A 40th Birthday Escape: Alaska

[Indytraveler83]

We wandered around near the port and found that we had totally missed a neat feature of this port!

 

Ending in a small pond off of the river, there was a significant salmon run in progress!  We spent nearly an hour watching salmon fight, try to spawn and even take their last breaths as they finished their lifecycle in the spot their lives began.  It was a cool and unexpected event that we would end up seeing to some degree in each and every port.  Coming from a place where fish weighing a few pounds are hard to find, it was crazy to see a river boiling with 10-15 lb fish, uncaring that they were seen and unwavering in their determination.

 

Our chosen excursion was a fairly new one, and the only Carnival excursion we took during the trip: Rock climbing and rappelling.

 

We ended up being very lucky, as only one other couple selected the 3PM tour, leaving only four people in our group. We started with three guides, who rode in the van with us to the site, giving us heavy recommendations on what else to do locally and heavily recommending Skagway Spirits for a post climbing drink.  We didn't feel we would have time to visit though, and they were bound to drop us off at the port by contract.

 

The climbing was outstanding.  Sheer rock faces and easier climbs scattered the landscape.  Two of our guides departed, heading to larger groups of zip lines in the area, leaving us with one calm and reassuring guide who helped all four of us learn how to climb.  It was a difficult and scary experience, but it was exactly what I wanted to do to prove to myself that at 40 I'm not as old as my family would make it seem.

 

Despite that, I nearly has a panic attack when one of our climbing mates ended up misstepping and hanging upside down from her safety rope, giggling loudly the entire time.  Our guide was calm in assisting her in getting righted and back on the wall, and we found the entire experience to be nerve wrecking, yet we felt 100% safe the entire time.

 

On the way back, our guide asked us if we needed a drink.  We told him we did, but repeated that we didn't think we'd have time to hike from the port to the distillery and back.  He just winked at us and dropped us off right in front of Skagway Spirits, where we enjoyed vodka, gin and mixed drinks that were infised with spruce tips, fireweed and other local flavors.  

 

Our short time there was one of the most local feeling things we'd done the whole day, and I can't recommend it any higher, especially if you'd like to experience a place that doesn't feel quite so touristy.  

 

But the time we got back on the ship, our Fitbits registered 18 miles of hiking and walking, and we'd spend a true 12 hours moving, leaving us exhausted after one of the most unique, fun and rewarding port days we've ever had on a cruise.

 

We nearly feel asleep during a dinner I can barely remember, and were in bed by 9PM.

 

Skagway notes:

The train remains one of the coolest things to do, and we will likely ride it the next time we go.  There's tons of time here, enough to do multiple excursions or plenty of hiking and exploring.

 

I'm sure there's some cool airborne excursions here, but in a place literally named after the strong winds, it isn't the ideal place to book a helicopter if you don't have backup plans. 

 

Really pay attention if you want local goods and products.  Shops try hard to seem local, even if they aren't.  There are "Alaska made" labels that can help assist you, but even then it grows confusing when shops put those logos in the windows, only to represent a few of the items in their stores.  

 

Overall though, this is likely my favorite cruise port ever.  There is so much to do, and even 12 hours in port isn't enough.  The local flavors, the smell of spruce and the epic scenery are overwhelming and the experience of a lifetime.

 

Up next: Juneau!

 

[MartaMartian]

Thank you for your review! 

[pe4all]

Loving your review!  We sailed CCL in Alaska years ago, and it was definitely one of my top 3 cruises ever.  In fact, I would love to do it again in the near future.   We splurged on the helicopter to Mendenhall Glacier, and did dog-sledding, which was an incredible experience.  We also did the small boat in Tracy Arms, and got very close to calving ice.  We did not go to Juneau on our itinerary - can't wait to read what you did. 

[Drew B 58]

6 hours ago, pe4all said:

Loving your review!  We sailed CCL in Alaska years ago, and it was definitely one of my top 3 cruises ever.  In fact, I would love to do it again in the near future.   We splurged on the helicopter to Mendenhall Glacier, and did dog-sledding, which was an incredible experience.  We also did the small boat in Tracy Arms, and got very close to calving ice.  We did not go to Juneau on our itinerary - can't wait to read what you did. 

I’m confused.  If you didn’t go to Juneau, which port did you helicopter to Mendenhall from?  That glacier is outside of Juneau!

[pe4all]

17 hours ago, Drew B 58 said:

I’m confused.  If you didn’t go to Juneau, which port did you helicopter to Mendenhall from?  That glacier is outside of Juneau!

Senior moment - did do Juneau.  So sorry.  That's what I get for posting before my first cup of coffee- lol!

[Indytraveler83]

Sorry to leave everyone hanging.  I'm going to get back to this review soon, but life got REAL busy this week!  The worst part of vacation is catching up when you get back!

[cheermom2four]

Im so excited to follow this cruise report as we just booked our 2nd Carnival cruise and chose Alaskan cruise on the Spirit (choice for our time line was either this ship or Luminosa) for July 2025. I cannot wait to read more of your trip!

[Indytraveler83]

Ok folks, let's get back to it!  

 

Juneau was a rough morning, having deeply overextended ourselves the night before.  We somehow dragged ourselves to breakfast and found oatmeal, toast and yogurt parfaits to be the easiest source of energy.  

 

Getting off the ship, we proceeded slowly to our meeting place with Juneau Whale Watch, a non-cruise ship excursion.  On the way, we walked the dock, read about the history of Juneau and dodged some overly aggressive tour operators that were certain we'd have time to enjoy their tours as well.

 

We picked our private excursion for two reasons:

1) It was both cheaper than the ship and locally owned.  

2) It has a combo of whale watching and a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors Center and Park, which would allow us the up close glacier experience we hadn't had yet.  

 

 

The whale watching did not disappoint.  We were told shortly after we boarded the fairly new boat that we were in for a treat.  Turns out, there was a bit of a feeding frenzy going on, and we quickly found ourselves in the middle of 6-8 whales actively feeding.  

 

I've seen videos of boats as they hunt for one or two whales, and that was not the case here at all.  Our Captain would put us upriver, turn off the engine and let the boat drift through the feeding frenzy.  Once we'd drifted safely away from the whales, he'd repeat.  We got about an hour of excellent whale watching (though they are impossibly hard to photograph well)

 

After that was done, we boarded a bus for the short ride out to the glacier.  Many folks had booked this part of the tour in the hopes of seeing bears hunting salmon in the nearby stream.  Those people would find themselves disappointed, as the salmon here were starting to get fairly rotten, so instead they got the interesting and so.wwhat sad sight of salmon at the very end of their lives, fighting to the bitter end for breeding rights that may never come.

 

 

However, we did not book this part of the trip to see bears.  We wanted to hike and see how close we could get to some cool sights.  We were not disappointed.  Nugget Falls is about a mile hike down an easy trail, and if you want to get really close, at low tide you can wade out to a gravel island that allows you so close you can feel the spray.  

 

Here is where we also got close enough to photograph the edge of the glacier.  Sadly, it is receding fast, as evidenced by the various markers on the trail reminding you that 40, 30 and even 20 years ago, you are standing where ice once was.  

[Indytraveler83]

 

Leaving the glacier was bittersweet, as we found ourselves again snapping so many pictures our phone batteries were dying.  We boarded our tour bus back to the port.  They allowed a stop downtown if you wanted to eat or shop, but with less than an hour till back on board and our adventures leaving us with badly aching joints (why hello 40th birthday, here's my reminder!) we opted to return to the ship.

 

I'll also remark that it appears the only way to get more authentic shopping and dining is to get away from the pier.  As we rode back, we saw many cool places 1/2 mile or even more than a mile from the ship.  But the ship itself is parked in the middle of mass produced novelty mecca, which we had no interest in.

 

Back on the dock, we saw that the beautiful Carnival Luminosa had arrived for its stay here, and I captured a wonderful photo of it from our balcony once we boarded the Spirit.  I'm not sure how it looks inside, but the repainted Costa Funnel looks marvelous in Carnival colors, and the ship is a very handsome addition to the fleet.  

 

Saying goodbye to Juneau, we found ourselves aching and hungry.  Dinner service continued to improve as we ended up with the same wait staff again, who started to learn our preferences.  

 

The rest of the night was admittedly a bit of a blur.  My knees and back hurt badly, and when Tylenol didn't touch it, I decided it was time to see Mr. Jack Daniels about the problem.  

 

I'm not certain if it helped the pain or not, but we found our friends we met in Seattle and decided to attend both comedy shows with the comedians who were freshly aboard.  All of us were pretty...um... let's just say not ok to drive... and we found the comedy to be some of the funniest we'd seen in years.  The Spirit has a fairly large comedy club, permitting them to not have to clear it after every show.  We spent the rest of the night laughing and trying to drink away the pain of miles of hiking and adventure.  

 

Next up: Ketchikan!

[Indytraveler83]

The next day was Ketchikan, and we were dragging badly.  At first look, the area is cute and historic looking.  We got off the ship looking to do the "Salmon Walk" to get our blood moving in the morning.  

 

Again, at first it was nice.  We crossed a bridge and watched seals hunt salmon at the mouth of the creek.

 

We continued down Creek Street and saw the dying days of the salmon run here as well.  However, low tide and some pretty rocky ledges combined to create a gory scene (which I won't show) of stranded, torn up, rotting fish.  The area smelled of them too. The salmon ladder was a cool thing to see though:

 

We were a little disappointed to find this historic district teeming with non-local mass market vendors.  Yes there are a few locals here, but as with much of Alaska, finding local artists and locally made goods is a little harder than it should be.

 

The Salmon Walk turned a little harder as well.  The street signs do little to help direct you, and we twice found ourselves in parking lots with no way to go.  Another attempt put us in front of the local homeless shelter, where we were finally offered some locally made goods.  Unfortunately, illicit drugs weren't the type of souvenirs we intended to collect, so we headed back toward the toward the dock to attend the nearby Lumberjack show.

 

The show itself was cute and filled with both humor and history lessons.  While not the legendary experience our other excursions were, we laughed and cheered enough to make it worth it.  Given our rather smelly and irritating walk through town, it felt worth it.

 

We walked around a little more and I bought a few cheap Alaska items from the shops I rather despise as gifts for friend and then we headed back to the ship.  

 

Note: I'll note here that this is likely not a bad stop.  We were worn down from over a week of hiking and exploring at this point, and being a relatively short stop, we had directed most of our shore excursion budget to the first two stops.  We heard of some very fun fishing excursions here, and if it was longer, we likely would have done more. 

 

We made it back on the ship in time for a rare  seated lunch, which looked as good as anything on formal nights:

 

We spent the rest of the evening listening to music on a very weird feeling day.  This is the last night of evening entertainment on the cruise due to the late stop in Victoria on the next day.  

 

The violin trio was nice to hear for the last time, and the member that recognized us actually spent one of her breaks talking to us, asking for advice on shore excursions (they just boarded the ship and we're trying to make the most of it before it repositioned in a few weeks).  

 

The piano bar was fun as well, and we spoke with everyone for a while after before finally heading for bed around midnight.

 

Up next: Victoria BC

[Indytraveler83]

Victoria BC:

 

One of the most unusual days we've had cruising.  We woke up very late and had a true brunch for once.  

 

We spent most of the day hanging out on Serenity, reading and relaxing as the ship headed to Canada.  

 

Onboard entertainment was pretty much non-existent, with no evening entertainment scheduled at all.  We had signed up for Seattle's Port Valet service, so for the first time in our cruise career we set our bags outside after dinner as we prepared for the port stop.

 

 

Ok, so this was the lowlight of our cruise.  Carnival shuts down entertainment and let's you know how badly they want you to get off the ship and explore Victoria.  We didn't get an excursion as the stop is only a few short hours.

 

Once off the ship, if you don't have an excursion, you have two options:  attempt to board a double decker shuttle bus with every single person on the ship for $17/person or take a pedicab into town for $80.  We stood in line for the shuttle for a few minutes and realized it was going to take forever to get on the bus, let alone get downtown and do anything.  Frustrated, we got back on the ship and got a snack before heading to bed.  

 

I know this stop is a legal necessity for Alaskan cruises.  But this stop is junk.  Absolutely junk.  There's no effort to even make is slightly appealing or even accommodating to passengers.  And shutting down all onboard entertainment to encourage people to get off the ship is even more junk.  Next time we will eat late and get a drink or two on the open decks to close out the evening.  

 

Up next:  Heading home and final thoughts

 

 

 

[Indytraveler83]

We had a bit of an adventure heading home.  Delta has some sort of pilot issue that caused our initial flight to Salt Lake City to be delayed.  When we landed there, we had 5 minutes to make the gate on the flight to Detroit, so we ended up sprinting to the gate like in the movies!

 

The rest of the trip was pretty easy, justifying why we'd chosen to fly out of Detroit rather than O'Hare.  

 

Final thoughts:

 

*Alaskan ports are amazing.  It's an epic adventure I will never forget, and I hope everyone gets a chance to do this at least once.  

 

*Carnival does a pretty good job of adapting to the cold weather cruise and we really enjoyed the onboard experience, even if it's a bit toned down.  

 

*If/when we do this again, we will likely take one of the slightly different itineraries that permit more time on every port.  Our least favorite part was the very short port times to end the cruise.  

 

* After a very rough experience on the Valor, we were happy to have a good overall cruise on the Spirit.  The Spirit class might be the only remaining older ships we will sail in the future.  

 

Questions?  Thought?  Here to answer anything that you think I missed!

[five.]

It looks like with your signature you are all-in on Carnival, but thought I would mention that Glacier Bay is worth trying another line that is going through there. They award different cruise lines with access each year, thought I don't know exactly how that works. In 2022 the day we were there it was HAL and Princess I think and only two can go through per day.

[five.]

I went looking for more info on the GB topic and found some useful info:

https://www.nps.gov/glba/planyourvisit/area-visitor-services-listing.htm

https://cruisefever.net/best-cruise-line-alaska/

https://old.reddit.com/r/royalcaribbean/comments/1301rpb/glacier_bay_questions/jhvuw5d/

 

Essentially HAL and Princess are grandfathered in and get the most days, but are limited to half-days and can visit 3 of the 8 glaciers. In order to see all 8 of the glaciers, you'd have to go with the smaller ships that are listed as tour vessels in the nps.gov link. Some of those ships are there for multiple days in order to see everything. I mainly went looking because I was curious myself and thought I'd share with others.

 

A quote from one of the above articles:

A concession plan announced in 2019 limits the visits of cruise ships to two ships per day.  Cruise lines must be granted permission from the park authorities to carry passengers to this region.  Currently, these include Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America, Princess Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Seabourn, Uncruise Adventures, Viking Ocean, and a few others.  This agreement will be in effect until 2030, so if you want to make Glacier Bay a part of your cruising experience you can look to book with one of these cruise lines.

Edited September 25, 2023 by five.

[Indytraveler83]

7 hours ago, five. said:

It looks like with your signature you are all-in on Carnival, but thought I would mention that Glacier Bay is worth trying another line that is going through there. They award different cruise lines with access each year, thought I don't know exactly how that works. In 2022 the day we were there it was HAL and Princess I think and only two can go through per day.

 

I'll have to keep an eye on that.  We have been fully Carnival, but part of it is simply because we are now about two cruises away from Platinum, and trying to get that loyalty status!  Lol.  I'd be open to trying others, especially for specific places or itineraries.

[TinkLoverSam]

We found an awesome local yarn store in Ketchikan that carried locally dyed yarn. Possibly only an interesting stop for other knitters/hookers/yarn artists.

[five.]

19 hours ago, TinkLoverSam said:

We found an awesome local yarn store in Ketchikan that carried locally dyed yarn. Possibly only an interesting stop for other knitters/hookers/yarn artists.

This reminded me of the Glacier Smoothie soap store in Juneau. Another local store to check out.

[latebloomer56]

We have cruised Alaska three times but not on Carnival yet. Have been looking at this ship to take pour grandson who will be 14 next month. Question how did you like the balcony cabin? We want an unobstructed balcony as we use this. Was it covered? Would a third person be comfortable a balcony cabin on this ship? We like smaller vessels but because it will be his first trip to Alaska and my last sadly we would venture on a larger ship.

Thanks for your review appreciate your viewpoint.