Alaskan Cruise Part 6: Seward

Once again, my stellar procrastinating blogging skills have shown themselves and its taken me forever to get to our last Alaskan adventure post.  We finished up our cruise in Seward, Alaska and it might have been my favorite town on the whole itinerary.  Since we weren't leaving Seward until that evening, we chose a late departure from the ship, which worked out nicely because we weren't contending with nearly as much of a crowd as we would have earlier.  

When you leave the ship, you head straight to a little welcome/visitors center where you can pick up your luggage.  If you have no idea what's going on, which is usually the case for me, there are a couple of employees there that cheerfully answered the same questions that I assume a million people before me had already asked them.  From the visitors center you can hop on the free Seward shuttle bus that continuously circulates through town.  They took us and our luggage to the train station where we checked our bags for our evening train ride to Anchorage.  If you have carryon bags that you'd rather not tote through town all day, you can leave those at the train station office as well, which was a nice surprise.

From there, we took a stroll along the water just enjoying the scenery and trying to decide how to spend our day.  There was a playful sea otter just chilling off the beach so we watched him for a bit before making our way to the Seward Sea Life Center.  Its a bit of a hike from the train station, so if you'd rather not walk, the bus stops there as well, but the view along the water is well worth the hike if you ask me.

 

The Sea Life Center was really interesting and has some really cool exhibits, including a bird room where you can get up close and personal with some friendly Alaskan sea birds.  Definitely worth checking out if you're in Seward. 

From the Sea Life Center, we wandered back down the main drag in town and had some lunch at the Chattermark.  I just had a burger, but the hubs tried the caribou stew and says it was pretty tasty.  After lunch we hit a few shops then just wandered about the neighborhood streets enjoying the weather until Colby declared that he heard a bald eagle.   As it turns out, he knows his birds and sure enough, we found a pair nesting in a tree.  We managed to get some pictures before a fire siren went off and sent them both off into the distance.

At this point we still had most of the day to kill, so we decided to head up to Kenai Fjords National Park to check out Exit Glacier.  You can catch a shuttle with Exit Glacier Guides for ten dollars a person, but I recommend calling ahead to make sure they have room in the bus.  We didn't, but luckily, they managed to squeeze us in.  You could spend all day hiking and exploring in the park, but if you only have a couple hours, that's still plenty of time to walk up to the glacier from the parking lot.  Its a nice paved trail for a good portion of it though it gets a bit more strenuous if you want to get right up next to the glacier.  I've read that the park rangers also give a free tour hourly, but we just explored a bit on our own.

When we made it back to Seward, we found a little watering hole and settled down at the bar to snack and have some beverages until it was time to head back to the train station.  If you're in town, have a drink at Ray's Waterfront Restaurant.  You can't beat the view!

We ended the trip with one of my most favorite parts... The train ride from Seward to Anchorage on the Alaskan Railway.   I had great intentions of taking some pictures along the ride, but it turns out they serve dinner on this train... and we all know how easily distracted I am by food.  I had read some reviews of the food and they weren't great, but we really enjoyed our dinner.  And its "party seating" which means if there are just two of you, they sit you with two strangers.  Luckily we got paired up with a lovely couple from Anchorage who had come down on the train that morning for a date day in Seward (how romantic is that??).  We spent the entire ride in the dining car chatting and having drinks with them.  It was a blast.  And of course we thoroughly enjoyed the view along the way, even if we didn't take any pictures.

Sadly, all things must come to an end, including vacations.  So when we arrived in Anchorage late that evening, we grabbed a taxi (be prepared for a wait!) and headed to the airport for a 1am flight back to the real world.  

Alaskan Cruise Part 3: Icy Strait Point

The second stop on our northbound adventure was a little port called Icy Strait Point.  The cruise ship drops anchor in the harbor and its a short tender ride to the dock.  Icy Strait Point consists more or less of the historic Hoonah Packing Company, which was operated as a salmon cannery from 1912 until the 1990's.  Now it is the only privately owned cruise ship destination in the US and they only allow one cruise ship in at a time, which means there are far fewer people to contend with than at the other port cities that have three or four docked at a time.  

There is a really interesting museum in the main building that goes through the history and machinery involved in processing the salmon which you can wander through at your own pace.  There are also several shops and a cafe in the main complex, a crab shack, and a restaurant just a short walk down the trail.  Aside from the museum portion, we didn't really use any of the aforementioned establishments, but you know... they are there.

The Radiance of the Seas... our home away from home for a week.

There are lots of excursions you can choose in Icy Strait Point, but we opted mostly to just walk around and soak in the scenery.  It was cloudy and cool, but nothing a light jacket and hat couldn't remedy.  There is a nature trail along the water and one that winds in through the trees, both of which were equally beautiful.

After our walk, we still had some of time to kill so we decided to add the zipline excursion just in time to catch the bus for one of the last rides up.   This old school bus takes you through the town of Hoonah, just a short ride up the road from Icy Strait Point, and then up the mountain roughly a mile from the dock.  The driver is a local and he pointed out all the highlights of town and had lots of good stories to pass the time on the 45 minute ride.

Aaaaaaand the zipline is freaking amazing. Its 5,330 feet long, and a 1,300 foot drop in elevation, which is pretty spectacular.  In the minute and a half it takes you to get from top to bottom, you'll reach speeds of sixty miles an hour.  Which is pretty freaking fast when you are suspended 300 feet about the tree tops in what seems a lot like a fabric camping chair.  Seriously worth every penny.  If you make it to Icy Strait Point, do the zip line.  Don't argue with me, just do it.  Also, please excuse the cursing at the beginning.  Its a rather frighteningly long drop to the ground when they spring the doors open.  And luckily Colby was holding the camera, because I'm pretty sure what I yelled was even worse...

When we got back, we took a few more scenic pictures and wandered over to check out the totem poles in front of the Heritage Center Native Theatre.

The view of the road towards Hoonah from the cruise ship was pretty gorgeous...

That black lump between the boat and the far shore is a whale... we saw quite a few, but all from a similar distance.  Maybe next time we will try a whale watching tour and try for some closer views.  We might have been a bit hung over this day, and seeing how rough that made the bus ride up the mountain, I'm not sure either of us could have handled a small boat. 

Might have gone a little crazy with the pictures here, but the scenery is just so gorgeous I couldn't help it.  Even the sky is more beautiful in Alaska.