Seattle Part 2

When we woke up on Saturday morning we were back in Seattle.  Chris got up to take a  photo of the beautiful sunrise.

Leaving the ship was really straightforward. We chose to carry our own bags off which meant we were one of the first groups to disembark. We managed to jump straight in a taxi and were able to check straight into our next hotel (Hotel Monaco) when we arrived at about 8.30am.

Later in the morning we headed back out to Pike Place Market then to Top Pot doughnuts. We both tried the Bulls Eye doughnut, it was huge and really good!

After filling up on our doughnuts we jumped on a public bus to take us to Discovery Park. The park is about 40 minutes north of the city and is built on a former fort. It's a bit of a strange place, there are loads of trails (all badly signposted which is something we're getting used to!) and lots of empty military buildings.

We took a trail down to one of the beaches but without a map it was quite hard to figure out where to go so after getting to the beach we just followed the same route back to get a bus back into Seattle. 

 On Saturday evening we had baseball tickets to see the Seattle Mariners against the Kansas City Royals. It was a great game, lots of action, bit different to watching the Nationals.

 

On Sunday morning we had to catch our flight back to DC but we had time for one last stop at the 2nd most unhygienic tourist attraction in the world - the chewing gum wall.  It was gross!

Our flight home was a bit of a nightmare, we got delayed in Milwaukee and ended up getting home at 2.15am. 4 hours later were up for work and back to reality!

We had a great holiday and enjoyed our first cruise experience. I wouldn't say we loved it, there were quite a few things that disappointed us. I don't think it would be our first choice of a holiday in the future but I wouldn't rule out doing one again.

Victoria

We arrived in Victoria, British Colombia at about 6.30pm on Friday evening.  It was about a 30 minute walk from the dock to the town, most people got on a shuttle bus but as it was a lovely evening Chris and I walked.

Our first stop was a supermarket so that we could stock up on maltesers and smarties! Canadian maltesers are the same as the ones you get in the UK and the smarties are even better than the ones in the UK, they taste like they used to taste years ago before they changed them.  We looked like a couple of piggies at the checkout with a conveyer belt full of chocolate!

Victoria is a really beautiful city, it feels very European.  This was Chris' first visit to Canada and he loved it as much as I do.  After walking around the government building and harbour we had a wonder around the shops.  I bought a few things that I wanted in The Bay, a big Canadian department store and we managed to find another good Canadian store - Roots.

It was a shame that we only had about 3 hours in the city before we had to get back to our boat.  There were lots of pubs that looked really good so it would have been good to stay a few days or at least overnight.

Our Final Day on Board

Friday was our last day of the cruise.  We were due to stop in Victoria in the evening but until then we had most of the day at sea.

We still weren't really feeling up to eating much but I did find room for a little cherry cheesecake from the International Cafe.

The cakes from here were free so I think I did really well to only eat here about 3 times during the whole cruise.

The weather was completely different today so we went outside for a game of golf...

Then sat outside on our balcony reading our books, sunbathing and eating ice cream!

Ketchikan

When we woke up on Thursday morning we were in Ketchikan.  We were thinking about getting a float plane up to the Misty Fjords but the weather was really bad so when Chris phoned up to check to see if anything was available they said they weren't doing any tours because the rain and fog meant you wouldn't be able to see anything.

Instead we decided to go for a walk around the town in the rain.  Despite the bad weather, I think this was my favourite town, it felt more unspoilt than the others.  We walked to Creek Street and took the funicular railway up the hill and then a trail back down again.

The creek was really powerful. Apparently Ketchikan has a rainforest climate and it rains here most of the time.

After a couple of hours of wondering around in the rain, we were starting to get wet through our waterproof clothes so we decided it was time to head back to the ship for lunch.  

We went to the gym then later in the afternoon we had afternoon tea...

Then found ourselves a comfy place to read our books.

That evening was the second and last formal dinner night. We really enjoyed the first one and wanted to go but after eating so much all week neither of us felt like eating anything. I didn't think I'd even be able to manage a starter! The first NFL game of the season was taking place in the evening and they made an announcement that they'd managed to get a signal for it so would be able to broadcast it live. We went outside to the deck where they provided us with blankets to sit and watch it on the big screen.

In the end Chris managed to find some room for a hot dog and fries!

Glacier Bay National Park

This was the day that we had been looking forward to and one of the reasons that we had decided to take a cruise to Alaska.

We started the day with breakfast in the dining room.   Then we spent a really relaxing day scenic cruising through Glacier Bay National Park.  National Park Service Rangers boarded the ship and gave a commentary on what we were seeing.  We went up to the deck to start with while the glaciers were on one side of the ship then went back to our balcony when the ship turned around to watch everything from there.  It was pretty cold in the morning but by the afternoon we were sitting on the balcony in shorts.

Margerie Glacier is the biggest glacier that we could get closest too, it was amazing.  We spent about an hour there just watching the ice calving (where the ice falls off the glacier).  It probably happened about 8 times while we were watching and it makes an amazing noise like firecrackers as it falls off and hits the water.

It's difficult to see the scale of the Margerie Glacier from photos, this photo helps to show how big it is compared to a boat...

I took hundreds of photos of the glaciers so here are just a few of them...

I think the one below was the Lamplugh Glacier.  The cruise ship next to it helps to give you an idea of its size.  Only 2 cruise ships are allowed in Glacier Bay every day, this was a Holland America ship which was the other one there that day.

Below is the John Hopkins Glacier, one of the most impressive.  Unfortunately the ships aren't allowed to get very close to this one but the view was still amazing.

I think this one was the Reid Glacier..

As we sailed out of Glacier Bay we were told to keep an eye out for whales as the shallower waters meant that there was lots of fish for them to feed on.  We were so lucky, we saw loads of orcas (killer whales) and humpbacks.  The orcas tended to swim in pods and jumped out of the water lots but too fast to take photographs.  The humpbacks moved much slower and were really easy to spot as they blew water up.  A few came really close to the ship.  It helped that the waters were so calm it was easy to spot anything disturbing the surface.

Below was the only time that we saw a full breach but unfortunately I didn't quite manage to capture it on camera!