Our Alaskan and Washington Adventure!
Come along for the ride!!
Yesterday we arrived back home from an amazing cruise and side trip to Seattle! I have personally been on 17 cruises, but this was Josh’s first cruise! We sailed on the Celebrity Solstice Alaskan cruise with a group of friends from Young Living, and my Mom and Aunt Karen.
Our trip started in Seattle, Washington, where we arrived Thursday and stayed at the Four Seasons Downtown. It is a beautiful hotel right in the middle of the Pikes Place Market area. We ate dinner at the Goldfinch Tavern which is inside the hotel.
The next morning we grabbed our things and grabbed a taxi to the pier to board the ship! We were having some trouble with our originally scheduled transport to the pier and the Four Seasons staff was so very helpful and got us exactly what we needed and on our way. Once we checked in, got our keys, and through security, we were on board the vessel! We had a lovely sky suite on Deck 12 (which gave us some of the best views on the entire trip just from our balcony!) which includes fancy butler service for your whole trip. The best part was our butler this cruise was my Mom and I’s butler from our last cruise, Nelson! He did a fantastic job making sure we had the best cruise ever.
Our ports of call included Ketchikan, Skagway, and Juneau Alaska, and Victoria, British Colombia Canada. We also spent a morning sailing the Endicot Arm Fjord and seeing the Dawes Glacier! We were suppose to sail the Tracy Arm Fjord and see the Sawyer Glacier, but the weather and ice were too much, and I thought the Dawes glacier was more spectacular anyway!
One fun thing we did was in each port either me of Josh found a Yarn shop and we got a fun local or locally dyed yarn from each port (except for Canada because the shop closed!) I always bring a knitting project with me on long trips, and you could find me at least once a day in the coffee shop on board knitting away with a warm coffee!
We did two excursions, Zipline in Juneau, and the White Pass Train in Skagway.
In each port we ate either lunch or dinner out on the town, and in each port in Alaska, Josh ordered King Crab legs! They just got better in each port! Annabelle’s in Ketchikan has great fish and chips, crab legs, and Seafood Chowder, Twisted Fish company in Juneau had the best crab legs, amazing salmon “sticks” and yummy clam chowder, and Olivia’s in Skagway had a fantastic Salmon puff pastry and of course, great crab legs! We finished off our last dinner in Victoria at Earl’s with Baked Salmon,
Chicken Curry and of course… Poutine! (Poutine is like a loaded fries here in the states, except topped with gravy and cheese curds.)
We stayed over an extra day in Seattle after our cruise, and frankly we were not that thrilled. We did Pikes Place market which was cute, but frankly it is very crowded and not that interesting. We walked to the downtown shopping area, which was FULL of vagrants and panhandlers. The city felt dirty and very un-safe. We took the monorail to the space needle and the museums but again, not impressed, especially for the outrageous prices to get into them. We did have a nice day of relaxing, talking, and planning/dreaming, and got a visit into a local Seattle yarn shop so it was not all bad! But Seattle is for sure on our “No More” list of places to visit.
We had a blast for sure, but it is always nice to be home and back in our routine. Stay tuned for more great blog posts coming your way this week!
