Alaska - July 23-30, 2008

Lake Mendenhall and the Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska

I visited Alaska, more specifically the Inside Passage, via a cruise in July 2008. The weather was, in a word, dreadful. But the trip was free; well, the airfare and the actual cruise itself were free, as was $300 in starter spending money. After that, it was not free and my "free" trip actually ended up costing quite a bit. I am not complaining, however. I got to see some beautiful scenery, do some things I usually don't do, spend some time with friends, and not be a work for a week and NOT have it count against me vacation-wise. You really cannot ask for more than that.

Our flight left San Diego very early the morning of July 23, 2008. I awoke at about 3:30am to make sure I was there for my 6:30am flight on Alaska Air. We had a very short layover in Seattle and then flew onto Anchorage, where we got on a bus and drove south to Whittier. I remember our bus driver seemed very young. However, she got into the spirit of it by saying at the end of all of her announcements that she was old enough to have a bus-driving license, she could see over the steering wheel, and her feet could reach the peddles.

The drive south was along a pretty stretch of water and hills and involved going though a one-way tunnel. If I remember correctly, southbound traffic got to use the tunnel for a 15-minute period at the :45s of the hour, northbound at the :15s of the hour, and the train (because the tunnel started life as a train tunnel) at the top and bottom of the hour. Luckily, we only had about a 10-minute wait. Right on the other side of the tunnel was Whittier and where the cruise ship, Carnival Spirit, was docked. The "boat", as I have taken to referring to it, looked huge and top-heavy.

After getting off the bus, you went through some Disneyland-type lines to a check-in table, where about 20-30 people sat whose sole purpose was to check you in. Prior to undertaking the trip, one was to have printed a boarding pass. You provided this pre-printed pass and your passport at check-in and received a plastic card in return. The card was like the Golden Ticket. It was your room key and on-ship charge card all-in-one. You also used it to enter and exit the boat - any time you left the boat in port, you swiped the card; when you came back on board, you swiped it again. This is how they kept track of us.

The cruise lasted about a week. From Whittier, we went southeast across the open sea to Sitka, and then onto Juneau, Scagway, and Ketchikan in that order before heading south to Vancouver, B.C. to disembark for good. The map on the left, from the Carnival Cruise website, shows the route (the green line was my cruise).

The open sea day (July 24), from Whittier to Sitka, was an experience, an experience I do not want to repeat any time soon. It started well enough. Very early that morning, the ship's Naturalist, Michelle, came over the speaker system to let us know we were in College Fjord and, since this was the reason we came on the cruise, to get our butts out of bed, get out on deck, and see the glaciers. (She said it much nicer but this was the general message.) The speaker system did not extend past the hallways so many people did not hear the announcement; if you are a light sleeper, like me, you did. So up I got and out I went.

It was overcast and misty, not exactly raining but close. The day got progressively worse. Throughout the morning it felt like you were on the funhouse ride from the amusement park - all of sudden you would be walking off-balance and fall into a wall. I was in the gym late in the morning and I kept falling over to the side of the treadmill. Then the fun really began that afternoon. We hit 20-40 foot swells and the wind was blowing about 65-70 mph. You know when you are on a small boat and it is going across the waves out in the sea or a lake, and it kind of bounces? It was a lot like that but with a much bigger boat. And there was a lot of creaking noises from the ship. I felt like we were a Poseidon adventure moment just waiting to happen.

Even the crew said it was the worse they'd seen that season and many of them, as well as a lot of the passengers, were sick. I was fine until I decided to lay down for a nap. That is when I got queasy. I actually had an appointment at the spa for a facial during the 3-4 hour period (3-7 pm) when it was at its worst. I threw up right in the middle of it and felt just mortified. But then I felt fine after that. Later that night, about midnight to 2-3 am, we had another round of waves and winds as well.

After that day, we were in the Inside Passage, so no more waves and winds to that degree. It still rained everyday except the day we were in Juneau (Saturday, July 26) where we actually got to see the sun for a few hours. Again, I cannot complain. It was a free trip to places I'd never been before and I did have fun.

I took lots of pictures, which can be accessed via the links below. I will say that most of the pictures are mine but some are contributed, knowingly and unknowingly, by others also on the cruise. I don't know who all of the photographers are but I wanted to acknowledge their contribution.

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