When Scott and I were getting ready to take our honeymoon cruise, I had never been on a cruise before and had no idea what to expect. I was really looking forward to the port adventures and shore activities we’d scheduled, but I didn’t know what the boat would have to offer. I hate crowds, I’m not a fan of shuffleboard or bingo, and I didn’t see us partaking in little kid activities, even though we are admittedly fans of the Disney character appearances. The days at sea had me worried.
I was unbelievably wrong in my conceptions about cruising. Not only did I love the day we had at sea on our honeymoon cruise, I was disappointed we didn’t have more. There was so much to enjoy on the ship. We had a great time going to shows, lounging in the infinity pool with our mojitos and watching the ocean pass by, walking the promenade deck, taking part in cooking classes…you name it, they had it.
Our Alaska cruise was just as amazing. On our days at sea, we sat bundled up in blankets on the observation deck with cups of coffee or glasses of wine and watched whales and dolphins surface alongside the ship and bald eagles wheel by overhead, or we enjoyed snacks in one of the lounges and watched the amazing Alaska views go by, or we chatted with new friends made on the trip about the things we were going to do and see or had done and seen, or we just enjoyed quality time together. Speaking of the whales…
Our first day at sea was a nice relaxing day spent easing into the journey – and, mostly unbeknownst to us {I swear, I’m usually pretty sensitive to motion but I barely even noticed the ship moving}, hauling ass up the rocky coasts of British Columbia and Alaska to the Tracy Arm fjord.
Tracy Arm
Tracy Arm is one of the longest and biggest fjords – it has to be, since cruise ships sail all the way up – and culminates in a huge basin where the Sawyer South glacier is still carving its way into the valley. When we reached the mouth of the fjord, pretty much all of the over 2000 people on board went to their balconies, the promenade dock, or the three viewing docks, and hung out on the rail to watch the amazing sights go by. I can’t describe it adequately – check out some of our photos from the day! The day started out with beautiful calm waters and snowy peaks…
Cruising the outer islands…
Which led us into the fjord itself. Can you believe the color of that water? It’s actually mostly glacial silt, but let’s forget about that. It’s beautiful.
Into Tracy Arm…
We cruised right up the fjord, looking for any signs of seals {we saw dozens}, bald eagles {there were a few but not as many as we saw at later ports of call}, and even dolphins. We kept a watch out for bears as well, but they remained very well hidden throughout the trip. Just as well. I don’t bother them, so I’d rather they not bother me.
Sawyer South Glacier – the end of the line…
The best part was that not only did we have perfect weather, it was warm enough that we could get all the way into the glacier basin. We were looking right at the glacier itself and were able to watch as it sloughed off sheets of ice into the water. Let me give you a sense of scale here. See the face of the glacier, where all the blue is? That’s 300 feet. Yes, folks, the face of that glacier is 30 stories tall! How crazy is that?
Ice recovery mission…
We also were in the right place at the right time to watch them bring up a block of ice so that folks on board could marvel at just how dense glacier ice is. Do you know how much snow it takes to make a foot of glacier ice? About 100 feet. This stuff is seriously heavy. So here’s the crew fishing out a block of ice. Looks tiny, right?
Okay, maybe it is tiny!
See? Oh, wait, this isn’t the chunk of ice they fished up. This is just something for us to feel {it’s heavy!}. This is the real one. For perspective, my husband is 6’4″, so that’s a big ol’ whopping chunk of ice {yes, that’s the technical term}.
After our adventure up Tracy Arm, we turned around {the ship pivoted a full 180-degrees using its thrusters} and made our way back down the fjord. Our stop the next day would be Skagway, and while we had plenty of adventures planned, we took some time to enjoy the fun aboard ship – dining out, heading to the lounge for drinks, and watching stars brighter than anything I’d ever seen go by overhead. I wish I were better at nighttime photography so I could have gotten some shots for you, but trust me, it was breathtaking. Better than that, take the cruise! I can’t recommend the Disney Cruise Line or this particular Alaska cruise enough!
Hope you enjoyed these shots of the amazing Alaska wilderness, and there’s more to come over the next few days! Until then, I’m heading back to unpacking our house and taking note of all the things we need to do to it in order to get it ready to go. It’s a slow process, but it’s very satisfying to see things coming together!
Aloha and mahalo for stopping by!
