9.18.2010

Alaskan Travelogue: Part 1

After working a half day on Thursday morning, the trip began with our flight to Vancouver from Dulles via San Francisco. By the time our taxi dropped us off at our hotel in downtown Vancouver we were pretty exhausted (it was 2am EST) and we went straight to bed. Even in our limited time there the next day, Vancouver was a fun city to explore. We walked through the historic Gas town district, Chinatown, and through the main shopping district. After walking around town all day and trying to stay dry, we eventually made it to the Vancouver pier at about 3:00 PM.

One of our unintended traveling goals is to get in an inconsequential mishap as soon as we enter another country. For Canada it ended up revolving around the surge protector. Several people before the trip had strongly recommended that a surge protector would be absolutely necessary for our cruise. Never having been on a cruise before it made sense to us; unfortunately, Royal Caribbean scanned our carry-on luggage and immediately managers were called to confiscate our contraband. More on this later when we attempted to get it back after the cruise.

When we first got on the ship, Sarah and I both had a moment of "what did we sign up for," but we actually mostly enjoyed our time at sea. I don’t think we’ll ever go on a cruise just to go on a cruise (well at least not for 30 years or so when we hit the average cruiser age group), but once we found out what we liked we found several ways to entertain ourselves. The “My Time” dining worked out really well for us. Instead of eating at the same time with the same people every night, we could choose any time for dinner and either ate by ourselves at a table for two or with a different group of people every night. The evening shows in the theater were hit and miss. One comedian duo was really good; the other comedian wasn't so hot. Sarah liked the Broadway musical type productions better than me, but overall they were generally worth going to. I was a little annoyed at some of the nickel-and-diming for cruise ship activities. We learned quickly to look for the ($) on the daily activities list that indicated an extra charge. We did splurge one night to pay extra for the specialty steak restaurant, and it was totally worth it. We liked the mini-golf, table tennis (especially challenging with the wind while the ship was moving), and even played volleyball the last day at sea. I actually went to the fitness center a couple of times (which was a very nice facility) and even won some money at the Video Poker machines in the Casino. We made it a point to attend each session of the progressive trivia game, and I thought we did pretty well for just the two of us (most teams had 5-6 people); we were in 5th place at one point.

Even though we found some stuff to do on the ship, it was nice to get off when we arrived at Ketchikan. Ketchikan is one of the rainiest cities in the country and also very well known for their salmon. We saw our first Salmon ladder in Ketchikan; it was interesting to see the fish fight to go upstream first hand. Our excursion that day was a several hour kayak tour with Southeast Sea Kayaks near the Tongass National Forest. They took us by speed boat to the islands were we kayaked together in the area known as Orca’s Cove. We saw plenty of sea wildlife, lots of starfish and jellyfish, as well as two bald eagles. Sarah even held one of the non-stinging jelly fish in her hands. Although we got some rain, it was a lot of fun. The hot cocoa and smoked salmon they had waiting for us on our return boat trip was tasty and a great way to end the trip.

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