Alaska Cruise
Don and I took an 10-day Alaska cruise on Oceania with my sister and brother-in-law, Kay and Randy. We were supposed to take this cruise last year, but Don and I both came down with Covid and had to push it out a year.
Seattle and the Ship
We stayed one night in Seattle before sailing on Oceania’s Regatta in and out of Seattle. We visited the touristy spots in Seattle: Space Needle, Pike Market, Olympic Sculpture Garden, the Waterfront, and took a sunset harbor cruise.
The Regatta is a small ship with only about 600 passengers. Randy and Kay are experienced cruisers and have been on many Oceania ships, so we were thrilled to join them on this cruise. Until now, we’ve only cruised on a river, so this was a new experience. The ship was beautiful, the food was outstanding, and our stateroom was “spacious”. We took advantage of the many excursion options and chose mostly active excursions to see even more beautiful scenery and wildlife. We had such great weather, but all the Alaskans kept telling us that it had rained constantly for the two weeks prior to our arrival. We never saw a drop of rain and the temperatures were so comfortable.
Most rooms on Regatta have a small sofa, so the cabins were much larger than we expected
We had a veranda which was great for viewing the Alaska scenery, but might not be as necessary for other cruise locations.
The Regatta is underway…Look at the Space Needle in the background.
Ketchikan - Guided Fishing Trip
In Ketchikan, we took at guided fishing trip with Family Air Tours on the Ward River. We fished for trout, but the stream was also full of spawning salmon. Trout eat the salmon eggs, so that is what we fished with. The salmon were returning from the sea to their birthplace from 2-3 years ago for their only mating season. The females dig out a ditch, deposit their eggs and the males fertilize them. Then, both the male and the female die! There were hundreds of salmon participating in this mating ritual and many of them were already dead. It was stinky and sad to see so many dead fish, but also very interesting to witness such a wondrous circle of life. How do they know which fresh water stream to return to? How did they survive hatching and making their way from fresh water out to sea in the first place?
Our guide was great and we highly recommend Family Air Tours. This excursion was not booked through Oceania which we were a little nervous about. However, after such a great experience, we will be more inclined to go with independent excursions on future cruises.
This is our guide, Cyrus. He only does “catch and release” because he said that if he didn’t, it would be like killing his business partner.
We fished up and down the Ward River and had to wade through the water and slippery rocks. Only one of us fell into the water.
We caught Rainbow Trout and Dolly Varden Trout. Randy caught 13, Montie caught 10, Don and Kay each caught 2. All were pretty small...under 2 pounds.
Juneau - Mendenhall Glacier Tour
In Juneau, we took a guided hike on the west side of Mendenhall Glacier. It was a 4-mile roundtrip hike with an 1800 foot climb. It was pretty challenging, but gave us some amazing views down to the glacier. The Mendenhall Glacier is an ice flow formed in the valley of a mountain. This type of glacier is called a Mountain Glacier.
Juneau is a very touristy “cruise” town. Our 600+ passenger ship was joined by four other ships each with about 4000 passengers!
The hike that nearly killed us!
The bottom of the ice flow shows the typical blue glacier ice.
Nugget Falls is part of Mendenhall Glacier. This photo shows the clean glacier water mixing in with the lake water.
Haines - Adventure Hike
Haines is a very small town that is not visited by as many cruise ships. We took another guided hike along the beach, through a beautiful forest and out to Battery Point. Our guides brought along a delicious snack of locally caught smoked salmon balls which we enjoyed on the rocks at the point. This hike was also about 4-miles, but much easier than the glacier hike.
Hubbard Glacier
We were told to have low expectations for being able to see Hubbard Glacier due to weather, tides, etc. However, we had unbelievable weather and the ship was able to get closer to the glacier than they had all season and even in previous seasons. The Regatta has an onboard Naturalist who gives interesting and funny lectures, so we feel like we are now glacier and whale experts. Unlike the Mendenhall Glacier, the Hubbard Glacier is an ice flow that meets the ocean, which is called a Tidewater Glacier. It was pretty cool to sit on the ship’s deck, while eating lunch, and watching a huge block of ice, estimated to have been formed 500 hundred years ago, crack off into the ocean. You see these kind of photos on all the cruise websites, but it actually happened for us. We felt so lucky
Hoonah - Whales & Mammals Cruise
We took a whale watching cruise in Hoonah. After a 45-minute boat ride out into the bay, we came upon a pod of humpback whales feeding on herring. Our guide counted about 16 whales in the pod. They were feeding using a bubble-net technique. She told us that they whales learned this technique…it is not instinctual. The whales work cooperatively to create a “tornado” of bubbles that trap the fish. At some point, a leader whale communicates that it is time to eat. That is when they started coming to the surface and we could see them. They repeat this process over and over. We witnessed at least five rounds of this one pod using this technique! Please watch these incredible videos. The first video is best for seeing the bubble-net fishing, and second one you can hear the whales grunting and moaning better when you turn up the volume.
Sitka - Wilderness Sea Kayaking
Sitka is probably the nicest town that we visited. It has a small airport that Alaska Airlines flies into, so it is a place we might return to without having to cruise. We took a sea kayaking tour on a brilliant morning with glassy water. We saw cute house boats, bald eagles, jumping salmon, sea lions and starfish.
Victoria, BC - Butchart Gardens
Don and I visited Butchart Gardens for our 25th Wedding Anniversary in 2007, so we were very happy to see it again. The gardens had not changed much since 2007, but still did not disappoint. We make a point to visit gardens wherever we go and this is still one of the best in the world.
