Carnival Legend 7/12 - 7/19 2016 Trip Report

Haha! Yes, I'm blond, I'm sure it was in a pony tail that day. You can see the back of my son in this picture, with the crazy neon yellow hoodie! ;)

The guides offered an opportunity to walk on the glacier if you liked. I passed but my husband and kids did along with several others.

We had plenty of time out there to look around, take photos and just enjoy the view. There were some places they didn't want you too close to since there is a possibility of calving. They let you know if you were getting too close.

Soon we loaded up the canoes and made our way back. Matt scooped up a bit of ice from the water and passed it around the canoe....

Once we got back to shore we walked back to the base camp and changed out of our boots and returned our life vests.

FYI....there are outhouses there at the camp for you to use.....the guides will say you can use the outhouse or feel free to go become one with nature and go into the wood. Here is my word of advice....USE THE WOODS!! Seriously bring a friend to watch for bears and skip the outhouse. :eek: I have a terrible sense of smell and a strong gag reflex but I was DYING using the outhouse. God it was awful. It's not a port a potty w some nice chemical in it where yeah sure it's smelly but not that bad. This takes it to a whole new level. LOL

Haha! Yes, I'm blond, I'm sure it was in a pony tail that day. You can see the back of my son in this picture, with the crazy neon yellow hoodie! ;)

LOL I think you sat next to us in the Follie before we left for this? I have to say I think this was my favorite thing we did. :)

We loaded up the bus and headed back to the beach area to have lunch.

They provided turkey, lettuce and cheese sandwiches, little bags of trail mix, little containers of apple sauce and bottled water.

We ate at covered picnic benches while enjoying views like this....

You will notice the school bus we took in the photo as well. :)

Soon it was time to reboard the boats (you went back on the same one you came out on so remember you guide. :) ) for the hour ride back to the ship.

IMO this was an amazing excursion. I would totally do it again and HIGHLY recommend it. My kids loved it.

I just came across this thread and had to comment. We were also on the Glacier Point Wilderness Safari excursion! We are in the picture of the first canoe leaving, it was myself, my wife and her 2 sisters. The whole trip was spectacular and this was by far the best excursion we took. Great pics!

Wonderful trip report!

Thank you for taking the time to include so many detail's and photos.

Please post a link to the 2016 trip report list --it will be a great resource for future travelers, especially for families.

Thanks again.

I just came across this thread and had to comment. We were also on the Glacier Point Wilderness Safari excursion! We are in the picture of the first canoe leaving, it was myself, my wife and her 2 sisters. The whole trip was spectacular and this was by far the best excursion we took. Great pics!

LOL OMG That is too funny you guys are in my photo! Yes, it was a great trip.

Wonderful trip report!

Thank you for taking the time to include so many detail's and photos.

Please post a link to the 2016 trip report list --it will be a great resource for future travelers, especially for families.

Thanks again.

Will do!!!!

We got back from the excursion by 2 pm and decided to walk into town....

We walked around a bit but the sun had decided to come out and it was pretty hot. My oldest is a fair red head who doesn't do well in the heat so we decided to head back to the ship while my husband walked around and got some post cards to send home.

It was pretty busy in town with several ships in port. So it was a little too crowded for our tastes.

Back on board this was the view from Deck 10...

Oh and for the record that day I got over 20,000 steps on my tracker....walked about 9 miles......extra dessert for me! ;) LOL

Next Stop Juneau......

We were in Juneau from 7 to 3 pm.

We signed up for Whale Watching and Mendenhall Glacier tour thru Carnival.

We met on the dock and were boarded onto Coach Buses. Our bus driver was named Tucker and he gave us a tour as we traveled to the dock for the whale watching boat. Told us lots about Juneau and wildlife in the area. All very interesting.

The ride was about 30 minutes or so? At the dock we boarded our whale watching boats which were run by Allen Marine (same company from the small boat excursion).

The staff on board was excellent. Friendly and had so much enthusiasm for the whales. The naturalist (sorry I forgot his name) was SO excited for some of the stuff we were able to see that day. It's nice to see it doesn't become "oh hum" for them. :)

The ship had both indoor and outdoor viewing areas. There was a snack bar/gift shop on board. Coffee, Tea and Hot Chocolate were free.

Again we were blessed with calm water and no rain! We came across a pod of killer whales....

There were even BABY Orcas!! It was amazing to see.

This is the other boat from our group directly behind us...

We hung out watching the Orcas for awhile before moving onto a new location.

Then we came upon some Humpback Whales who were doing Bubble Net Feeding.....not something you get to see very often. Several whales working together to get the fish. Each whale has a job and when all done correctly nets them more fish then if they were to be feeding alone.

I did not get any good photos of them all breeching. It is very fast and you don't know where they will come up. This is the only one I got.....

It was amazing to watch this animals in the wild.

If you have the chance to go whale watching I highly recommend it. My entire family loved it.

Soon it was time to start back. On the ride back to the dock we passed these guys..

Once back at the docks we boarded our same buses and headed to the Mendenhall Glacier....

The bus took us over to the Mendenhall Glacier. Once we arrived we were told we had 1 hr to walk around before boarding the bus to return to the Legend.

There are several trails you can take. Since we only had an hour we decided to stick to a short path and to see the visitor's center. :)

Views were amazing.

Nugget Falls....you could take the trail to the bottom. They said 30/45 min walk. We decided not to try since our kids can sometimes be the slowest walkers. LOL

And for those Pokemon Go fans....yup, there are Pokemon there. ;)

The driver stopped downtown to drop anyone off who wanted to shop. Most of the bus did get off (the kids and I went back while my husband did a little shopping). It was an easy walk back to the ship according to my DH.

My kids were hungry so we went back to the ship for lunch.

The line around 2 pm to board (all aboard was 2:30 pm). It seemed to always move very quickly thought. :)

Next stop.....Ketchikan....

We were in Ketchikan from 7 am to 1 pm.

We booked an independent tour here with Ketchikan Taxi Cab Tours.

I read about this tour here on Cruise Critic and looked them up on Trip Advisor.

I emailed them from their website and heard back from Dave very quickly.

I told him what we wanted to do (see wildlife and hear about the town and life in Ketchikan). I also told him we were traveling with out two kids. It's $74 an hour and the average tour is about 3 hrs but you go at your own pace and see whatever YOU are interested in seeing.

He was booked himself but was assigning us with his niece Serena who was great with kids.

He told us where we would met and that Serena would be waiting for us at 7:30 with a sign with our names on it (we decided to put my kids name on it for fun).

We also exchanged cell phone numbers so we could be in touch if necessary.

The morning we pulled into Ketchikan I got a text from Serena saying she saw the ship pull in (she actually can see it from her apt window LOL). She would met us at our meeting place at 7:20 - 7:30 am.

After meeting up with Serena we piled into her mini van and off we went.

Serena is lovely girl who I can not say enough good things about! My kids warmed up to her quickly and she is very knowledgeable about the area. Answered our many many many questions about life in Alaska! :)

She took us all over the island. This is a spot you can often see Bear especially in the morning as they come down to catch salmon in the water.

No bears came so we move on after awhile but we did get a great look at this Bald Eagle....

Next she took us to see this cool waterfall....

We drove around a bit as she pointed out lots of things. It was all so interesting to see!

Then we went to see the Totem Poles. Here is Serena telling my kids stories about the totem poles and they loved it. In fact my youngest is still talking about them. LOL The other day it was foggy and she started saying how it was the fog woman. LOL

Then as Serena was in the middle of telling a story she spotted this....

Eagle and dinner :)

Family photo in front of the Clan House....

Here she is telling us about the current totem poles being made.

All too soon our three hours were done and Serena drove us back to the port area. She said she could drop us off wherever we wanted. She suggested if we wanted to shop to try the Creek Street area which had more local shops.

So we had her drop us off there where we paid her in cash for the 3 hrs plus a tip. As we started walking up the path to the shop my youngest raised her hands up in the air and proclaimed THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN! LOL So she gives it very high ratings. LOL

I definitely would highly recommend them to anyone looking to tour around Ketchikan.

Here is the Creek Street area....

Here I was able to find a bear.....:D

The usual Ketchinkan photo everyone must take...;)

Great time in Ketchinkan. Wish we had more time there!

We got back on the ship at 12:30 and proceeded along with 2,100 other pax to attempt to have lunch on the Lido Deck. LOL

Lines everywhere and you had to stalk people finishing up to get a table. No surprised since basically everyone just came back on board at once. FYI go for the salad bar....it's always the shortest line. LOL Probably good for me in the end. :)

Up next...Victoria, BC.

Since our stop in Victoria wasn't until 7:30 pm I pretty much considered this a sea day.

I got up fairly early and heading up top side for my morning walk. It was a bit foggy!

After my walk I got everyone up for breakfast and found these on the Lido Deck!!! :eek::eek::eek:

This was the ONLY time I saw donuts on the ship. They were more like bread with frosting then donuts but that didn't stop me from sampling several. LOL Seriously they were very good and I'd love to see them more often on the buffet!

We spent most of the day relaxing. Went to the Naturalist talk about Whales. Excellent as usual! Played some Bingo, looked around in the shops, wandered around, checked in for my flights....

Soon we arrived in Canada....

We had to be up at 5:30 the next morning in order to be off the ship as early as possible. That plus the fact our port time was so short and a taxi or bus was needed to get to anything to see we decided to stay on board.

It was nice as the ship was pretty empty. Not sure how many got off or if a lot of people were just packing? Either way the kids and I enjoyed wandering the ship while DH hit the hot tub.

We enjoyed this final sunset....

Then headed back to finalize our packing and get ready for bed.

We were FTTF and we decided to do self assist in order to be off the ship ASAP.

Our goal was to try for the 11:15 am non stop back to JFK out of SEA.

(remember I fly stand by for the airlines).

Since it was Tuesday morning we would be dealing with rush hour traffic plus Seattle is known for having LONG lines at security.

The letter in our room told us to met in the Dinning Room at 7 am for FTTF/Self Assist. We did and by 7:15 we were being led off the ship.

Since there were 4 of us and 4 pieces of luggage (plus each of us had a backpack). It was easy to do self assist. There were other's who choose to do self assist who really shouldn't have. :rolleyes: Too many bags or physically not really able to handle their bags. So they slowed down the flow a bit.

We were off quickly and customs was quick and simple!

Next thing we were in a cab and on our way to the airport!

Luckily it was still on the early side for traffic so we didn't hit much on the way to the airport.

We checked our luggage in and made our way thru security (yup, long line). But were soon sitting in the gate area with two hours to kill. :)

Luckily we got on the flight and were back in NY by 7:30 pm EST.

Great report. You sure picked some nice excursions - it looked like a busy whale watching tour.

Beautiful pictures. Thank you.

Thank you for your review and pictures enjoyed it very much.

Like you I love the Legend, will be doing this trip in August

Naoma

I am so glad you talked about and shared pictures of your Skagway tour. We are booked on the helo dog sled with extra landing on a glacier in Juneau --- but knowing it's the most cancelled excursion, I want to at least get on a glacier another way, at a later port (we are doing southbound). Not a fan of helicopter ride (only taking this one because it's the only way to go up to the dog sled site) so I was very happy to see you can walk on a glacier without flying! I emailed the tour company and they have availability (so far, as of today) for us on the day we'll be there --- so, yay! Anyway, that was a long way of saying thank you for sharing!!! :-)

Thank you so very much. We are not going until August 2017, but am soaking up as much info as I can. We there really no restrooms on the 1 hour boat ride. No way I could do that. I have the worlds smallest bladder, or it feels like it must be.