Back from Alaska

If you just want to see pictures instead of read about the trip, you can go directly to the picture gallery. But you'll miss a stellar trip recap.


We just returned from a one week cruise to Alaska aboard the MS Zaandam (aka the JC VaanDam) This trip was courtesy of the man's very generous mom and stepdad. On board were me and the man, the girls, the man's brother and sister-in-law, and the aforementioned parents.

The trip by and large was wonderful. We had a terrible thing happen to us the first day. Something very valuable to us was stolen (or lost) between luggage check in and delivery to our stateroom. Most disappointing was the utter lack of concern shown to us by Holland America. They seemed to just want us to get through the week and off their ship so they wouldn't have to deal with us anymore. Seriously, the people at the front desk would literally flee to the back when they saw us coming.

Other than that, Alaska was very cool. It really only rained one day while we were there, during the ziplining adventure. That was in Juneau, which besides the ziplining was our least favorite stop on the cruise.

If you're interested, check out our zipping videos by clicking on one of the names below:

Kelly

Susan

John

Megan

The next day was cruising Glacier Bay. The sun was shining and the air was so crisp and clean that we spent most of the day out on deck just staring at the glaciers. They didn't look the same as the glacier that the man and I walked on during our honeymoon in Banff, but were cool in their own way.

In Sitka, we took a whale and sea otter watching trip. Again, it was a beautiful sunny day, and we saw whole colonies of sea otters, harbor seals, and humpback whales so close we could almost touch them.

Ketchikan is a pretty little town, known mostly for being the 1st Alaskan town and a big salmon place. No salmon were running while we were there, but we enjoyed a horse-drawn trolley ride around the touristy part of town and spent some time later enjoying the sunshine and walking around the shops. Again, it was a beautiful day but we didn't have a lot of time to spend in Ketchikan.

Victoria was the last day of the cruise. We were only there from 8pm - 11:30pm, so we didn't have many daylight hours to see the city. We really liked it there though, it was so clean and pretty. We decided we'd definitely take a weekend trip back there since it's so close to us. Maybe we'll have High Tea at the Empress hotel.

All in all, a great trip. We really enjoyed being able to spend some time with the family and catching up on everyone's lives. Now if we could just get some of those people to move here...yes, architects, we're talking about you :-)

Check out My People's Picture Gallery if you want to see some of the pics of the trip...be forewarned, there are many. Editing is not our forte.