Alaska/Carnival Legend Cruise Review w/ Pictures July 2015

[navybaby1113]

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

As we were driving, Steve pointed out glaciers to us and told us a little about them.

 

 

 

Lewis also stopped for a bald eagle nest which was pretty cool.

 

 

 

This is my kind of boat. :-) Go Noles!

 

[navybaby1113]

After a few hours at sea (which flew by!), we got back on the bus and were taken to Mendenhall Glacier. We only had a 15 minute stop there, but it was a nice addition to the tour. Next time we’ll just take the bus there and do some exploring so we can see more of the area.

 

 

 

 

You can see the people in the picture of Nugget Falls to give you an idea of how large this waterfall actually is.

[navybaby1113]

We got back to the ship at 2pm and there was a long line to get back on. Thankfully lunch stayed open until 3:30 today. It was extremely crowded, so we just grabbed some pizza and salad. They started giving out whole pizzas at this point of the cruise, which started slowing down the line even more.

 

 

 

Sailaway was scheduled for 3pm, but we didn’t up leaving until 3:30pm because some people were missing. We went out on our balcony to watch sailaway. We got to watch a bunch of float planes land.

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We took a nap until dinner. We went down to dinner around 6:30pm and they had 3 tables of 2 left. The tables weren’t in the best areas (squeezed into the walkway or near poles), but we were hungry so we took one anyways. We regretted that decision immediately because the family next to us refused to parent their children.

 

I ordered lasagna as my Starter and DH ordered chicken tenders. I didn’t love the lasagna this trip. Not sure why, but something was off about it.

 

 

 

For our entrees, I ordered shrimp & fries and DH got the lasagna. He enjoyed his slice.

 

 

 

For dessert I got WCMC and it was jiggling as soon as the waiter set it down. I cut it open it was completely runny. Thankfully I was able to flag the waiter down quickly and he went back to the kitchen and got me a new one. DH ordered the chocolate raspberry cake which he said was delicious.

 

 

Tonight was The Brits show. I really enjoyed this because my family is from Great Britain.

 

We went back to our room and went to bed as soon as the show was over because we had to be up early in the morning.

[mimmy52]

Love the whale watch pictures!

[Tazman322]

We are doing the cruise July 12 2016, How was the pizza?

[marshhawk]

hurry back!

[navybaby1113]

We are doing the cruise July 12 2016, How was the pizza?

 

The pizza was pretty good.

[navybaby1113]

Day 9: Ketchikan

{Sunday, July 19}

 

We woke up around 6am because we had an early tour. Went to breakfast at the lido buffet. It was pretty dead until about 6:30am when the crowds came to eat.

 

There weren’t too many excursions that I was gung ho about in Ketchikan. One of my friend’s did a rainforest tour a couple years back and said that was pretty cool, so I decided that’s what we would do for the day. We booked the Rainforest Wildlife Sanctuary, Eagles, and Totems tour through Carnival for $80.00 per person.

 

We gathered in the theater around 7am. After a few minutes they called our tour and escorted to the gangway. Our tour operator was waiting at the end of the gangway.

 

It was a quick 20 minute drive to the rainforest sanctuary. They split our bus into 2 groups of 10. Our tour guide was Gretta and she was fabulous.

 

 

We walked through the forest and saw lots of pretty trees and banana slugs. No other wildlife was seen during the rainforest walk.

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We made our way into the estuary and saw lots of bald eagles. As we were walking along the boardwalk I saw a baby bear come running underneath. Gretta said that he was recently on his own and was trying to figure out where to get food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also got to meet the rainforest cat.

 

[navybaby1113]

They had some raptors that we could see up close and could ask questions about them.

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

The totem carving portion of the tour was a joke. We walked into the hut of a totem carver and he was working on a pole. We spent maybe 5 minutes in there and everyone felt kind of awkward asking questions.

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We had a 5 minute stop to use the restroom and get a snack (they had hot cocoa, cookies, and smoked salmon) and then Gretta took us down to see the reindeer. They had food to feed to them, but they didn’t really want much to do with us.

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We waited around for a while for the bus. We got back to the ship around 10:15am.

 

There was a still a good bit of time left in Ketchikan before we set sail, so we walked over to Creek Street. It was very crowded and there were no salmon yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We came back to the ship and ate lunch before it got crowded. I grabbed a couple items from the American buffet and DH had a pastrami sandwich from the deli.

 

 

 

After lunch we went back to our balcony for a bit. There was a really long line to get back on the ship around noon. Sailaway was scheduled for 1pm.

 

They hosted the second showing of the Hasbro Game Show at 1:30pm. Then we went to movie quote trivia (one of the few trivia games we participated in this cruise) and did horrible.

 

We took a nap for the remainder of the afternoon until dinner.

[navybaby1113]

We went to dinner around 6pm. Tonight was our second elegant night. We made a quick stop at the Taste Bar on our way to pick up a delicious meatball. Yum!

 

 

For starters, I ordered the shrimp cocktail and a ceasar salad. DH ordered the bing cherry soup.

 

 

We both ordered chateaubriand for our entrees. One of my favorite dinners on the ship.

 

 

For dessert I ordered another WCMC. Since we were in Alaska, DH had to order the baked alaska.

 

 

Tonight’s show was Epic Rock. This was by far one of the best shows on this cruise (and probably one of my favorite shows that I’ve ever seen on a Carnival cruise).

 

After the show we went to a couple R-rated comedy shows. The comedians were really hilarious on this sailing.

 

Tonight we had to move our clocks forwards 1 hour before bed since we were on our way back to Seattle.

 

[NOSaints1]

How does Carnival do Alaska? Do they have a naturalist, Alaskan food?

[navybaby1113]

How does Carnival do Alaska? Do they have a naturalist, Alaskan food?

 

I think they did it well. There was a naturalist who announced different things that you see from the ship and also did talks (I've mentioned a few of them throughout the review). No special Alaskan food though. They did have a couple Alaskan beers available for purchase.

[navybaby1113]

Day 10: Victoria, BC

{Monday, July 20}

 

Today was pretty much a sea day since we were not arriving into Victoria, BC until 7pm. The only thing that was unlike a sea day that was once we were in Canadian waters, the casino and shops had to close. This happened around 3-4pm.

 

We woke up around 9am and went to entertainment trivia. We grabbed some coffee from the coffee bar. It was pretty good, but not Starbucks. I ordered a cappuccino with vanilla syrup and DH got a latte.They also had some complimentary pastries to munch on with your drink.

 

 

After trivia, we went to brunch. They had the Dr. Seuss brunch going on upstairs, so we got to hear kid’s music all breakfast. The service was ridiculously slow this morning.

 

DH ordered huevos rancheros again. I ordered the steak and eggs and barely ate any of it. Everything on the plate was cold, the fries were chewy, and the steak was way overcooked (I ordered a medium and it came extremely well done).

 

 

 

We came back to the room and had zone 2 luggage tags waiting for us. We were told to meet in Follies at 7:45am.

 

I went down to the Promenade to drop off something and saw an orca jump right next to the boat. I was so excited. DH was a little ticked that he didn’t go down there with me because he had been waiting to see an orca all cruise.

 

We went to lunch at the lido buffet. Today’s buffet was Italian. We both ended up grabbing pizza and a few choices for the chocolate buffet. None of the desserts were terribly good.

 

 

 

Did some souvenir shopping this afternoon. While I was there they were having a super sale of Bahamas/Australia shirts for 2/$5 and $10 Carnival sweatshirts. It was a madhouse!

 

Tried to find a seat for the 4pm Love & Marriage show, but the theater was still packed from Bingo. I went to grab us an Alaskan beer while DH waited for a seat to open up. The show was hilarious as always.

 

[navybaby1113]

Came back and finished packing before dinner. Went to dinner around 5:45pm and there was already a wait. I think most guests decided to go early in preparation for docking in Victoria.

 

While we were waiting for dinner, Troy made an announcement that we would be docking in Victoria about 30 minutes late because of weather conditions.

 

We got a nice table near the window tonight.

 

For appetizers, I ordered a ceasar salad and DH ordered the mango cream soup.

 

 

We both ordered the bacon mac n cheese for dinner and I also got a side of fried shrimp.

 

 

 

For dessert I got grand marnier souffle (one of my favorites!) and DH got cappucinno pie.

 

 

 

We noticed while at dinner we hadn’t moved in a really long time and were just kind of sitting outside of Victoria. Troy came on about halfway through dinner and announced that we were not going to be able to dock in Victoria because of high winds. Most people on the ship were extremely upset, but DH and I realized we made out ahead because we were going to get a refund on port fees and weren’t planning on getting off anyways.

 

Because of the cancelled port, they added an additional Hasbro Game Show tonight. We attended that and then went to a couple comedy shows.

 

We also used our past guest free drink coupons tonight at the Lobby bar. We had our choice of anything we wanted.

 

[navybaby1113]

Day 11: Disembarkation and flying back to Tallahassee

{Tuesday, July 21}

 

We got up around 6:30am and finished packing up all our carry-ons. Of course no one leaves the ship without one final meal, so we headed up to the lido deck to get some breakfast.

 

Around 7:30am, we started walking down to the Follies. Well, apparently FTTF had already been escorted off the ship, so they sent us to the gangway. Second cruise in a row we haven’t made it in the lounge in time (even though this time we were 15 minutes early).

 

Since we had such a late flight out out of Seattle, we decided to rent a car to use for the day. We booked with Alamo because they were associated with the cruise port and they had a stand right outside the terminal. We checked in, they loaded us and another family up, and then drove us to the downtown location to pick up our car.

 

Our first stop for the day was the Fremont Troll. It took us a while to get out of downtown Seattle (they have multiple one way streets and roads closed off during certain hours), but we finally made our way over there.

 

 

After we got our pictures of the troll, we headed off to the Washington Arboretum. The Arboretum is huge and has a ton of walking trails. We walked over to the Japanese Gardens. It has an entrance fee, but it’s small (like $5) and completely worth it. The gardens were pretty empty while we were there.

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

After we were done walking around the arboretum, we hopped on the interstate to go to Snoqualmie. We were getting hungry at this point, so we found a Pizza Hut buffet and chowed down.

 

It was about an hour drive to Snoqualmie and completely worth it. The waterfall was gorgeous. We started at the upper part of the park.

 

 

You can either hike or drive to the lower part of the park. It was getting a little warm and they said the trail could get steep, so we decided to drive down there.

 

 

After we were done viewing the waterfall, we decided to walk down to the river to stick our toes in for a bit.

 

It was still pretty early, so we stopped at the Starbucks in Snoqualmie to plan out the rest of our afternoon.

 

[navybaby1113]

We decided to drive back to SeaTac and check out the Kubota Gardens, which is a free Japanese Gardens. The gardens started out as Mr. Kubota’s backyard and turned into an oasis. The area surrounding the park isn’t the best of areas, so I recommend not going late at night and not leaving any valuables in the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We were getting hungry (and it was getting dark), so we drove over to 13 Coins for dinner. The food was yummy and it was huge! It ordered a burger and DH ordered a Philly cheesesteak.

 

 

 

 

After dinner, we went to the airport and dropped off our rental. Sadly around 11pm, we boarded our flight back to Florida. :-( We had such a great time and I can’t wait to go back!