Juneau, Alaska

September 2, 2015
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We arrived in Juneau on Wednesday, September 2nd. There were already two ships in the port when we arrived. The Ruby Princess with 3100 guests, the Holland America Oosterdam with 1850 guest of course we arrived on the Holland American Amsterdam with only 1380 guests. We really prefer the smaller more personal ships that Holland America has. Next year they will christen a new large 2650 guest ship the Koningsdam. Although it is still smaller then it's competition I believe they are going in the wrong direction, I Don't believe they are decomissioning their smaller ships so I guess there are still options for all!

Juneau, Alaska

The City and Borough of Juneau is the capital city of Alaska. It is the second largest city in the United States by area. Juneau has been the capital of Alaska since 1906, when the government of what was then the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka (We go to later) as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. The municipality unified on July 1, 1970, when the city of Juneau merged with the city of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current municipality which is larger by area than both Rhode Island and Delaware.

Juneau is rather unusual among U.S. capitals in that there are no roads connecting the city to the rest of Alaska or to the rest of North America (although ferry service is available for cars). The absence of a road network is due to the extremely rugged terrain surrounding the city. This in turn makes Juneau a de-facto island city in terms of transportation, since all goods coming in and out must go by plane or boat, in spite of the city being located on the Alaskan mainland. 

State Capital

We had no excursions booked for Juneau because we read that you could take a shuttle bus for $20.00 round trip to the Mendenhall Glacier while if you booked from the ship it was twice that amount.

Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls

The busses all drop you off at the visitors center. You have to walk to the Nugget Falls on the Nugget Falls Trail if you want to get near the glacier.

Nugget Falls Trail

There is a board walk that is a bear viewing area as well as an area that you can see the salmon. There were no bears here while we were here but you can see salmon in this picture.

Spawning Coho Salmon

We started down the trail. Beautiful views everywhere! We normally take selfies but swapped taking pictures with another couple. 

Patty and Brian at the start of the trail

Getting closer........

Glacier

This is the trail. Most of it was paved.

Nugget Fall Trail

Our view from the trail

Nugget Falls Trail

The trail is no longer paved at this point. The views are seriously incredible!

Trail

We made it to the falls. They are huge! As you got close you would get wet.

Nugget Falls

I stood near the falls so you  could see how large they are. I was getting soaked from the overspray! LOL!

Wet Falls

I took this panoramic picture with my cell phone. It automatically stitches several pictures together to make a pano picture. I think it looks pretty cool. Hope you enjoy it!!

Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls Panoramic

Well that's it for today. Next blog will be about Sitka, Alaska. 

Please continue to pray for Avery Huffman.

God Bless,

Brian and Patty

Alaskan Cruise on the MS Amsterdam

We left Seattle on Holland America's MS Amsterdam. The Amsterdam is a fairly small cruise ship with some of these LARGE ships that Carnival and Norwegian are now sailing with 4000-5000 passengers. We prefer the smaller and more elegant service you get from Holland America.

MS Amsterdam

The MS Amsterdam has 12 decks. It is 778 feet long and 105 feet wide. The passenger capacity is only 1380 with a crew of 647.

Our Caribbean Cruise will also be on Holland America but the ship will be larger, but still smaller then the Mega ships that the others are using.

We settled for room 3372 with a window view instead of a balcony for three reasons. 

1. The balcony cost almost twice as much as a view only room.

2. We figured that it would be cold in Alaska and we wouldn't spend much time on the balcony. Any time we got near something we wanted to see, like a glacier, we could go outside on the deck and see it.

3. We would get a balcony on the less expensive Caribbean cruise. We are doing a 14 day cruise on November and the 14 day balcony will cost us about the same price as the 7 day balcony in Alaska and we will be able to spend time on the balcony!

Room 3372

Here we are on the stern on the ship leaving Seattle. As you can see it is not very crowded. We really like that about Holland. We met several people on board that we kept seeing during the cruise. One veteran about Crystal's age named Matt. Nice kid who we enjoyed talking to. Also the ships Catholic Priest for this trip, Father George. He kept gravitating to us because being we are Christians, but not Catholics he could talk to us but not worry about being "Father George", but just George. Just a brother in Christ!

Leaving Seattle

After we got on the ship we were able to go to the Lido Buffet for lunch. Just had a deli sandwich which was really good.

Lido Buffet

Most days we had breakfast in the buffet, lunch in the La Fontaine dining room and diner in the dining room. At llunch they sit you wherever there is space for you. But for Diner you have a designated seat time as well as a table and seat. We chose to have a two person table which was about where this picture was taken next to the rail. After the first night our servers always knew what drink (ice tea) we wanted and they were waiting for us! Food was great!

La Fontaine

The second day was a "at sea day". We did a kitchen tour. It is amazing how much food they make and how fancy it is! No pre-made here.

Kitchen Tour

One night we ate in the Pinnacle Grill. This is their extra-charge steak house dining option. They normally charge $29.00 per person, but because of a problem we had with our room (beyond their control) they generously offered to upgrade us one night. We love Holland America!

Pinnacle Grill

We made it to Alaska! It is soooooooooo beautiful!!

Alaska

Our intention was to go down the Tracy Arm. The Captain announced that there was just too much floating ice for him to attempt that so he was making a change and going up the Endicott Arm instead. We would see the Endicott Glacier which is still spectacular.

Endicott Glacier

There were still a lot of Icebergs floating everywhere!

Icebergs

Endicott Selfie! OK well not really. We took a picture of someone and they took a picture of us. It was cold and wet but quite a site!

Glacier Selfie

There was a family of seals on this iceberg.

Seals

The ship turned around and headed back out of the arm. It was amazing that the captain could make the u-turn. It seemed like the ship was longer then the arm was wide, but he made it!

Turned Around

We didn't get any pictures, but we saw a family of Grizzly Bears while we heading towards the glacier. Very cool!

Well that's it for today. 

Next we are in Juneau, Alaska,

Please continue to pray for Avery Huffman. Here is the link to updates from Avery's father Brandon.

God Bless,

Brian and Patty