underthemoon53

Thank you for the nice review & photos. Appreciate all the time & effort it takes to post a review like yours. We have enjoyed our times in Alaska as well. One of our best times in Alaska below.

 

Happy Travels, John

 

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Wander Black Bear at Taku Lodge

 

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Preparing our Salmon lunch

 

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Guess it was finally the Bear's turn...

These photos are soo cute!

The last full day aboard the ship was a cruise day in which we visited Hubbard Glacier which is located in Disenchantment Bay. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever see and I took over 300 photos of the area alone. There was not too much wildlife due to it being early in the season but we did see the fins of some dolphins when we first entered the bay. There was quite a lot of calving that occurred, I would say on average at least every 15-20 minutes. We spend most our time down on deck five since it was less crowded than the upper decks and we got just as good of a view. We would just cross through the interior of the ship to the other side once the view had slipped out of our view. We had left the face of Hubbard Glacier well before eleven am so make sure you get up early.

Entering the Bay

A smaller glacier in the area

Puppies 16 days old

6 weeks old

One of the buildings in town

Dogs continued

View from observation deck

Sorry guys life got in the way of me blogging. The final port we went to was Skagway. The morning we docked along with four other ships and the port was filled with tourist. This is the one port I recommended booking an excursion in because in town it is nothing but gift shops. We did the dog sledding and viewing the sled puppies tour. Our tour left at 0800 and we met Jay dot our tour guide's nickname) at the end of the pier at 0745. We took a small 24 person bus to get to the sledding camp, the ride was about 20 minutes each way. Jay Dot was very nice, he told us all about dog sledding, how he ended up in Alaska, and how he ended up working with sled dogs. Once we got to the camp we than had to take an off road vehicle up to where the dogs and sleds were waiting. In the clearing there was 4 sleds each holds 6 people and each sled had 16 dogs attached to it. The noise was great but as soon as each sled took off the howls went silent. After the sled ride were allowed to go onto an observation deck and than we had a small lecture on the Iditarod. Than it was the time everyone was waiting for! Puppy time!!!!

Camp Location

The off roading vehicle

The dogs

Our sled guy stopped and got photos of each couple on the sled

I am thoroughly enjoying your review! We are about to go on this cruise in less than a week.

 

I'm wondering if you can tell me which nights the formal and semi-formal nights are on the ship? Thanks!

The second night was formal and the last port I believe were was a formal night.

Did that big black bear come in and "clean" the grill after the salmon

bake? (Hense the "secret" ingredient :p).

No bear sightings for us for the whole trip. A lot of locals told us we came to early in the season to see a lot of animal life.

Did you pre-book the Taku lodge dinner or were you able to book on board?

We pre-booked it which I recommend doing if its something you really want to do. There was an excursion we missed out on doing because slots were filled three months prior to the cruise.

More photos from Taku Glacier Lodge, the view while you eat

The hubby and I

One thing I forgot to mention at the lodge there were tons of mosquitos. They have a little bin outside the main cabin with bug spray so make sure you use it before hiking on one of the trails.

Photos from our time at Taku Lodge

Some of the puppy dogs

The food

More of the flight to Taku Lodge

We're doing this same trip in a few weeks, as a fellow Floridian I'm wondering how you found the weather?

We loved it! Temperatures ranged from high 40's to the 70's. No humidity and while we were there we had little to no rain. What did save us was our windbreakers/rain jackets we had purchased. My husband got one for like $30 dollars on Amazon, nothing fancy but it did the job.

Pictures are always my favorite and you took some amazing photos! I love the ones of the bears it was probably the one animal we did not get a chance to see.

The flight to Taku lodge was about 25 minutes each way and than you had 2 hours at the lodge itself. During the flight you wear headphones which help with the noise and provide narrations for the flight. Heads up there is a sit up front with the pilot so if you want that view try and get on the plane first. Lunch was provided and included fresh salmon cooked over a fire, baked beans, coleslaw, cinnamon apples, sour dough bread, and a herb bread (all of it course home cooked). Dessert was ginger cookies. For drinks you were offered lemonade, tea, and water. The drinks had unusually shaped ice but I won't run the surprise. :] The employees at the lodge live there during the whole season so they bring their fur babies with them, in totally we were told there were 12 dogs and we saw 5-6 of them. After dinner we were offered a guided tour on a path that looped back around to the lodge itself. I had never been on a seaplane before and the ride there made me experience motion sickness but the flight back to port was okay. I took so many photos and they all look amazing because we were just surrounded by beauty.

On the way there.

Red Dog Saloon

Tracy's King Crab Shack

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing!

 

Was the bar you went to in Hoonah "The Office Bar"? It was right along

the water as you walked towards town. We had fantastic fresh steamed

Dungenous crabs with a couple of local draft beers. Heavenly! Can't

wait to go again.

 

We also did the Taku Glacier Lodge float plane tour and salmon bake.

With secret ingredient "Bear slobber" ;) Loved it as our all time favorite

excursion and going again in August.

Yup that was the name of it!

Skagway for us was our least favorite port partially due to all the cruisers. There were four boats docked including ours.

Next port was Juneau and it as also the first port we had a planned excursion in. We were to meet the Taku Lodge float plane people at 2:15 at the end of the pier. This excursion was big ticket item but I saw this trip as a once in a life time trip and wanted to go big or go home. On a side note we had really wanted to do stream fishing in Icy Strait but tickets sold out and we were placed on a waiting list, of course no one cancelled. Book it early if you want to do it! We had plenty of time prior to our excursion so we walked around (very hilly city for us Floridians). We visited the governor's house, saw the state building, went to have drinks a Red Dog Saloon, and tried the number 1 combo (which was like $35 and some change) at Tracy's King Crab Shack. Red Dog Saloon opened at 9 while Tracy's King Crab opened at 10:30.

Pulling into port

The governor's house

I got married on the Carnival Legend, random fact, I know. At least you were smart and brought the extension cords.

My state room did not have either. They had a phone would you do a wake call on. Our stateroom only had two plugs to which becomes tricky when all your devices need to be charged.

While in Hoonah we stopped at the local bar (the only bar) and got some beer and I had fresh fried halibut. I thought it was super delicious while my husband thought it needed more flavor. At the bar they were charging $15 dollars for the fish and chips, another place in town was selling in for $18.

Right when getting off the gangway and going through the visitor's center you will see a natural trail off two the right. Its an easy trail that loops back onto the beach right in front of the cruise ship. We hit it on the way back to the ship.

Once back on bored we were on deck 11 eating when I looked down and saw a sea lion! We kept seeing the little guy but I could never get a picture of him. We ended up going down to deck 5 to continue looking for him when we saw bursts of water from blow holes towards the front of the boat. We ran down to the helipad where there was only one other couple (it was freezing due to the very strong wind). There were multiple humpback whales!

I tripped over my untied shoelace and my husband informed me I had missed a really great shot of them being more out of the water. On the back of the boat you were able to see eagles up in the trees.

Once we got to Hoonah our first stop was the brewery. They have very strict laws for brewery establishments in Alaska like them having to close at 2000, no stools at the bar, if they change a price on a beer it has to stay that price for two weeks before another change, and they are not allowed to provide entertainment.

We walked around town for a bit looking at the gorgeous flowers they seemed to have everywhere. My husband got some up close shots of bumble bees because I was to scared. You get to a point in walking downtown that you start to just hit residential neighbors hoods so we turned back.

This little guy was just outside on his porch snoozing.

The next port we docked in was Icy Strait/Hoonah. This port we did not book an excursion and decided to explore the place by foot. From the port to Hoonah its a 1.5 mile walk and there is a side walk the whole way. If you can't walk they have shuttle that goes back and forth every so often and costs $3.00 per person each way. The most exciting part of this port was the the animal life. There were eagles seen throughout our whole walk and I believe people in the shuttle could not get a good view of them. Even with the long lens on my camera it was hard to get close focused shots of them.

Pulling out of Ketchikan was gorgeous and we also saw the damage caused by the Celebrity ship that happened a few days before we docked. It's estimated 2-3 million dollars in damages but more importantly no one was hurt. I watched a video taken by a boat that was docked and the whole ordeal was nerve wracking.

Ward Lake

Other shots

All the places we went were off the Tongass highway which ended right around Settler's Cove. While driving on the highway I saw multiple sightings of deer but was also to slow to get a picture of them. Ward Lake you did have take a side road called Revella I believe it was called and than there were signs to get you to Ward Lake. I had read that Ketchikan was one of the cheapest ports to grab souvenirs in and it proved to be true. We bought my mother in law a night gown for $19.99 and saw the same exact one in other ports for $29.99. All the days leading up to getting to the port the weather forecast called for rain, but we lucked out and it was just overcast. This was a common theme throughout the cruise but in ever port we had amazing weather. This also the first place we got to notice the difference between low and high tide. When we first docked our window was under the pier, when we returned to the ship our window was now above the pier. Hiking wise both Bright Totem State Park and Ward Lake was pretty level/easy hiking while Settler's cove did have multiple steep stairs making it more difficult than the other two.