Alaska Cruise 1: A family cruise to see glaciers

I am sitting in Sapporo, Japan, thinking back upon the last week.  Yesterday morning I debarked from a week long Alaskan cruise with Stephanie's family.  The internet on the cruise was not sufficient enough to upload entries to the blog, so I will do my best to recall the details of the cruise.  The cruise together was taken to celebrate Stephanie's father's 70th birthday.

I flew up to Alaska on Thursday, June 11, and stayed overnight in Anchorage at a hostel, choosing a private room.  Anchorage itself was absolutely unimpressive from what little I saw.  I walked that night down to where we would be catching the train the next morning and then picked myself up a salad at the local convenience store.

In the middle of the night, Stephanie joined me, coming in late from her flight.  Then, we met up with Stephanie's parents, along with her aunt and uncle, and took a scenic train down to Whittier.  We got to see a moose running with its child, but I did not have my camera out at the time.  We all stayed together in a hotel overlooking beautiful mountains.



The next morning we were among the first to board the Princess cruise via the port in town.  Stephanie's brother and his fiance joined us before the ship took off to sea.  We all watched comedy shows, ate a lot, listened to musicians, and I even participated in karaoke.

During the day, for a two day period, we were brought up close to glaciers, with park rangers narrating the journey, culminating in the boat rotating in position so that people on all sides would get a good view.  It was unfortunate for us that we chose an indoor room.  We spent a good deal of time on Stephanie's family's balconies.



The second day had an even more interesting looking glacier.