Alaska Cruise: Ketchikan (Day 6)

Known as "Alaska's First City", Ketchikan is the first major community travelers come to as they travel north.  Founded as a fishing camp, Ketchikan is a bustling community backed by forested hills and surrounded by a waterway busy with float planes, fishing boats, ferries and cruise ships.  It has the largest collection of totem poles in the world and thus also known as the Totem Pole capital of the world!

It was another beautiful sunny day when we woke up in Ketchikan.  It was a gifted day as Ketchikan's yearly rain downfall is often as much as 13 feet!!!  We were so blessed with the good weather through-out the time we ashore.
 

View from our room balcany when we woke up in Ketchikan

Originally, we were thinking to take a taxi or hop on public bus to get around in Ketchikan, mainly to visit the Potlatch Park and Creek Street.  However, we ended up purchased the "Ketchikan Highlights Express" shore excursion through the shore excursion desk on ship at last minutes.  Ketchikan is the port in Alaska that has the shortest time ashore (not counting Victoria port in Canada) and we wish not to have the same experience as Juneau where we were rushing through the city visit and shopping.

As the "Ketchikan Highlights Express" departs only at 9am, we went down from ship to do some shopping first at 8am to capitalize the time we had in Ketchikan.  I found that Ketchikan offered the cheapest shopping among the 3 ports of call in Alaska (Skayway, Juneau & Ketchikan).  BTW, remember to pick up the shopping guide from the Seattle terminal during the embarkation day, there were amazing discount coupon inside that you can get some souvenirs at very cheap price and some freebies.

"Ketchikan Highlights Express" brought us to Potlatch park - a fully recreated 19th century native Alaska Village, where the traditions and culture of the Native peoples were showcased. 

Beautifully carved totems, tribal houses, carving center, vintage vehicle and antique cars were among the things that we saw and visited.
 

One of the tribal home

Inside the main tribal house

 

Inside the Carving Center 

Vintage Vehicles & Antique Cars

We passed by some of the city's colorful landmarks on our return to town, including the creek street.  However, this tour does not make any stop in the city.  According to the driver, he can't make a stop and drop us at Creek Street.  We were driven back to the pick-up point at the city.  We then took a 15min walk to the Creek Street, explored the Ketchikan on foot along the way, before we returned to ship.

We went to Empire Restaurant for a course lunch instead of usual buffet lunch at La Playa.  And for dinner, it was a dress up dinner night this day.  We have pretty good food as usual. 

The girls had a pretty good time that night prior to return to the stateroom for the surprise towel creation.  :)

Party time during dinner

Girls danced on the dance floor

Creative towel surprise of the day

Alaska Cruise: Juneau (Day 5)

Juneau - the capital of Alaska, is named after gold prospector Joe Juneau.  It was once an integral part of Alaska's Gold Rush.  The steep summits of Mt. Juneau and Mt. Roberts provide a gorgeous backdrop.  Juneau is accessible only by sea or air, it boasts more miles of hiking trials than roads!

We visited the popular Mendenhall Glacier via Glacier Shuttle which run from downtown to Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center every half hour, cost $16 (round trip) per person, a much lower-cost way to see Mendenhall Glacier.  However, we regretted to find out that the shuttle was not quite on time.  We were on 9:30am shuttle but the shuttle was not moving till 'bout 9:50am. 

Mendenhall Glacier is located 12 miles from downtown Juneau and we were stunned by the view of glacier face from far prior to approaching.

The Mendenhall Glacier view far from road

The View of Mendenhall Glacier Entrance


The mighty Mendenhall Glacier, an immense moving river of ice with rugged crevasses and a distinctive blue colour, ranks as the largest glacier in southeast Alaska accessible by road.  It is 12 miles long and connects to the Juneau Icefield.

We took a leisure walk, following the trail to the photo points for a closer look of the glacier.

The view was really impressive.  We had a good time and thoroughly enjoy ourselves there.



Girls had fun playing on the rocks

We then visited the visitor center for some exhibits, saw the audio visual presentations and enjoy a panoramic view of the Glacier with a small amount of admission fee at $3 per pax.

On our way back, we waited at the pick-up point since 11:50am to catch 12:00 noon shuttle.  Before we arrived to the pick up point, there's already people waiting and the crowd just growing.  There were many shuttle passed by, but there was no sign of ours till about 12:30pm.  I believe one schedule has been missed.  It started to shower rain at bout 12:00 noon and it was cold waiting outside for bout 30min or so.  With only a short 1 hour left prior to boarding the ship, we didn't have much time to explore the city and shopping.  :(
 

Long Q back to the ship

Back to some of the food we took:

Besides the monumental Mendenhall Glacier, what made our day special in Juneau was the beautiful 180 degree double rainbow right in front of our balcony in the late afternoon.  I can still vividly remember the excitement of spot that double rainbow when the girls woke up from their afternoon nap.  This was my first to see a rainbow right from the sea instead of in the sky.

Can you spot the 2nd rainbow...?

The 180 degree double rainbow were too wide that our camera just can't capture them in one shot from our balcony...

But i think what excite the girls most was still the daily creative towel animal.  Everyday after dinner, they will impatiently rush into the stateroom to reveal what surprise was awaiting them.  :)

Girls were excited to see a hanging monkey in the room