Cool Breeze Cruiser

Photos I 'borrowed' from Robin. :D

This is the boat we went out on to the Tracy Arm Fjord excursion. It really did not 'feel' as crowded as it looks.

A few more pics from our excursion to Tracy Arm Fjord

Cool Breeze Cruiser, YESSSSS! More pics. Loving your review and hope to see you, JR, Robin and her husband on another cruise in the future:) PINK

lol! Robin took over a 1,000 pics! :eek: I am just going to add a few. :D

Join us on the Valentine cruise on the Freedom February 8, 2014 or the Miracle to Hawaii September 18, 2014!

Juli

Great review...your pictures were awesome! You have really made me want to go whale watching on our next AK cruise! Sounds like a dream trip!

Thanks. Whale watching was AMAZING! We would all highly recommend Harv & Marv. I just watched the videos again from the whale watching & I got goose bumps all over again!

This has been an amazing review...your pictures are wonderful!! Alaska is on my bucket list, but I think i'm a few years out for that still! I'm glad you had a great time!

Thank you. My friend Robin just downloaded her pics so I am going to add a few more.

J.R. always tells everyone that I only like tropical vacations so that is what we always do :D but on our flight home he said Alaska made him miss the Caribbean so he ‘twisted my arm’ ;) as soon as we got home & I booked a Valentine cruise on the Carnival Freedom (kicking myself that I did not book while on our cruise to get the OBC) to tide us over until our 30th anniversary cruise to Hawaii September 18, 2014!

Our once in a lifetime Alaskan cruise on-board the Carnival Miracle was everything we dreamed it would be. All the hours of research paid off because the excursions we chose were perfect for us. To be able to see whales in Juneau up close in their natural environment made the whole trip for me & the glacier calving at Tracy Arm Fjord was spectacular! The scenery from the bus & train in Skagway & the floatplane in Ketchikan was breathtaking. The weather was spectacular. The Miracle is a great ship, the crew fantastic & we made a lot of new friends. Best of all I got to experience it all with my best friend & wonderful husband, J.R. & our good friends Robin & John. Life is good! :):):)

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The only non-stop flight on Southwest from Seattle back to Nashville was at 11:30 AM & I was a little worried about such an early flight. Since we had so much luggage (3 suitcases & one carry-on) we decided to get rid of a couple of our bags by using Luggage Express.

It was our first time using Luggage Express & it worked great (except for a small delay getting our luggage tags the night before that Guests services straightened out). We had to sign up by Sunday the day we were in Ketchikan. It costs $20 for two bags plus any airline charges for luggage (we were flying SW so there were no extra charges) & Carnival prints off your boarding pass & luggage tags. We had to put the two suitcases we were sending out before 11:30 PM on the last night. We did not see them again until we got to the airport in Nashville (& they were there :D)!

The charge is $20 for one person though so they only printed J.R.’s boarding pass & I had to do mine when I got to the airport since I did not want to pay another $20 just to get my boarding pass. It definitely made it a lot easier to get off the ship with just one suitcase & one carry-on between us.

Someone (J.R.) :rolleyes: felt like we had plenty of time to get to the airport so we had one last breakfast with Robin & John & left the ship about 8:30ish.

We had about a 5 minute wait to get off the ship. It was super fast & easy! We had booked transportation to the airport with Seattle Express for $12 pp.

This is what our reservation said…

“When you exit the cruise terminal proceed to Bus Lane “R” and check in with our coordinator, Kathy. Our first shuttle leaves at 7:30am and they run every 15 minutes.”

Seattle Express was a little disorganized when we got out there. Apparently someone else with our last name took our spot even though it was only one person & our reservations were for two. One shuttle was just filling up when we got out there so we had about a 20-30 minute wait for the next shuttle to leave. We left the cruise terminal at 9:20. It took 30 minutes to get to the airport. Then the driver had to collect money from everyone (don't know why they don't collect your money when you board) before letting us off to collect our luggage.

I got my boarding pass in just a few minutes but the lines to check a bag were insanely long. Then we saw the lines for security & started getting a little nervous about making our flight. They moved inch by inch! It was insane! We finally made it through & raced to our terminal with just a few minutes to spare but we made it! :D

We did not want to waste any time since we had such a brief visit so we took a 30 minute Waterfront Tour horse & carriage ride with Tally Ho Carriage Tours to explore Victoria. It cost $100 for the four of us. It was the only thing we did the whole cruise that I would not recommend.

Our carriage driver was a nice, informative young girl but we just rode around neighborhoods & she pointed out various houses. I don't really know how that is considered to be a waterfront tour. It was not bad but not really worth what we paid.

After our tour we went to Bard & Banker Scottish Pub so J.R. could get a local brew & then we caught a cab back to the ship because we wanted to catch the late night Comedy Show that featured the highlights from the week with Carl Faulkenberry & Rondell Sheridan.

Victoria...

We had to get packed before we got off the ship in Victoria. Always my least favorite part of any cruise! :( We had an early dinner in the dining room so we could get off the ship as soon as we docked. I was surprised that the dining room was not very crowded.

From our balcony

We were only in Victoria from 7:30 PM until midnight (had to be back on-board at 11:30 PM). We caught a cab for $10 for the four of us to the Inner Harbor. Cabs are lined up at the port.

We tried to take a few pics before the sun set completely.

I love your photos and review. I just booked the miracle for August 2014. I am so excited to read the rest of your review.

Thanks. We tried to decide when the best time to go to Alaska was & finally decided to do with what worked best for us which was the August 27th sailing. We DEFINITELY lucked up with the weather.

I have been in meetings today but will try to add Victoria tomorrow.

Thanks so much for sharing--can't wait for next June for our trip. Your pictures are fabulous!

Thanks. June will be here before you know it. Alaska is one of those places that you need to book excursions early. Did I already say I would HIGHLY recommend Harv & Marv whale watching in Juneau? :D

You and I sound so much alike. Alaska has been on my DH bucket list for years but I have been putting it off because I like beach vacations!! I kept telling him we would go when we were older. Your pictures have definitely made me want to go ahead. We'll probably go 2015. Thanks so much!!

I guess I have to come clean. :D We started our 18 day trip with a five day convention in Anaheim, CA & instead of flying cross country for two days :eek: we went to Huntington Beach (definitely stay at the Shorebreak Hotel if you go there) so I got my 'beachy' fix before our cruise! :)

'Someone' on our roll call pointed out I took a lot of pics of J.R. on this cruise. I did! Alaska was on HIS bucket list & I do not want him to forget that he got to choose for a change! :D

Seriously, I would not trade the memories we made for anything! So as J.R. says whenever I tell him about a cruise I find, "BOOK IT"! See why I married him? :D

Juli

After our flight the shuttle took us back to the pier & we shopped for souvenirs a little more & took MORE pics! :D

I had to shed a few layers because it got HOT! Not what I was expecting for Alaska.

We made our way back to the ship. The line to get back on was craziness long!

We were only in Ketchikan from 7 AM until 1 PM but we got to experience a lot in our short time there!

Randy sat up front with his 'co-pilot', our new friend from Nashville, J.R. & I sat in the next two seats with Robin & John behind us & the woman's husband sat in the back. That seat is kind of neat because you are able to see out on either side.

The only minor flaw was the headphones we wore to hear Randy & each other & also the music he had piped in had a lot of static. We could hear Randy pretty well but everything else was kind of garbled.

Back in the air.

We stopped at this dock for a few minutes. J.R. had really been looking forward to landing here & being able to 'hear' the quiet!

I love these photos with a little bit of the wing in them so you can tell we were FLYING! :D

Look what we saw from the air.

Randy pointed out this rainbow. He told us what caused it but we forgot. :o

It was an absolutely breathtaking experience soaring above almost completely untouched nature.

I'm loving this review!!! Alaska is on our bucket list too. Hopefully 2015.

I've been looking at prices for 2014 and you can't beat Carnival pricing. Plus I'm sure it's cheaper to fly to and from Seattle.

Noticed you are from TN. We live in NW GA right on the TN state line. We are actually a suburb of Chattanooga, TN.

Thanks for sharing and you can't have too many pictures. They are amazing!

Happy Sails

Thanks. I compared prices when we booked our cruise & Carnival had the other cruise lines beat by a LOT! We got an incredible deal on our cruise when we booked it last February & then we got $700 in price drops! :D I love Early Saver!

Prices also came down on our flights on Southwest so we have airline credit that we are using to fly to FLL for our February cruise. :) I also love SW!

Chattanooga is beautiful. We thought those were mountains until we saw Mt. Rainier & Alaska! :p

We took a LOT of pictures. It is a good thing Robin has not downloaded hers yet or I would have never been able to decide which ones to post! :eek:

Thank you so much for doing this review. Hubby wants to do an Alaska cruise so bad, but I have been hesitant. After seeing your pics and reading your review I am ready to go! I also want to do Hawaii, but I think Alaska may have just won 1st place. :)

You are welcome. I book & plan all of our trips & I was not over the top excited about going to Alaska :eek: (I love tropical vacations) but J.R. had wanted to go for years. I knew we would go to Alaska one day but I wanted to wait until we were a little older :p:D since most of the activities we planned were more 'seeing' than 'doing'. It was an absolutely incredible trip from start to finish though!

Ketchikan…We woke up to an overcast morning but it turned in to a gorgeous day which was incredible because we were going Misty Fjords Flightseeing on a floatplane! :) Misty Fjords is only accessible by floatplane or boat from Ketchikan.

We originally contacted Michelle with Island Wings but she was already booked so they referred us to Randy at Mountain Air Services.

This was the response to an email I received from Shona at Island Wings ...

At this time we do not have seats available on Michelle’s plane while you are in port. However we do have a 2nd plane and pilot flying from our dock. I would be happy to reserve seats for you with them.

If you would like us to reserve a reservation for you please reply and provide us with; the individual weights of the people in your party (including clothing, shoes and gear), a cell phone number, and mailing address. To confirm a reservation we will need a 50% deposit payable either via personal check or credit card (Visa, MasterCard and Discover).

Of course I had plenty of questions about her recommendation & this was her response to that email...

We are working closely with Mountain Air Service owned and operated by a pilot named Randy Sullivan. He runs his single plane, single pilot, air taxi business from the Island Wings seaplane dock here in Ketchikan.

Randy is a well-rounded pilot who has been flying for a total of 12 years, and has accumulated over 7,000 flight hours with a perfect safety record.

He has a gregarious personality and is genuinely dedicated to providing quality tours. The tours that he is providing and the policies that he is operating under mirror our own.

Having shared the skies with Randy, Michelle is impressed with his attention to safety as well as his friendly and outgoing nature. (he is the first pilot that she has ever endorsed)

We enjoy working with Randy and would be happy to make a reservation for you with Mountain Air Service.

So we booked with Mountain Air! Our tour included 11/2 hours of flight time with a 30 minute stop. The cost was $239 pp.

Waiting for the shuttle to take us to the floatplane. We had an 8:45 AM meeting time.

Randy is an excellent pilot & his deHavilland Beaver seaplane holds six people plus the pilot. Robin & John joined us again & the third couple that joined us was cruising on Celebrity & turned out to be from Nashville. It is a small world!

You are not allowed to take backpacks on the floatplane so we grabbed our cameras & sunglasses & they locked our bags in the office.

Those whales put on quite a show ! Once wne on a whale-watching tour on the St Lawrencr River in Saguenay, Canada, but we never got that close. Wow ! (oh yeah, there was that time in St Lucia , too, but you know about that one :p). Thanks for the great pictures !

Our day in St. Lucia with Mystic Man Tours could not have been more perfect even if we had seen whales. It must have been the company (& the rum punch the ship's doctor prescribed)! :D

I wish you & Patrice had been with us this time too! I didn't even need help getting to the restroom :p:D & there was no sand to navigate on crutches! Good times! :)

Hugs,

Juli

Amazing photos and wonderful review, Juli! It was so much fun to cruise with you guys. This trip was definitely a bucket list item to check off for most of us!

Tara

Thanks Tara. How did our cruise go by so fast? :( Definitely a bucket list trip!

We really enjoyed meeting you & your family & glad we got to share the excursion to the glaciers with y'all. It was SO incredible! Your little one was so good that day. He is a doll!

Robin has a REALLY good video of the glacier calving. I am embarrassed to say that I screamed when it happened. :eek: Before our cruise I watched a youtube video of someone screaming as a glacier calved & thought I will not be 'that person' & I was! :o:D

Hope you enjoy your new home in Seattle. If I lived there I would be at Pike Market every week. :D Sosio's had the best peaches I have ever had!

Juli

I am hooked are next cruise is Alaska for sure. Waht night were the formal night?

It was amazing! I love tropical vacations but I am glad I let J.R. choose this one!:D

This was our itinerary…

Tuesday.........Seattle, WA

Wednesday.....Fun Day at Sea

Thursday........Cruise Tracy Arm Fjord

Friday............Skagway, AK

Saturday........Juneau, AK

Sunday..........Ketchikan, AK

Monday.........Victoria, BC, Canada

Tuesday........Seattle, WA

Elegant nights were the 1st sea day (obviously that night :p) & the night we were in Ketchikan.

I totally loved the pictures of the whales. They were so cool. Especially two of them together.

I have wanted to go whale watching (& actually see whales :D) for years & I would HIGHLY recommend Harv & Marv! It was more than we hoped for when the whales came so close to our boat!

I have tons of pics from that day but they kind of all look the same :D so I limited the ones I posted. Four of us taking pictures all captured at least one shot of two whale tails at one time!

Robin took some incredible videos of the whales (& the glacier calving) & if we can figure out how to post them we will. The pictures do not hold a candle to the video!