The Island Princess

This was our third time cruising. Each one has been a different line. As always I research the heck out of it before going.

The island is a smaller ship (small is all relative). It only can have about 1,900 passengers. Mega ships nowadays can have up to 4,000. It was easy to navigate. We had a balcony room in the aft (back) of the ship starboard (right) side. It was a really nice location.









There are two pools. One indoors and one outside. We didn't use either but with the sunny weather the outside one did get some use.





The demographics of this cruise were very different from our past ones. Not a lot of children and definitely skewed to the retired crowd. We felt really young. One benefit of this was it didn't seem like there were all the waiters walking around trying to sell you drinks. We walked the stairs almost exclusively which was probably good given all the food they have on the ship.

They have an ice carver and several vegetable carvers. Look ehat they can do.













Yes that's all edible.

They also make incredible looking desserts.
















So that's a small tour of the ship.

Cruising through Alaska

What a trip! After the rough start, things got so much better.

This was the first time we had gotten a balcony. It was nice to be able to see some things without having to fight people for space.

The seas were calm. If anyone had problem with motion sickness, they must get sick just walking. The only movement I could feel was the engines. We were on the second highest deck so I was a little worried about that.

The weather was great. In fact they were having record heat and I got sunburned after one hour in Juneau. I don't even do that at home.

We zip lined in Ketchikan. What a neat experience. The guides were super nice and helpful. They knew how to work with people. We were with another family and the mom was nervous. We also saw a bear on the drive up to the zip line.





I bought the photo they took of me so I'll have to scan it when I get home to post. You end this particular adventure with a 250 foot slide. Dan picked up a lot of speed and almost went to the end.

In Juneau we went on a helicopter ride to a glacier to dogsled. I had never been in one and I can't wait to do it again. I got to sit up front with the pilot on the flight there. WOW!





At the dogsled our guide had raced in the Yukon Quest and had 40 of his dogs there. When the dogs hear the helicopters they get excited because they know they get to run.





In Skagway we had a small bus with two other couples and drove up to Canada to catch the train back. Our train car only had eight people so we got to sit anywhere and saw so much.






Did you notice how sunny all those pictures are? That's the first real sun all those places have had since last summer. They were thrilled. I just wanted a little relief. It was 87 in Juneau for goodness sake.

When we got to Glacier Bay I got my wish. It was in the 40's and foggy and we were worried we wouldn't see anything. But the fog lifted and there were lots of icebergs. It took us longer to get to the Marjorie Glacier but it was worth it. In the hour we were there, we probably saw 15 calving events. That's when the glacier breaks off and falls into the water.





When we left the bay we saw about 15 humpback whales and a few otters. Add that to the bear, mountain goats and eagles I had already seen and we were doing really good in the wildlife department.

I have lots more pictures but figured I could right more details about each day later. Who wants to write a big blog while on vacation! We still have another week to go!

Friday Fragments - Good bye March

Time to join in with Mrs. 4444 for Friday Fragments.

I'm so glad that this is the last work day of March. After the last two weeks, I hate March. And if you are a crisis, please don't land on my desk. I can only handle so many at one time.

I missed out on the four inches of rain we got while I was in DC. I did get to see everyone mowing their yards now that the weeds grass have started growing crazy. I'm not sure why people with a million dandelions think that mowing them will get rid of them. They just grow back.

I'm super excited about next week. One of my favorite bloggers will be in town for work and I'm having dinner with her. I'm sure photos and stories will be forthcoming.

My patience was very thin this week. I made the mistake of stopping for fast food (something that I only do in extreme situations) and proceeded to order a cheeseburger and fries. Sounds pretty simple right. I didn't ask for anything special. 15 minutes it took from the time I ordered until I got the food. I had to pull out of the drive thru so other cars could go through. A manager brought my my food and I had had enough and I lit into him (in a non-cursing/non-threatening way). He apologized and said they were short handed. Not an excuse in my book. Especially since I saw one employee outside smoking a cigarette and he said he had just gotten back. As a supervisor you suck it up and make sure the job is done. Believe me I've given up vacations because of being short staffed. He did ask what he could do to make it up and by that time I was finished and I said nothing. I won't be back there (eventhough it is close to the house). The food wasn't even scorching hot either.

In good news I got a couple of free redbox codes. I had gotten one off of a Chocolate Cheerios box (if you haven't eaten these, they are tasty) and got a Muppets movie to watch when Whitney was home. It obviously had a scratch so called to complain. They gave us two free codes. So I am getting three movies for free! Redbox has pretty good customer service.

I also made our final payment for the cruise in June. All of our cruise excursions are booked and paid for too. By the time the cruise comes along I won't have to pay for much. This cruise will be one of lots of firsts: zipline, helicopter ride, dog sled, small plane. Less than 3 months now!