As usual, we had a lovely breakfast in the Bordeaux Dining Room before saying goodbye to Papa and getting off the boat in Ketchikan. It was a little rainy, which was the first rain we’ve really had to deal with on our trip, but it wasn’t bad at all only lasted through the first half of the day.
This morning at breakfast in the Bordeaux Dining Room we saw Snezana from Serbia, who had been our assistant waitress the last three nights for dinner. She came over from across the dining room to see Sara and bring her a chocolate milk, since she orders one every night.
After breakfast Kate and I split from Papa, Olivia, and Sara, because we had booked separate excursions. Kate and I were scheduled to ride a helicopter and land on Mendenhall Glacier for a two-hour Glacier hike.
After a quick breakfast in the Horizon Court, we got off the ship in Skagway and boarded a coach to the train station. The weather all day was great with temps in the upper 50s to mid 60s and intermittent sunshine.
Today we arrived early at Glacier Bay National Park and had park rangers with us for most of the day. They boarded from the vessel Seasac and the cruise ship barely even slowed down.
Today we had a leisurely morning at sea. After a lovely breakfast in the Bordeaux Dining Room, we had a nice worship service with Papa in our room, and then dropped the girls off at the kids club. We then headed to the indoor Lotus Pool for a couple of hours.
Before boarding the coach to Whittier, all of us walked down to the Snow City Cafe for a yummy breakfast. This place was like the Pancake Pantry of Anchorage with a fairly long wait. I ordered pancakes, fried eggs, and reindeer sausage. The eggs and sausage were served on top of the pancakes, which was a bit unusual but fantastic.
This morning we could see just a glimpse of the bottom of Mt. Denali from the deck of the lodge. I was way more excited than I should have been, but it is most often completely obscured by clouds.
The first half of today was free time while we waited for the coach to Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge at 1:45pm. After eating breakfast at Sourdough Breakfast Buffet, we took the shuttle over to the Denali National Park Visitor Center. Our driver Bruce explained to us how to tell the difference between black and white spruce trees, which are prevalent in the park. The black have cones in the top and white have no cones. This stuck out to me, because Kate and Sara had been wondering how to tell the difference the day before.
After eating breakfast one last time at Edgewater, we boarded a coach at Fairbanks Princess Lodge and headed toward Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge just outside of Denali National Park.
This morning we had a nice breakfast in the Edgewater restaurant at the lodge before heading out on our tours. I had noticed on Monday night that there were these big chandeliers throughout the restaurant with bear heads on them.
Well, our two-week, land and sea vacation in Alaska is finally here. Today was a travel day with flights from Nashville to Seattle and Seattle to Fairbanks, Alaska. This took a bit over seven hours total and covered approximately 3,500 miles.
