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.

 

8-29-07 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.