2007 Alaska cruise

2007 Aug. 24-31 (7 nt) Alaska Cruise--Royal Caribbean Vision of the Seas: Juneau, Skagway, Prince Rupert, Tracy Arm

For as long as I can remember, Dad had 2 dream vacations that he wanted to take---one was to go on an Alaska cruise and the other was to go to Ireland. Unfortunately, he never got to do the Ireland trip, but after his first round of chemo, I immediately booked him and me an Alaska cruise. By then he was fighting metastatic prostate cancer and recovered from colon cancer surgery and chemo for colon cancer. By the looks of him, he appeared to be doing well. If he wasn't, he never let on. But within a week of our return, he was in the hospital fighting for his life and on dialysis for blocked kidney tubes due to his prostate cancer. Stints were able to be put into his kidney tubes and he did recover from that, but the cancer treatments were beginning to stop working now. My best friend and great traveling buddy was on his last great vacation with me, but I didn't know it at the time.  I will cherish this dream vacation with my Dad always.

8-24-07 Embarkation day

 

8-25-07 sea day and around the RC Vision of the Seas

8-26-07  Juneau

 

8-27-07 Skagway 

 

8-28-07 Tracy Arm 

 

8-29-07 Prince Rupert 

 

8-30-07 inside passage

 

We woke up back in Seattle and joined the crowds waiting to debark. The parking garage across the street from the port was convenient. We were on the road within an hour and heading back to Oregon. It truely was a spectacular trip.

 

8-30-07 inside passage

The rest of the cruise back to Seattle was through the "inside passage". Lots of mystical views of the mountains along the way.

 Certainly was smoother then the outside passage!

 and prettier

 calmness

 At one point, we even had hundreds of dolphins come out to swim with our ship---too bad I didn't have my camera then.

 Later the ship staff did a nations parade.

 Pretty neat seeing all the flags

 back to admiring the inside passage.

 We were even treated to a brilliant sunset on our last night.

8-29-07 Prince Rupert

Next port of call was Prince Rupert, Canada. I thought it odd that an Alaska cruise went to a Canada port, but later found out if a foreign owned cruise starts in the USA, it has to port in a foreign country. I don't think I would take another cruise that ports in Prince Rupert. It was struggling to make it as a cruise port, but really didn't have much to offer us. There were lots of excursions that offered fish bar b qs or lumber jack competitions, but we didn't want to go to either.

 We did walk to the nearby Safeway (had a Frito craving)

  and toured a little museum (I think it was $5@ admittance fee). It was ok, but small.

some of the museum pieces

 After checking out the museum, we headed back to the ship. This statue helped us find it.

 Good bye Prince Rupert

 back to the inside passage

 and dinner

 and the show "Cats".  I remember Dad tearing up when he'd here "memories" shortly after Mom died.  Hope this didn't bring back sad memories.

 One more day of our cruise.

8-28-07 Tracy Arm

 The next morning we awoke to a cruise through the Tracy Arm Fjord. We were told that a fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides, created in a valley carved out by a glacial.

 At the end of Tracy Arm are 2 glaciers. We were able to get fairly close to one of the Sawyer Glaciers.

 The icebergs in the water were colorful.

 Hard to tell here, but the water was a really milky colored blue green---from the melting of the icebergs.

 The water was really calm in the fjord.

 beautiful reflections.

 heading back out

 passing a tour boat on our way

 More beautiful views

I thought this was pretty impressive, but on a later cruise, I got to see Glacier Bay and would pick it over Tracy Arm anyday!

8-27-07 Skagway

 I was really impressed with Juneau and didn't think it could be beat. Then we got to Skagway the next day and I was even more impressed! The port of Skagway is a popular stop for cruise ships, and the tourist trade is a big part of the business of Skagway. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 862. However, the population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with more than 900,000 visitors. In 1896, the Klondike gold rush started and Skagway was a stepping stone into the Yukon Territory.

 I was awestruck by the towering mountains.  Even on the 10th floor of the cruise ship, the mountains right next to the port towered over us.

 Looking down at some of the passengers waiting for their excursion.

 We did another expensive cruise ship sponsored tour in Skagway. This one was a 7 hour bus tour/White Pass Train tour that went up into the Yukon.  The first part of our tour was by bus.  Along the way we saw many amazing sights!---Such as this waterfall.

 looking back on the road and bridge.

 We rode past many lakes and rivers. The scenery was unbelievable beautiful!

 As soon as we would pass one amazing view, we were treated to another.

 And another!

 And another!

 Even a couple mountain goats.

 we finally reached Cariboo Crossing trading post where there was a bar b q lunch set up for us. The bar b q was ok, but the fried doughnuts were the best!  There was also a little museum there with lots of stuffed animals of the Yukon.

 Also in this trading post were activities such as dog sled rides (for a fee). I thought these were some pretty skinny looking sled dogs.

 After lunch, our tour bus took us a little further into the Yukon.

 Up to Emerald Lake.  The colors of this lake were stunning. I sure wouldn't mind having that log house to the right of the picture (at least during the summer months!)

 Another stop on our tour was Carcross. This was a short stop where we visited an icecream parlor and walked around the streets a bit.

 Loved this view of this church in Carcross.

 Then we continued on our way

 looking back on the sign to the entrance into the Yukon.

 a map of where we went----Skagway-Whitehourse and back

 Coming back down the Alaskan highway to Skagway we stopped at the train station for the White Pass Railroad (right by the border of the Yukon and British Columbia). This is from the parking lot there. We took the train back down to Skagway.

 Built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush, this narrow gauge railroad is an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. From sea level it climbs nearly 3000 feet in just 20 miles and features steep grades of up to 3.9%. Again the views were unbelievable!

 It made a stop along the way to pick up some hikers.

 Back in Skagway, we still had time to check out the town a bit. We saw there was a brewery there and went and tried their beer and spiced nut snacks. Both were excellent. We were able to catch the local bus there.

 On the way back, we stopped in town and shopped some of the gift shops. I even bought myself a set of tlingit indians matryoshka dolls.

 From town, we walked back to the ship.

 The mountains made the ships look small in comparison!

 While in Skagway, some locals had mentioned that it was suppose to be a perfect night for catching the northern lights. I had read that we weren't going far enough north to see them, so was excited about having the chance to witness them. So about midnight, we wandered through the deserted ship to the lido deck and watched and waited. There was also a total eclipse of the moon going on that night.

 About 1 am, we and about 3 other people were on the deck and watching the northern lights dance across the sky. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. It only lasted about 20 all too short minutes. The next night I had asked some of the ship employees if they'd ever seen them and they didn't even know what I was talking about.

 the photos don't do them justice!

As wonderful as I thought the day was, I wonder now if the jostling of the bus and train was bothering Dad.  shortly after the cruise we found out his cancer was advancing and had metastasized to his bladder.  I noticed he had really slowed down on his photo taking.  I figured something was going on, but didn't want to say anything.