Blogs from Juneau, Alaska, United States, North America

Today is all about glaciers and icebergs and the entire ship is looking forward to more turquoise blue water, floating ice and hopefully some calving glaciers. The morning was spent at the In Williams Cove, at the beginning of Tracy Arm which has two very long and deep fjords with multiple glaciers. We woke to bright blue skies and surrounded by alien looking icebergs and of course Ken was all excited to “lick the iceberg”. Visions of the little kid in The Christmas Story were floating though my head, and I could just imagine getting the ever-present skiff to get him unstuck. Luckily, we had a safety briefing before getting in our kayak and the key instructions was to stay 2 kayak lengths away from the icebergs. They are known to tip over and if that ... read more

Day 12 17/05/2019 Juneau – Alaska Dog Sled Discovery & Musher’s Camp The sun woke us up early so we headed upstairs to the Lido Market to have a buffet breakfast. Breakfast consisted of bacon, scrambled eggs, a bagel, Danish pastries and coffee. If I continue to eat like this I will have to pay excess luggage going home! The food is so good. We decided to do a walk on the Promenade deck as the weather was lovely although cool. The sky was clear with no chance of rain. The ship docked at Juneau just before 12.30 pm Juneau is the capital of Alaska and their main industry is government followed by tourism. It is an island so everything needs to be brought in by ferry or barge. Most of their goods come from Seattle. ... read more

Did I tell you that Juneau is the state capital of Alaska? What is unique about this city is that it is completely cut off from the rest of Alaska. There are no roads in or out of Juneau. The city is completely surrounded by thousands of square miles of ice fields. Everything has to be either shipped in or flown in. There are highways that travel around the fjords but all the settlements are part of the Juneau environs. This is a city of about 32,000 inhabitants and has an area of 3,081 square miles so must be a contender for one of the most sparsely populated cities in the world. We docked in Juneau at 7:00am. We managed to sleep through to 8:00 so we guess the jet lag is starting to wear off ... read more

Everyone had a great sleep last night And the kids slept in till 9 o'clock. The time went back an hour as well today. Weather continues to be gray and wet on the outside, thank goodness for the indoor pool! We took advantage of room service again this morning and enjoyed a relaxing breakfast. About mid-morning we saw 2 rather large “tender boats” approaching the ship so Jack and I went on deck to watch as a couple of hundred folks abandoned ship to head off on a 6 hour tour of Tracy Arm Inlet. One Aussie couple were watching with us and commented how they were glad they cancelled their tour as it was so foggy, visibility would be very poor. They saved $540.00 US per person and all they would have gotten was cold ... read more

Geo: 58.3677, -134.58... read more