was the punch line of a joke our morning guide, Ron told us on our way back from the Dog Sled Summer Camp. He was a funny, older man who seemed to love his job. I could see why, Juneau, a pretty, colorful city and the capital of Alaska is settled at the base of a mountain, conveniently called Mount Juneau. There is also an island; Douglas, across from Juneau. It is only accessible by aircraft or boat and has more vehicles than people! Did Jun neau that? haha Our morning started at 4:05am. That's when the light started coming through between the opening of the curtains I had purposely left open so as not to miss anything. (scenery, wildlife, etc) I went to the balcony to see snow capped mountains took a couple pictures then ... read more

9:30am: Got things ready for departure and went to the Princess representatives at our hotel to be told to come back at 11:30 because the ship was delayed coming into port due to stormy weather out of San Francisco. She said our ship would still be leaving on time but we wouldn't be transferred to it until about 1pm. So we used the internet and had a $6 bagel in the hotel restaurant. 11:30am: We were able to get our Princess cruise card and check in for embarkation at the hotel "Princess room" which made it very nice. Hung out and talked to others doing the cruise and seeing if anyone else was doing the Arctic land tour but no one was. 1pm: Delayed a bit longer. For some reasons there was a delay with the ... read more

Decided we would try a cheap breakfast, so we opted for the Denny's across the street from our hotel. Well obviously, cheap doesn't apply to food here. The prices were almost double of what we pay in Pennsylvania! lol I ATTEMPTED to order the "Salsa Denny" without tomatoes and the Asian waiter said to me a couple of times, "There's no meat on it" I was like "OK, that's fine. I know that". (there was no meat on it in the first place) He kept giving me weird looks about eating it like that. Finally I said, "I'll take the "breakfast grand slam instead". He seemed to be pleased with that choice!?! Then he also tried to order me pancakes instead of beacon, which made absolutely no sense to me, since it seemed he wanted me ... read more

This will be another trip of a lifetime for me! I have always wanted to go to Alaska since I don't know when, to be honest. I've had brochures, booklets, websites saved and 4 (yes 4) DVDs of nothing but Alaska programs from the Travel, Discovery & History channels! I've got all episodes of Into Alaska with Jeff Corwin, Andrew (Bizzare Foods) Zimmerman, Big America, 1,000 Places to see-Alaska, Walking the World- Chilkoot Trail, Fearless Planet, Extreme Alaska, Travels on the Edge, various travel channel shows like Alaskan Wild, Wide Open, Artic Wildlife, etc., and even Sunrise Earth for goodness sake! So our trip begins with leaving Friday evening to stay overnight in Pittsburgh and possibly catch the 1st conference playoff game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers. Go Pens! Packed & Ready! At ... read more

The breakfast selection was awesome this morning with a variety of choices besides the usual bacon and eggs. There was also smoked salmon, chocolate brownies and even pretzels! It certainly made up for no a/c. I have to say this was the best breakfast selection I ever had at a hotel! We stopped in medieval Nordlingen where there was a market area selling assortments of flowers, fish and fruits, mostly strawberries. The buildings were very cute with a variety of colors that included pink, tan, green and red. It still has a city wall which I found intriguing. There was a market going on that was selling food items (fish and fruits) and flowers. We were only here about an hour and then moved on.... read more