Eight Days Later (and Probably Ten Pounds Heavier)... We Are Back!

Well, our cruise has come and gone! It's so sad! Typically, we take our family vacation in May or June, but this year it wasn't until August, and it was so hard to wait. And now, it's over in what seems like a blink of an eye! What a crock! But we had SUCH a good time! I could probably write a 10 page blog about this, but I will try to keep it short!

We left from Seattle on Saturday, the 11th, and we were all EXTREMELY exhausted by the time we got on the boat. We spent Friday night at Greg's parents and left their house at 4:00 AM to get to the airport in Boise (which means I woke up at 2:30! Ahh! How do you do it, Linz?). But after a lovely emergency drill and getting unpacked, we found our second wind and went and explored the boat. It was so awesome! There were 10 restaurants, probably 10 bars/lounges too (which we actually loved, but only because they had great live entertainment!), a casino, a performance theater, a movie theater, a game room, a reading room, a library, 3 pools and hot tubs, a snack bar, an ice cream bar, stores, and so much more! It just blew me away that they could fit so much on a boat. And the food... wow! I could talk about the food for so long that it would probably need a new entry! It was just so yummy. Every nice restaurant you went to served 5-course meals and the service was absolutely incredible. I was treated like a queen! So, the rest of the day Saturday, as well as Sunday, we just explored the boat, took naps, and relaxed since we were at sea.

On Monday, we stopped in Ketchikan, Alaska, and it was so beautiful! It's amazing just how many trees there are in Alaska! Most of Greg's family went to a logging show, but we were cheap and just walked around the town and looked at the tourist shops and areas. They have a neat historical street there named Creek Street with an old whore house (but you had to pay to get in! Darn!) and just a bunch of shops, which were really cool.

On Tuesday, we stopped in Juneau and went up to see the Mendenhall Glacier. It was so gorgeous! It's so amazing that the water can turn blue like that. On our little hike up to the glacier, we even saw a little black bear! It was about 25 feet away from us and was eating a salmon - you could actually hear the bones crunching, it was bad! I tried to get a picture but there were too many trees blocking it so you will have to take my word for it! We also went up to the Visitors Center and were put on a lovely guilt trip about how the glacier is melting at "ASTRONOMICAL RATES!" (the tour guide was about screaming it) because of human activity. It was so lovely! But besides that, it was awesome. Once we got back on the ship, we went up to see Sawyer Glacier and that was really pretty too.

On Wednesday, we stopped in Skagway, Alaska. Kristin's boyfriend Dan served his mission in Alaska and is always talking about this place, and we now see why. It was absolutely gorgeous! In fact, Greg wants to move there now (Ha ha, yeah right... I told him he can move up with Dan, but not me! The population is only 800!). They had a really neat, old main street that was really cool. It was just full of old buildings converted into stores for about 8 blocks. So we shopped through those in the morning, and took the Skagway train that afternoon. It's a train that takes you up through the mountains, all the way into Canada and it was absolutely amazing. I wish my pictures even did it justice! (They are quite blurry since we were going so fast.) It took about 4 hours total but was so worth it in the end.

On Thursday, we were at sea most of the day and went to Prince Rupert, British Columbia that night. And wow, what an absolute waste of a stop! It was a pretty place, but there was absolutely nothing to do. In fact, it was almost as boring as Rupert, Idaho! (Don't tell Greg I said that.) Greg's dad thinks the only reason they stopped there is so they could call it an international cruise and then get an international staff. But still, we could have stopped in Vancouver or Victoria! It was just very interesting, to say the least. But there was one good part to it - we found a fire truck that looks just like "Red" off of Cars, which Gavin thought was pretty cool, of course.

We spent Friday at sea and boy, was it rough! There were so many sick people on the ship, including myself and all of my sisters-in-law. While we were all sad that the cruise was almost over, we were also glad at the same time since we felt so awful! Thank heavens for Jenny's medication that we all took! :) (The waves were so bad that our ship actually had to go to a fishing boat that was in distress.) So we just took it easy that day, relaxed a lot, and ate a yummy steak dinner that night.

We got into port early Saturday morning and made our way to the airport for a long day of traveling. We finally picked the kids up from my parents at 10:00 that night in Salt Lake and it was so good to see them! It was so nice to feel missed! :) And again, thank you, thank you, thank you to my fabulous parents for watching them (and my sisters too, it was definitely a family effort)! Overall, we had such a great time and I would HIGHLY recommend an Alaskan Cruise to all of you! (But you need to go on Norweigan Cruise Lines because you can eat whenever you want and wear whatever you want for the most part. It was so relaxed!) I posted more pictures at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6l4siiau.adqi3046&x=0&y=4yecea if you are interested. Until next time! -Ash