We flew from SFO to Vancouver on Friday 6/19 and checked into the Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver when the agent at the front desk whispered to me that we had gotten a free "upgrade". And she was right!
That's the view from one of the two corner windows. This one faced roughly west and the other faced south. So, we could see the city and the bay.
We saw our ship, the Nordam, coming in to dock!
Since we couldn't board the ship until after lunch, we walked along the water to Stanley Park. We didn't get very far before we had to turn back, but the weather was awesome -- maybe a bit warm even.
Lynda, Janet and Nana went on to check into the boat and Ray walked to the train station to pick up the boys (Travis, Alex and cousin Michael) so they could all ride the sky train back to the port. The boat (they don't like you to call them boats and prefer we refer to them as ships which is why I will be using the term boat henceforth) dock was immediately below the hotel and you had to go through both security and customs which meant some sitting around:
Once on board, Ray got a huge surprise as Lynda had (uncharacteristically) accepted an upgrade and we got the most amazing room (along with Nana/Janet who were next door):
Note that the fruit and sparkling wine was included! Ray spent many an hour sitting on that couch, sipping something delicious and staring out the doors.
After a day at sea,
we stopped at Juneau where Ray and the boys got on board a helicopter which flew to a glacier.
The guides strapped glacier boot clamp-ons which were basically metal brackets with the equivalent of nails pointing downward to keep you from sliding on the frozen glacier. Then, because our group was small and mostly young/fit people (Ray appreciated being included in that), the guide was able to take them places that normal groups don't get to.
Here they peer into a
Moulin
and check out one of the thousands of huge crevasses
The next day, Tuesday, Alex and Ray got to go rock climbing. Here's a cool set of pictures showing Alex's prowess:
Ray was a bit less graceful:
That was morning. In the afternoon, they went Zip lining with Lynda, Janet and Travis. Here they are afterwards.
After such a grueling day, Ray checked out the Jacuzzi in the bathroom of the fabulous room and then to his favorite place on the balcony
Wednesday was a day at sea where we went up the inside passage to glacier bay and saw some incredible sights; whales, orca, dolphins, eagles, not to mention quite a few glaciers:
Thursday we pulled into Ketchican (the wettest city on our tour with an average rainfall of 160 inches per year). And true to it's reputation it rained. We bravely went on with our canoe/nature walk and got soaked crossing to where the "snack" was. Admittedly, the snack was good and maybe because we worked so hard to get there, it was all that much better when we finally got it.
The way back we had the wind at our backs so it took half the time as going out. We stopped in at Creek Street and looked for souvenirs.
That night was another formal night
And after another beautiful day at sea, we finally left Alaska and had a pretty uneventful trip home (we won't mention Ray's meltdown in the Vancouver airport).
