Blogs from Alaska, United States, North America

Another good night's sleep and we were docked in Skagway. Apparently I slept a bit too long, because it was almost 10am when we went up for lunch. We both ate breakfast like yesterday, waffle, poached egg, sausage, etc. When we finished breakfast, we left the ship to check out Skagway. Apparently we had two fellow ships docked with us to day, one from Royal Caribbean and one from Princess Cruises. The ship was docked pretty close to shore, and it was an easy walk to Skagway. There was also a train called the White Pass Railway that went through the edge of town. We walked downtown and started checking things out, mostly the souvenir shops. There were also a couple of interesting old buildings, one was the Railroad Building from 1900 and the other was ... read more

After a pleasant, long night sleep, we woke up around 7am or so. We'd decided we were going to eat breakfast, since it would be a long day, and it was free. We got dressed, and headed upstairs (we were on Deck 9 and the cafeteria was on Deck 10). We got to the cafeteria area and started browsing the food. Most serving areas have names, and some of them are fairly common, in that they are still there the next day. There were Asian, Thai, The Carvery, Salads, Make Your Own Salad, Desserts. etc. We both got a small dish with an egg and spices, and watermelon pieces. Manoli got scrambled eggs and a half a grapefruit, and I got a very tasty belgian waffle. We took our time eating, and just enjoyed the views. ... read more

Today we were heading to Seward to pick up our cruise ship. The train left at 6:45am. so we needed to be packed up and waiting for our taxi before 6am. The taxi arrived at 5:50am and we headed to the train depot. Unlike the other train trip, this one was crowded! There was a long line, out the door, and then weaving back and forth inside. We finally got our tickets and boarded the train. We were in Car C, seats 2 & 3. They weren't bad seats, but I wish we had the two in front of us, since those seats had a table. The car layout was similar to the trip from Fairbanks, except the cafeteria car in front of us had some balcony type seating, where you could sit and watch the ... read more

We woke up about 6am and packed up. Manoli called for a taxi for 7:30am, and we waited around. Just before 7:30 the taxi showed up, we loaded up and away we went. As you probably already know, if you been reading my blogs up til now, today we were going to Anchorage by train. We reached the depot around 7:45, picked up our tickets, and waited again. While we waited, we checked out the neat model railroad display. It was very realistic, and the guy that managed the display was very informative. Our train was supposed to leave at 8:20am, and about 10 mins before, they open the gates and we boarded. We had seats in car D, the back car of the train. We had checked our luggage bags, and Manoli checked her backpack ... read more

I slept pretty well last night, waking up at about 7:30am or so. My wife woke up at 4am, hoping to see the Northern Lights, but was disappointed again. Well, we have 2 more nights to hope. Today we planned on visiting the Museum of the North, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Again, since there was no bus, we planned on walking there. We left the hostel around 9am, and walked down College Road to University Ave., then followed the phone up and around to the museum. We probably could have taken an easier/shorter route, but we didn't know. There were some nice views along the way. We reached the museum, paid our $16 each entry fee, for seniors, and started our tour. The museum is pretty big, with some cool stuff about history and ... read more