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Karrell's HAL Zaandam Alaska Cruise -  June 2004

We're back from the Inside Passage Cruise on the Zaandam & we are ready to go again. It was totally awesome, the best vacation I have ever been on even though we had a few alterations to our plans.

First there was a medical emergency & we had to turn back and lost 6 hours, so Tracy's Arm was out. Our first night out there was a 7.0 earthquake, right under our ship, which we didn't feel. The ship behind us though felt it. Also, because of the having to turn back we got to Juneau late and missed seeing much of the town of Juneau because of our whale watching excursion, only one shop & the saloon were open when we got back. My advice, skip the whale watching tour. We saw so many whales on the ship and some of them closer than we saw on the excursion. Same with the eagles. We saw no animal-based wildlife.

The ship was totally awesome. We had a mini-suite with a balcony. A balcony is the way to go! It was my first time with one on a cruise, but on all the rest, I will have one.

In Skagway we were scheduled to go on a float plane to the Brooklands, but because of the fires in the Yukon the float plane couldn't come to get us. But we had a nice ride up to BC, along the road the White Pass Railroad follows. It was very beautiful, all the wildflowers were in bloom. When I got back to Skagway I got an
excursion from Skagway Air on a plane to the glaciers and looking for wildlife. This was a great thing to do. I saw no animal wildlife at all on the entire trip.

When I got back from the plane ride I went to the Musher's Dog Sledding & Camp - that was very cool. The weather was beautiful and the dogs were very sweet. It was an experience, and next time I will go to the snow. All the helicopter/dog sled trips were canceled also because of the smoke.

In Skagway it is very windy by the ships and I got very cold there, the next morning we were cruising Glacier Bay and I stayed cold. The coldest I was the entire trip. But this is an awesome place!

On the way down to Ketchikan we saw more whales, eagles, sea lions & otters. This was so cool. But take binoculars, only one whale and a sea lion were really close to our ship. Our table mates too the Float plane to the Misty Fijords, they said it was well worth the $$$.

In Ketchikan you need a rain poncho. When we got there it was sunny, but it started raining not long after. I spent a lot of money in Ketchikan & Skagway, because in all my travels, Alaska supports its artists best and you can find so many beautiful Alaskan made works of art. For lots of fun go the the Soho Coho shop on Creek Street - awesome t-shirts!

I took way too many clothes. On cruising days I wore a pair of lined windbreaker pants. On the ship I bought a fleece vest ($20) and wore that every day. I also wore my wind breaker, a long sleeved shirt & a cami underneath. When we went to the towns I wore jeans. In Ketchikan I got rid of the windbreaker. I never wore the fleece jacket I took, I liked the vest much better. In Glacier Bay I wore gloves too.

I took dressier casual clothes to eat dinner at night, but we only ate in the dining room about 3 nights. 3 nights we were in town and ate at the buffet and one night we at in the Pinnicale Room, it was our anniversary. The food there was extraodinary. Didn't see but one show, the magician/comedian - awesome.

Alaska was such a beautiful place I can't wait to go back, but this time I will go mid/end July/August & will also go to Denali. I came back with 400 pictures (not counting the 30 or so I deleted for various reasons).

Karrel in Tampa

Have fun y'all!

 

 

More on Alaska

Click on Member Trip Reports to the left to see more Alaska trip reports.  Click on Tim's Cruise Reviews to read Tim's review of his Alaska cruise.

 

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