Day #4 Alaska Vacation 2009 Tuesday 5/12/09 Juneau

Due to the large number and size of the photos that are in each blog post, I will only be showing one blog entry per blog page. If you have missed viewing any prior days, please go to the bottom of my blog and click on "previous" entries.
I woke up around 5AM and I could not believe it...it was light out already. We were out of our cabin by 6AM. We walked around the ship and took photographs. After taking several photographs, we went to the Garden Cafe...the buffet and had breakfast. It was a mad house in there. We ate rather quickly and got out of there. After getting something to eat, we headed up to the 13th deck where the Spinnaker Lounge is located, where they have lots of large windows for viewing the scenery. Veronica found herself a rather large unusually shaped couch where she read a book and took some photos. I tried sitting in the couch but had a hard time getting out of it, so i decided to go outside and take some more photos. The ship was on its way to Juneau and it would be in port from 2-10PM. Veronica and I had an excursion scheduled for 3PM. The excursion was called the Mendenhall Glacier and Wildlife Quest. We were supposed to meet up with Karan, our Concierge, at 1PM for VIP disembarkment. VIP disembarkment is one of the perks for suite passengers. You meet with Karan at a designated area and time and he takes you the back routes on the ship so that you can get off the ship quicker, rather than standing in a long line to get off. Before meeting with Karan, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Cagney's and then it was off to our excursion. There was a bus waiting for us at the end of the pier. The bus drove us to another harbor where the whale watching boats were docked at. It was about a 15 minute drive from the dock to these other ships. They took us out to the bay where we saw several whales, some sea lions playing on a buoy , a light house and some magnificent scenery. After an our or so of whale watching, we return to the dock, got on the bus and headed to Mendenhall Glacier. We were at the Glacier for about an hour...walking around and taking photos. The bus picked us up and took us back to the ship, where we ate dinner. The ship left Juneau at around 10PM and began its journey towards Skagway. Another thing I liked about our room was the information that they provided us on the flat screen tv. There was a channel devoted to what they call the "ships log". It gave you direction headed, distance from a certain port of call, distance to the next port of call. total distance traveled from Seattle, showed various maps as to our current location, the speed of the ship, the height of the waves and other assorted information. It was kind of cool keeping track of it all.
Scenery from the ship, on our way to Juneau.


This is a Pilot boat. It drops an escort pilot off onto the ship and the pilot steers the ship through the channel or any other tricky waterway, even into the port of call and to the dock.

Pilot ship alongside the ship. Dropping off the pilot.

Scenery as we were heading to Mendenhall Glacier

Juneau, Alaska

This is the Norwegian Star. This ship left Seattle one day prior to us leaving. It was docked in Juneau.

Scenery from whale watching excursion

Guess what???? Whales Ahoy Matey!!!!

This is part of the Maritime Shipping Services. They bring in passengers and cargo.

Playful sea lions

And here are some Mendenhall Glacier photos

There was a waterfall a short distance from the glacier