Full Report

Sorry this has taken me so long. I've been having some computer problems which my sweet and loving husband just solved by giving me this early christmas/birthday/anniversary for the next 5 years present:



This is good news for any of you who've been hoping for more frequent blog posts (Bethy). It got here yesterday and it is so pretty!

There is so much to report about our cruise, and Kristina has done a marvelous job telling all about it on her blog, but I will, as promised, also report.

On Sunday, we flew to Seattle to board the Star Princess



We each had our own stateroom with a balcony and private bathroom. There was a steward who came in every morning to clean up and make the bed and then came back in the evening to turn back the covers and leave chocolates on our pillows along with the newsletter about the next day's activities. We had a big drill to learn about the emergency procedures (yes, they have enough lifeboats for everyone!)


We headed up on deck to watch the ship depart from Seattle

It was pretty blustery up there. That evening and all of the next day were spent at sea on our way up to southeast Alaska. So there was plenty of reading

,

exploring the ship, playing games together, and eating of course. I was intrigued by the chilled soups they offered each night as appetizers and tried almost all of them -- sometimes I wasn't successful in communicating to the waiters my desire to have the alcohol left out of my soup.



Monday night was one of our formal dinners, so we all dressed up and had pictures taken beforehand.




This was one of our favorite desserts called the "Princess Love Boat Dream" -- a chocolate mousse atop the tiniest sliver of brownie with whipped cream and raspberry sauce. yum. It was amazing we had any room for dessert. The dinners were all so fabulous with so many interesting things to try.



Our first day ashore was in Ketchikan, Alaska --the Salmon Capital of the World. We had a great time driving Adventure Karts out to the beautiful glacier-carved Mahoney Basin. We came back to town via a Jet Boat along George Inlet from which we were able to see lots of Bald Eagles and the beautiful scenery.


In Ketchikan, we also went to see some of the totem poles scattered throughout the town.


Early the next morning, we sailed up Tracy Arm Fjord to see the South Sawyer Glacier. It was freezing cold on deck, but worth being out there to see the glorious scenery.



After a few more hours at sea (just long enough to warm up), we sailed into Juneau for our next shore excursion. A van took us up to a ski resort that does zipline adventures in the summer months. It was so awesome. Definitely a highlight of the whole trip. Who knew that Alaska had so much area considered rainforest (they apparently don't get tons of snow in the winter either in this costal southeastern part of the state)?



It was so much fun! From there we took a bus to see the Mendenhall Glacier and saw an interesting film about climate change -- receding glaciers (and the very long term data about how previous warming/cooling cycles differ from this one that glacier core samples provide) are one of the big evidences for the current concern. The glacier was very cool.


The next day we spent in Skagway, a tiny little town that had been a jumping-off point for the Alaskan Gold Rush.



We'd been scheduled to take a helicopter tour to a dogsled camp at 3,000 ft atop a glacier, but low-hanging clouds made the helicopter part unsafe, so we had to choose from some other options. The Johnsons took a helicopter ride to see a glacier up close at 1,000 ft in elevation, and the rest of us went to a summer camp for sled dogs and their mushers (drivers/trainers); so between both groups we almost covered our original itinerary =) The Johnsons saw some really cool stuff at the glacier and learned a lot about the constant changes that a glacier undergoes. We got to ride a sled on wheels pulled by the sled dogs. These guys are strong and wiry -- bred for speed and endurance, they're the marathon runners of dogs.



We got to meet some of the dogs and even spend some time with the puppies.



We liked these dogs so well that we even (briefly) considered giving in to the girls' pleading for us to get a dog at home. After Juneau, we had another day and a half at sea before a brief stop and the lovely town of Victoria on Vancouver Island. We took a bus tour all around the town, up to Mt. Tolmie, to see Craigdarroch Castle, and then into the downtown area.





Allen got to play an old square Steinway





The next morning we disembarked in Seattle where we checked into a hotel so we could attend the wedding of Allen's cousin, Dawn. We helped a bit with the decorating and had a nice time visiting with ALL of Allen's 1st cousins (you couldn't even fit all of mine in that room!).



[caption id="attachment_584" align="alignnone" width="604" caption="All of the Stolworthy (Buskirk/Conover/Olderog) Family"][/caption]



It was a great trip, and we were so grateful to Nana & Opa for taking such good care of the girls. They had a wonderful time and we didn't have a moment's worry. If you want to hear what the girls did while we were gone, check out my Mom's post here. whew, we made it!