Juneau

After an entire day at sea on the inside passage (very gloomy weather and foggy, as you will see from the pictures below), our first port of call is the capital of Alaska, Juneau. My first impression is “Wow, we are finally here!!! Oh the port is small, how is the cruise ship going to dock without hitting anything?” And follow by “Oh look, there are four other cruise ships here with us…” Not realizing yet that having multiple cruise ships at dock at same time may not be the best idea for us tourists!!!

Imagine this, a small town consists of a few thousands year round residence suddenly overwhelmed with 5 cruise ship passengers. Each cruise ships carries about 2000+ passengers; that is a total of 10,000+ people stomping around town within like 8-12 hours time frame. If I were a resident, I couldn’t wait for the ships to come in (which brings the money here) and couldn’t wait for the ships to depart (getting some normalcy back to life until next day)!

This port visit was short for us, about ~7 hours. With all of us, a total of 5 kids + 9 adults, we didn’t rush off the cruise ship (let’s face it; we couldn’t fight with the other 1900+ people in line to get off the ship). I already decided that since this was such a short stay, we would do our own sightseeing instead of signing up with an organized tour, especially after reading from previous passengers’ notes about taking a bus to the nearby Mendenhall Glacier.

We went the cheap way, negotiated on the group ticket prices and totally forgot to ask about bus capacity. Basically, the bus company oversold the number of tickets on the bus and not had sufficient services for all the ticket holders. Of course, we only realized this after we paid and waited in line. Then the fact that “no order” was in place didn’t help the mass of people trying to get onto the bus. If it were only Tom and I, my hubby’s physique can certainly get me onto the bus without problem, but with strollers, screaming kids, not so easy…I felt like we were back to the 3rd world country.

We got to Mendenhall Glacier in one batch. Our first sighting of the migrating salmons just swam around on the side streams. We followed the walkway path to the Glacier. For some of our family members, this is their first time ever seeing a glacier. I had seen others before. This one is small and a bit “dirty” looking, probably because it is so easily accessible. Mom and Brenda came to AK before, mom thought the glacier had melted quite a bit since their last visit 10 years ago. I believe her, it is global warming afterall!!!

I am not sure how much do the kids understand what a glacier is. I think they are happy just to be walking around, running around in the outdoor air. And family picture time is a torture affair they have to deal with this group. And getting everyone in the same place and looking at the camera at the same moment is a near mission impossible task. We gave our best try; that is all we can say….

We got on the bus to return to town, got a glimpse of Capital building once Sarah Pralin worked at (Yes, an inside joke between Tom and me). Tom and I decided to get off a few stops ahead to walk around the town a bit. I was concerned with how my hubby would react to dealing with a bunch of family members. Well, he is a good team player; seem to deal with it reasonably well. At least he didn’t tell me that he wouldn’t do it again!

We stopped in the Red Dog Saloon for a quick break. You would think this type of saloon only exists in Hollywood movie setting. No, all real. Animal heads and fish trophies lined the interior wall. Sawdust carpeted the floor everywhere. The good thing is no one ever needed to clean up the floor. There was a local piano player when we first walked in, so live music, authentic setting, and local beers, all led your imagination to the rough wild Alaska world, not your typical temperature control stateroom.

Here are some shots of the inside passage, Juneau, and the Mendenhall Glacier.