. I just loved the rapids next to it, so we had to get a selfie

 

[Kari0180]

After we finished with the salmon walk, we headed back down to look in the shops. The area is so picturesque, we had to take a couple of photos.


We came across Dolly's House



We then left Creek Street and headed back to port; we did some shopping along the way. We spent a couple of hours looking around, but it was soon time to head back on board. I was a little sad, we still had one day at sea left, but we were now done with the Alaska ports. We didn't have much time to do anything once back on board, we ran up to grab some hot chocolate and then back to the Walt Disney Theater

The family show was very entertaining! We then headed down to Azure for 2010's trivia and grab a couple of drinks, I had the drink of the day, the Captain's Treasure and DH got his rando teapot drink that he has to get a least once. He loves it, all I ever taste is gin (which I don't really like) and watered down tea (because he never lets it sit long enough). We didn't do too bad at trivia, but we still lost. What gets me are the random one-hit wonders. I was very impressed that I remembered "Trampoline" but couldn't name the artist "SHAED". After trivia, we made our way back to Tiana's Place for Mardi Gras night, finally we would get some beignets! But first we would start with some appetizers

We both started with the Shrimp & Grits, I enjoyed the shrimp & grits, wasn't a huge fan of the chunks of cheese and andouille sausage. DH enjoyed it all.

We also split the Ahi Tuna Tartare, the tuna was fantastic, the mango was good, but the combination together was not great, I also wasn't a fan of the pine nuts. DH complained that it was too salty, but I also had to keep reminding him that I had asked for soy sauce on the side and I'm sure that was what he was tasting.

DH also got the Boudin Sausage Fritters; he forced me to try a bite, and they were nasty! I also really detest sausage, so that was probably why. DH felt they were really heavy on the breading and wasn't a big fan of them. Normally at dinner, we just kept to our sodas, but we noticed on the wine menu that they had Selbach Oster Riesling, so we had to order a bottle

This wine has a special meaning, on our very first trip to Disney back in 2007, we were served this wine at our dinner at California Grill, when we were married at The Boardwalk in 2009 and had our wedding dinner at California Grill, this was the wine that was served. It's difficult to find, there is one wine shop in Minnesota that sells it (of course it's not very close to us) and it's harder to find at the parks now (usually we can find it in the Germany pavilion). It was a little pricey for the bottle, but we had to indulge for the night!

 

[Kari0180]

Next up were our soups

I had the Mama Odie's Creamy Tomato Soup; can I just say that tomato soup is one of my favorites. It's really hard for me to pass up and this lived up to its description.

DH went with the New Orleans Seafood Pepper Pot. This is one of his favorites, he loves the flavor and all of the seafood. For our mains, we both went with the same thing

This was the Big Daddy's Roasted Prime Rib of Beef. I really enjoyed the steak and the red wine sauce that came with it. The potato and the vegetables were both kind of bland. We also split the Cajun Spiced Sea Bass with Shrimp Jambalaya. I don't have a photo of it, but this was not for me, but as DH tells me, pepper is considered a spice for me (I'm not that bad). I only had a bite, but DH cleaned up the plate, he really enjoyed it! It was then a 2-dessert night for us

On the left is Mama Odie's White Chocolate bread pudding. We both really enjoyed this, all the flavors blended well together. Tiana's Buttermilk Beignets are on the right. I've had these at previous dinners, and they were great, they weren't that great this night. They were served cold, and they were really hard, the chocolate dipping sauce was also very watery and didn't have much flavor, so they were a little disappointing. During our dinner, we had visits from both Tiana

and Louis

On Mardi Gras night, there is also a parade and dancing, it's fun, the servers get you up from the table, you parade around the restaurant and even play some limbo. The Crawfish Crooners are playing and it's just a fun atmosphere and a great way to end dinner

After dinner, we headed back to our room. It was another night of Majority Minds and the Dueling Pianos. As we were headed back to Vancouver, the clocks were going ahead 1 hour so we would lose an hour of sleep. We said hello and good night to this fellow and went to bed

Up Next: Our last day on the cruise, Palo Brunch, Martini tastings and more trivia to come!

 

[Kari0180]

Our Ketchikan Vlogs