Joanne and Muriel on a Cruise to Alaska

This is a mini post-vacation blog since we didn't have wifi on the cruise (too cheap to pay $20/day). This vacation started at Christmas when my mom (Muriel) gave me a 'promise' gift to take me on a three day weekend later in the year.  We were thinking a long weekend on the island or one of the Gulf Islands.  But then in the spring, mom called and said, why don't we go on an Alaskan Cruise.  As she put it, "so you never need to go on a cruise again".  She is not in sales by the way. We found a deal on Cruise.com for an Alaska cruise round trip from Seattle.  Leaves Seattle on Friday, returns the following Friday but with a last stop in Victoria on Thursday.  We decided to get off in Victoria and skip the last night. We booked it, booked the Clipper and a hotel in Seattle.  The Clipper got into Seattle at 2:15, we had to be on the cruise ship by 2:30 so we had to spend the night. Clipper It was super smokey in Victoria when we left so everyth...

We set sail at 4pm on Friday.  Our next day was at sea. Leaving Seattle View of the dock as we leave First day, first order of business, find our room and then tour the ship. We were on deck 8, Port, Aft, inside room (no window). The deck on the level 11 Oh no, another shared bed! But they separated them for us. Room service is great. The pool area, deck 11 View of the pool from deck 12 Adults only pool Promanade, deck 5 Library and Games room, deck 7 Casino, deck 5, we spent no time here T he centre of the ship is open from Deck 4 to 11 Palace Theatre for the big show, deck 3 walking track, deck 11

I got up super early to see the sun rise.  We were passing Vancouver Island (too far out to see it) and I thought the smoke might make for a nice view.  Yup! No sun yet There it is After that, it was foggy the whole day. But that's ok because they kept us entertained with shows and food. No one is sitting by the pool today The Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers in the Palace Theatre Dinner in the Starlight Dining Room.  Almost a window seat.

We sailed into Juneau for noon disembarkation (they use that word a lot). Which meant we got to watch our approach to the city from deck. That's Juneau, way in the distance We were the fourth cruise ship to arrive.   We were at dock AJ, which is a mile or so out of town so we had to bus it into the centre of the city (or walk but we chose bus). Once we were off the ship, we did our own 'shore excursion'.  There is a tram up the mountain overlooking the city.  It basically leaves from the cruise ship dock (Tourism Alaska ain't no dummies).  We had been advised by previous cruisers (mostly Amy) to not book ahead since it is so often foggy in Alaska and the view would be nonexistent.  But as it happened, it was a GORGEOUS day.  Like 30 degrees and not a cloud to be seen.  I actually got a sunburn!.  Anyway, up the tram to a gift shop (there is always a gift shop) and some tra...