Alaska Southbound on the NCL Sun - August 2017 Trip Report!

[tatibus0913]

 

 

 

For dessert, we each ordered the chocolate fudge brownie and coffee.

 

 

 

During the meal, there was a photographer taking photos around the dining room.

 

[tatibus0913]

Overall, it was a great meal with wonderful service. I would definitely have dinner at Cagney’s again!

After dinner, we went to the Rock You Tonight show. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the show was a lot of fun. I maybe knew half of the songs, but the performers are amazing. They performed a variety of songs from the 50’s through the 90’s and it was a great show. After the show, we went to Dazzles for the Norwegian’s Night Out party.

 

 

There was a band for a while, and then the DJ came on. They played a lot of older music, but we had fun dancing! After a while, we called it a night. We went back to our cabin and found that our room steward left this for us!

 

[shadowmeboy]

It looks like you got as close to Hubbard as we did! Awesome!

 

Deck 6 was much less crowded and afforded better pictures than the observation lounge or sun deck. Yet, most gravitate up there.

 

Great pictures, can't wait for more!

[Beachiekeen]

What a great review! I just went to Alaska in June and will be on NCL in October so I'm really enjoying it!

[tatibus0913]

It looks like you got as close to Hubbard as we did! Awesome!

 

Deck 6 was much less crowded and afforded better pictures than the observation lounge or sun deck. Yet, most gravitate up there.

 

Great pictures, can't wait for more!

 

I couldn't believe how empty deck 6 was! Given that the ship rotates, we had amazing views :D

[tatibus0913]

What a great review! I just went to Alaska in June and will be on NCL in October so I'm really enjoying it!

 

Thank you! We are currently tossing around ideas for our next cruise, but are most likely going to stick with NCL!

[tatibus0913]

Thanks so much to everyone following this report, and sorry for the delays in between posts! Work has been crazy pretty much since we got back from vacation, but my hope is to get the rest of this done in the next week or so :D

[tatibus0913]

Wednesday, August 9th: Icy Strait Point [9:00am-5:00pm]

 

Here are the dailies!

 

 

 

 

[tatibus0913]

We got up early, had a quick breakfast in the buffet and were ready to go as as soon they let us off the ship! We had arrived a little early in Icy Strait Point, so we were able to get off the ship around 8:30am.

 

 

 

 

There was a deer right on the shore!

 

We made our way to the Excursions Hub, which was basically just an open area behind one of the buildings. We met the driver from Hoonah Travel Adventures, who brought us to the office in Hoonah. We had booked the Self-Guided Arctic Cat tour. They showed us how to use the pre-programmed route in the GPS and we were off.

 

The first part of the drive was on the streets of Hoonah, heading towards the logging roads.

 

 

[tatibus0913]

Once we got to the logging roads, we had some beautiful views!

 

 

 

 

 

We made it to the end of the pre-programmed route, which was a bay (the name of which I can't remember!). We got out to see the views. I also snapped a photo of our ATV!

 

 

[tatibus0913]

The logging roads were up above the river/valley area. As we were looking around, Justine goes "oh my god, are those bears!?" and sure enough, there were! We were definitely at a safe distance from them, but our camera has an awesome zoom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tatibus0913]

We hung out and watched the bears for a while. I probably have at least 50 photos of them! We went back to the ATV to keep exploring the logging roads.

 

This would be my excited "we saw bears in Alaska" face haha

 

 

We drove around for a while, and stopped at various points to take some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually, our two hours was up and we drove back to the office in Hoonah.

Overall, we had a great time. This was such a fun thing to do, and the bear sighting was an added bonus! I would definitely reccomend taking the morning tour. Most of the time, it was just us on the roads. As we made our way to back to Hoonah around 11:00am, there were jeep and bus tours on the logging roads. Also, it hadn't rained there in a few days, and it was super dusty, so be prepared to get dirty!

Edited September 11, 2017 by tatibus0913
Added more information

[tatibus0913]

After the ATV tour, we decided to walk around Hoonah instead of heading back to to Icy Strait. We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant called the Fisherman's Daughter. It was really casual, where you walked up to the outside counter to order and then sat yourself inside or outside. We ordered salmon tacos, and they were quite possibly the best meal of the trip!

 

 

After lunch, we walked over to Icy Strait Brewing to try their beers. Justine had an IPA and I had a hefeweizen. Both were really good! The have a small deck in the back that overlooks the water, but it does get really busy.

 

 

 

We then walked back to Icy Strait. It took about 25 minutes or so, but it was right along the water with nice views.

 

 

 

[tatibus0913]

We walked around Icy Strait and did some shopping. There were a lot of different shops and stands, so we were able to get some souvenirs for family. We also walked through the cannery museum, which was really interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jskinsd]

Awesome pics. Hoonah is my favorite stop. This is the only place where nature will come to you if you are patient. I was in Hoonah two weeks earlier and went on the same route you took. I too saw the same family of bears but your sightings were a lot closer and longer than mine. And your pictures are better than mine. Hoonah is a very special place. And the Ncl Sun always seemed to be there when wonderful things happen. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.

[tatibus0913]

After wandering through Icy Strait, we decided to head back to the ship a little early. Since it was so nice out, we decided to go to the pool area. We grabbed drinks and hung out in one of the jacuzzis for a bit. We also had no problem finding lounge chairs, where I took a little nap :D

 

After spending some time at the pool, we went back to our room to get ready for our 7:30pm reservation in the Seven Seas dining room.

 

Here are the menus for that evening.

 

 

 

 

For our appetizers, Justine had the slider and I had fried brie wedges.

 

 

[Beachiekeen]

What a great excursion! I don't read alot about the Icy Strait port so it was nice to see a great excursion in case we ever make it.

[tatibus0913]

For dinner, Justine had linguine with clams, and I had pot roast. Both entrees were delicious!

 



 

 



 

 

Of course, we had to have dessert. We both orded the lava cakes, and they were amazing!

 



 

 



 

 



 

 

After dinner, we went to see Sam Fedele, who was the comedian performing in the Stardust. He was funny, and we enjoyed the show. After that, we called it a night since we had a very early day in Juneau the next day.

[tatibus0913]

Awesome pics. Hoonah is my favorite stop. This is the only place where nature will come to you if you are patient. I was in Hoonah two weeks earlier and went on the same route you took. I too saw the same family of bears but your sightings were a lot closer and longer than mine. And your pictures are better than mine. Hoonah is a very special place. And the Ncl Sun always seemed to be there when wonderful things happen. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.

 

Thanks for reading! I really enjoyed Icy Strait and Hoonah, it was actually my favorite stop on the cruise! And our camera has a 34x zoom, which was I was thankful for because I honestly didn't want to be that close to a bear :')

[tatibus0913]

What a great excursion! I don't read alot about the Icy Strait port so it was nice to see a great excursion in case we ever make it.

 

I don't think a lot of cruise ships stop there, and our ship was the only one there that day. I had read somewhere that with their new dock, they are trying to increase visitors. It was a great excursion, and the guys at Hoonah Travel Adventure were really nice. We only did the ATV tour, but they have whale watching too!

[tatibus0913]

Thursday, August 10th: Juneau [7:00am-1:15pm]

 

Here are the dailies!

 

 

 

 

 

[tatibus0913]

Since we had such an early start, we decided to have continental breakfast delivered to us. It was delivered around 6:30am with the pastries, fruit and coffee that we had ordered. Once were were ready, we got off the ship around 7:30am.

 

 

 

 

We were docked at the AJ dock, which is the furthest one. Right where you get off the ship, there were signs for a shuttle to town. There happened to be one there, and it was a large coach bus. It filled up quickly, and then we were driven the few minutes to town. The shuttle was free, and dropped us off at the Mount Roberts Tram.

 

The first order of business was to get coffee,so we stopped a little coffee shop. Kaladi brothers coffee seems to be brewed everywhere, and it's so good.

 

 

A lot of the stores were open, so we did some shopping. If you have t-shirts to buy, we found the best selection and prices were at the Alaska T-Shirt Company. After shopping, we headed towards the Alaska State Musem. It was about a 10 minute walk, and had some nice views along the way.

 

 

[tatibus0913]

The museum opened at 9:00am, and we were there by about 9:15am. I believe it was $12.00 per person. They also offer free lockers, so were able to store our backpack while we visited the museum.

 

 

Since we were there so early, there were very few people in the museum. The exhibits were really interesting, and covered the history of Alaska.

 

 

 

 

 

[tatibus0913]

More photos from the museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent a little over an hour, and found it really intersting! I defintely reccomend going when they open, and you'll have an empty museum. As we were leaving, a huge group came in!

[tatibus0913]

After the museum, we walked back to Tracy's King Crab Shack.

 

 

I had read how busy it could be there, so we got in line right as it opened at 10:30am. We were the second people to order! We decided to split a combo, which came with a crab leg, crab cakes and crab bisque. I believe it was around $45.00 for the combo. We grabbed seats at the end of a picnic table, and our food was brought out to us.

 

 

 

We enjoyed our meal!

 

We still had some time left before we had to head back to the ship, so we decided to go into the Red Dog Saloon for a drink.