Alaskan Cruise Part 5: Hubbard Glacier Cruising

One nice thing about not really ever adjusting to the three hour time difference between Alaska and Texas is that the early morning scenery from our balcony was perfect for enjoying a cup of coffee.  

The view ON the balcony isn't too bad either if you ask me :)

And after a bit, the announcements began over the loudspeaker to let us know that we were entering Disenchantment Bay, home of the Hubbard Glacier.   While being able to watch the coast go by from our balcony was pretty awesome at any given point on the trip, being able to hang out in our own space for the glacier viewing was pretty epic.  No need to push through the crowd to get a good view on the upper deck... we had a front row seat the entire time.  We even enjoyed some room service and the company of our neighbors, from a comfortable distance of course.

As a side note, Royal Caribbean's proprietary Bloody Mary blend is awful. Hence Colby's face above.

According to the captain, this was some of the best weather they have seen this season in Disenchantment Bay and the closest they have been able to get to the glacier in some time.  If you're worried about being on the wrong side of the boat, don't be.  We spent several hours in the bay doing lazy 360's so that everyone had a chance to enjoy the view.

There were some pretty impressively sized icebergs floating around, and it makes one wonder just how much more of it there really is under the surface.  Not to worry, the ship stayed well clear of the big ones.

The pictures don't even do it justice; the glacier is truly breathtaking.  And you just can't imagine how loud the popping and cracking noises that the glaciers constantly make are.  Colby even managed to get some shots of it calving a couple times, which was pretty much his goal for the day.

The Turner Glacier also exits into Disenchantment Bay.  Its smaller and not nearly as pretty as the Hubbard Glacier.  There was a trio of sea lions basking on an iceberg in the far left of this picture but we didn't have a zoom lens long enough to get a good shot.  Definitely want to bring a pair of binoculars on this trip.

I can't help it! He's just so good looking... 

After a while we slowly made our way out of the bay and out to open water so we could spend our final day on the Radiance cruising towards Seward. As the cruise to Seward was out in more open water than previous days, the water was quite a bit choppier than it had been throughout the trip up to this point.  In fact, we spent a good portion of the day relaxing in our room watching tv, reading, or just napping.  I'm sure its because of the rough seas... It had nothing to do with partying and dancing our tails off with some new friends the night before.  Surely not.

Alaskan Cruise Part 4: Skagway

Our next port of call was the little borough of Skagway, population 920.  Unless, of course, there are four cruise ships docked, in which case the population skyrockets to roughly one million.  That may be a sliiiight exaggeration, but I kid you not... there were people EVERYWHERE.  

The first sight you see when you get off the boats is the rock wall along the docks covered in emblems and insignia from countless cruise ship crews over the years.  Its kind of neat to see, and some of them are quite clever.  (look for the giant skull if you're there).

From the docks its a bit of a hike into town but its a pretty stroll and if you are there during the right time of the year you can watch the salmon try to make it up the little stream as you cross.  We caught the very tail end of the run so there were just a few occasional stragglers, but it was still kind of neat to watch them.  Skagway itself is quite a scenic little town with false-fronted buildings in an array of colors that recall a bygone era of dog sleds and gold miners.  At least until you get closer and realize that most of the buildings are filled with cruise-owned jewelry stores and other tourist trap type places.  

We had the entire day in Skagway and since we didn't book any excursions, we exhausted our options of free stuff to do fairly early on.  Should we ever do this cruise again, we will definitely consider an excursion at this port of call.  Based on some overheard conversations on board later that night, the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad is good choice.  We opted against it since we were already taking the train from Seward to Anchorage later in the trip, though I suppose there's no rule that says you can't take two train rides.  Alternatively, an idea we didn't come across until after we returned home was to rent a car in Skagway and take a scenic drive to the Yukon territory, which I think might be more our style.  

 They don't need cow catchers on the trains here.  They just need big ass snow movers.  

Despite being somewhat disappointed in Skagway, (In so much as one can be "disappointed" by being in Alaska), we did find a few little gems that were worth some time.   

The Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park visitors center in the depot has some really interesting displays covering the Klondike gold rush, and the rangers are extremely knowledgable and seem more than happy to answer the questions being thrown at them more or less constantly.  It gets a bit crowded though, especially as people crowd around the rangers to listen, so patience is definitely a virtue here.

Another interesting place was Corrington's Alaskan Ivory and free museum.  The museum is located off the gift shop and is small but filled with Alaskan history and carved walrus tusks.  The gift shop itself is worth a look as well, just to see all the gorgeous carvings.  It too was pretty crowded, and I am clumsy; so I am always fearful in places like this that I am going to knock over a priceless item and end up spending ten grand on two halves of a carved moose antler or something.  But for those who don't suffer from wild irrational fears, its probably not all that anxiety inducing.

I'm not sure if they are a locally owned shop or not, but the Alaskan Knife and Ulu shop had some really gorgeous Ulu knives, including anything from affordable utilitarian knifes meant for actual use to some really expensive art pieces disguised as Ulu knives.  As a side note, if you buy an Ulu knife, for the love of all that's holy, don't buy one that says "Made in China."  They also had some animal pelts of some sort for Colby to drool over, which is good because for every man store I go to, I can drag him to a yarn store with less guilt over him wanting to stab his eyeballs out.  

Which, now that I mention it, I did drag him to one in Skagway called Changing Threads.  The lady there was SUPER friendly and talked with Colby for quite a while about wind power, which was nice because then I could feel even less guilty since she was keeping him entertained.  They had some beautiful quiviut yarns, which are made from the undercoat of the muskox.  Because muskox apparently don't produce mass quantities of fiber, its quite possibly the most expensive type of yarn you can find.  Even for just one skein I had to think long and hard about rationalizing such a purchase... but don't worry; I managed.   

Our last stop, on a recommendation from someone in Juneau, was for lunch at the Skagway Brewing Company.  Sadly, on this one I have to say don't bother...  My salmon burger was tasty if nothing special, but Colby's wings were awful and the beers were just so-so.  We should have followed the crowd to the Red Onion Saloon.  Ah well... live and learn. 

I was going to include the Hubbard Glacier day on this post, but I seem to have gotten a bit wordy and that post is going to be super picture heavy, so I will end here.  Actually, I will end with quite possibly the greatest t-shirt spotted on our entire trip.  As a born and bred Texan, Colby was somewhat less appreciative of its awesomeness than I was.