Alaska Cruise - Part 4

Dear Friends:

This is the fourth - and final - post about our cruise to Alaska.  If you want to read the previous post, click here.

This post will cover the last couple of days on the ship.  There weren't any ports - but the views continued to be just incredible.  For one day, we headed north from Skagway into Glacier Bay National Park.  At over 3 million acres, this preserved area contains over 1.000 glaciers.  On a previous Alaska cruise, we saw a majestic glacier, but the trip through Glacier Bay was overwhelming, which glaciers all along both sides of the ship.  We were treated to continuous snow-capped mountain peaks:

Every so often, you could look out from one of the balconies, and see a huge glacier in the distance.  The variety of colors - mostly in the blue spectrum range - was the most amazing to me:

The boat took up a stationary position next to one of the largest glaciers.  I can't remember the exact name of it (sorry), but were were able to spend 30 minutes for each side of the ship, just listening to the constant movement of the ice.  The ice field is miles long, so there was a huge amount of pressure that continues to build all the way up to the water:

I managed to capture a couple of glacier parts "calving" and falling into the water.  You have to remember that these things are huge.  What you see here is about 100 ft. tall, with another 100 ft. of glacier below the water.  When parts fall off, or calve, these are big chunks of ice.  I tried to focus the video on the parts that were moving:

We continued on in Glacier Bay, as the water was pretty smooth.  We kept passing all kinds of glaciers:

The water looks muddy, because the streams and waterfalls bring a ton of silt and fine-grain dirt into the bay:

I'm glad we selected this particular cruise itinerary, as not all the trips include Glacier Bay.  What a unique experience!!

The next day was our last full day on the ship.  For this part of the trip, we continued north towards Anchorage.  We passed through what is known as College Fjords.  Here, we saw lots of additional glaciers.  More on that later.  Before reaching that in late afternoon, we spent time in Princess Cruises' Sanctuary.  This was an area on the very back of the boat.  The sun was shining, and the wind that was hitting the rest of the decks, disappeared in this part of the ship.  We reserved our areas at The Sanctuary as we boarded the ship in Vancouver.  We gambled that the weather would be nice to spend the day out on deck.  Our gamble paid off, as we were given the only two cabanas in this area of the boat:

It certainly wasn't warm enough for bathing suits, but it was a relaxing day just sitting on deck chairs, sipping water.  I'm so glad that we picked this last day at sea, because the views from the back of the ship didn't disappoint.  There weren't a lot of people out here, and the solitude was peaceful:

In the afternoon, we entered the College Fjords.  This was fun, as we saw all kinds of glaciers.  The explorers who found this named each of the glaciers after colleges in the East (Harvard, Wellesley, Vassar, Yale, etc.)  They ranged from tidewater glaciers, to some ice fields that went up into the mountain peaks.  We were surprised at the number of glaciers, as we didn't expect to see more after Glacier Bay:

We spent another portion of the afternoon parked right in front of this glacier.  The captain spun the boat, so that both sides could get a great view.  This size of these things just blows my mind:

The evening meal didn't disappoint.  The dessert was also fantastic.  I'm a huge fan of pie for dessert, and I was lucky enough to have a "deep dish" apple pie.  It was exquisite:

We said "goodbye" to my sister and brother-in-law, as we were all leaving the ship at different times the following day.  It was said to part ways, as we had such a fun time together.

The next morning, we awoke at our stopping point - Whittier, Alaska.  This is about an hour outside of Anchorage, as the ports in the city just aren't deep enough to handle large ships like ours.  The view - yet again - was spectacular:

We boarded a bus to take us to the Anchorage Airport, and sadly left the gorgeous Alaskan mountains behind.

The trip was amazing - and yes, I know I keep using that word.  However, it's the only way to describe it.  I can't wait to go back, taking even more of our family members with us.  I'll treasure the memories of the fantastic experiences that we had every single day.  I won't forget the deep conversations that we enjoyed.  I wonder what we'll plan for our 20th anniversary!