I set my alarm for 6am this morning because I had a lot to do before we left for the airport and I hoped to get a head start before Ian woke up.  All things considered, I had a pretty decent night of sleep, so at least I felt energized enough to conquer my to-do list.

I got dressed for the day, then finished packing up all of my belongings.  I spent a few minutes making our sandwiches for lunch on the plane, and heard Ian waking up just as I finished.  With Ian awake, I got him dressed, then packed up the rest of his stuff.  Jason was still asleep, so I sent Ian in to wake him up (why should I be the only one up and being productive?!).  The AirBNB had a whole binder of information to answer any question that might come up during our stay.  One of the pages had detailed instructions on the check-out process, so I took a minute to read that over.  They wanted us to strip the beds, put all the linens on the bathroom floor, and turn on the dishwasher.  Simple enough!  Since Ian was done sleeping, I stripped his bed.  When Jason was dressed, I stripped our bed as well.  We all ate breakfast together at the kitchen table, then I loaded the dishwasher and turned it on.  

We did one last sweep of the rental to ensure everything was packed, then Jason carried all of our bags to the curb while I requested a Lyft XL.  Literally one minute later, a Toyota Highlander pulled up in front of the house to take us to the airport.  Our flight wasn’t scheduled to depart until 11:45am, but I wanted to get to the airport early.  I knew there were 3 big ships in Seattle today, with the potential capacity of nearly 10,000 people, so I had a hunch the airport would be a madhouse.

We arrived at the airport at 9am, and sure enough, it was a total zoo!  I am not sure if this is always the case, or if it was just because of the construction happening at the airport, but there was no curbside check-in option for Alaska Airlines.  We decided that Jason and Ian would stand to the side with our carry-on bags, and I would take the 2 big checked bags to the bag drop counter.  I had booked this flight with Ian being my companion on the free companion pass that came with my credit card welcome bonus, and I booked Jason’s ticket separately using points.  I wasn’t sure if Jason was entitled to a free checked bag or not because his flight was not linked to my credit card benefits, so I just claimed the second checked bag was Ian’s so it would definitely be free.  Since Ian does not have a driver’s license (although he could probably benefit from driver’s ed with the number of times he has run over my feet when driving his Little Tikes Cozy Coupe!), he didn’t need to stay with me when I checked in the suitcases.  I wasn’t kidding when I said the airport was a total zoo.  It took me exactly 30 minutes to wait in the bag drop line until it was my turn!  I have never waited so long to drop off my bags!!  It wasn’t even the same area as the ticketing counter.  We walked past that line later and it was several hundred people long!  

After all of those people in the bag check and ticketing counter lines were done, where do you think they went?  To the security line just like us!  So not surprisingly, it was insanely busy by the time we got to security.  It was so busy near the gates used by Alaska Airlines that they told us to walk down the hall to the next security checkpoint where they said the line was shorter.  When we got down there, we found out that the line they were referring to needed an escalator to access it.  Ian was in his stroller, so we couldn’t use the escalator.  Instead, they directed us to use the priority line.  I have lost count of the number of times we have benefited and saved time in long lines because Ian was in his stroller.  I’m really going to miss that perk when he gets a little older and we don’t need the stroller anymore! 

In the priority line, we walked past the dog sniffing for whatever it is those dogs sniff for, and when we got to the actual security line, we were allowed to leave our liquids in our bags.  We got through the security line in 15 minutes, then had to walk another 15 minutes back to the C gates to find the gate for our flight at the very end of the terminal.  We arrived at 9:55am, and had one hour until boarding time to fill our water bottles, use the restrooms, and take Ian to look out the windows and see the planes.  

The plane we were boarding landed and de-planed on time, but that’s when everything stopped.  Apparently, there was a security issue with our flight.  We will never know exactly what happened, but the TSA needed to do a thorough sweep of the plane and look at everyone’s IDs and boarding passes again before we could board the plane.  When they finished their sweep of the plane, they started to let passengers board, checking everyone’s IDs and boarding passes one at a time.  After about 30 people were on the plane, they stopped for 20 minutes (we didn’t know why), then started again, and we finally got on the plane 45 minutes after we were supposed to take off.  I have never seen anything like that before, and Jason suggested maybe someone got past the security checkpoint without showing their ID?  We will never know for sure, but our flight finally took off 1 hour late. 

The flight itself went smoothly.  Ian watched the Paw Patrol movie for the umpteenth time this week, Jason read a book on his Kindle, and I started the daunting process of sorting through the 3000 photos I took over the last 12 days.  We landed safely back in Phoenix at 3:45pm, and proceeded downstairs to baggage claim.  Our first checked bag came out fairly quickly, but the 2nd checked bag was literally the last bag to come out.  When we finally picked it up, we noticed that it had a big dent in the corner.  

These were a brand new set of matching suitcases that I just bought a few weeks before this vacation, so I was really mad.  I opened up the clamshell in the middle of the airport floor, and luckily, I was able to punch the dent back out using leverage from my knee.  The shell wasn’t cracked or I would have filed a complaint with the airline, but the whole bag now has big scratches all over it.  

We rolled all our bags outside to the ride share pick up area, and ordered an Uber XL.  While we waited for it to arrive, we couldn’t help but notice the drastic temperature change from what we had the whole vacation.  Phoenix welcomed us home with a scorching 109 degree day!

The Uber arrived quickly, and I got Ian seated in his car seat while Jason loaded our bags in the trunk.  We live about 20 minutes from the airport.  Ian didn’t nap on the plane so it came as no surprise that he managed to fall asleep in the Uber, 5 minutes before we pulled into our driveway!  We got home around 5pm, unloaded all our bags into the front hall of our house, and started prepping for Ian’s first day of school the next day.   

**The End**

As I have already mentioned, I visited Seattle several times before, and Jason lived there for 6 years before we met, so we had both done all of the traditional tourist attractions around the city.  Seattle has a ton of interesting things to see and do, but it just did not make sense for us to do those things on this trip.  It is fairly easy for us to visit Seattle from Phoenix, so when Ian is older, we will return and take him to all the things we skipped this time around.  

In planning what to do today, I left our options open.  I knew this would be the end of our trip, and this was the longest we have ever been away from home with Ian, so we couldn’t know in advance what kind of mindset we would all be in when we got to this final day.  As it turned out, we were all worn thin, after so many exciting, jam-packed days, what we really needed was something relaxed and low-key.  We decided to just go for a long walk, with a few key spots in mind as a destination.  

We didn’t set an alarm for this morning, but Ian woke us up around 7:30am.  Even without taking a nap the last two days, he stayed consistent with getting 11.5 hours of sleep each night (which is what he sleeps at home too, when he does take his nap).  We had hoped he would sleep in a little later since we weren’t on a strict schedule today, but nope!

We all got dressed, put Ian in his stroller, and headed out in search of something for breakfast.  It didn’t take us long, because we found a Metropolitan Market directly across the street.  This place is similar to Whole Foods, in that it is a large, upscale supermarket with lots of freshly prepared food.

I don’t usually go for this kind of stuff, but when I saw the apple fritter in the pastry display case, I couldn’t resist!  Jason opted for a cherry almond scone, and we picked up a 4-pack of bagels so Ian could eat one now, and we could save the other 3 for breakfast tomorrow.

The market has a large seating area, so we paid for our food and sat down to eat.  While we were eating, this crazy truck drove by and caught my eye.  We were in Seattle during their Seafair Weekend, so these clowns must have been on their way to some kind of parade or event or something.  There were actually all sorts of events going on around town, but it didn’t occur to me in the moment to look up a schedule or find more information.  While we were on the ferry to Bainbridge Island, we saw a bunch of military jets flying overhead, and later realized they were performing in an airshow!  Too bad we didn’t know about it in advance or we might have tried to attend.

Bellies full, we set out to explore the area.  This mural was painted on a wall in the supermarket’s parking lot:

We walked south along First Avenue, towards the Climate Pledge Arena.  At this early hour, no one was around, but it was definitely more crowded here in the evenings before whatever event they were hosting (I think there was a concert here each night we were in town).

We continued walking and noticed this mural on the side of a building.  It turned out that it was a cannabis store owned by Shawn Kemp, a former NBA player who played on several teams including the Seattle SuperSonics.  We didn’t enter the store, but we did enjoy looking at the mural.

When we got to Broad Street, we turned right to walk towards our first destination.  The street was so steep that Jason asked me to walk in front of him because he was afraid if he lost his grip on Ian’s stroller, Ian would go barreling down the hill and he wanted me there to block his path.  Oh my!  We took it very slowly and all made it to the bottom of the hill safe and sound.

Our first destination today was the Olympic Sculpture Park.  This park is part of the Seattle Art Museum, and features several large sculptures.  It is open to the public and is free to explore at your own pace, so we thought this was a great place to bring Ian so he could run around and burn off some energy.

When we entered the park, we walked through the Bill and Melinda Gates Amphitheater.  This is a tiered grassy hill where they host various events, although nothing was going on while we were there at 9:40am.

At the far side of the amphitheater was a sculpture built in 2004 by Richard Serra called “The Wake.”  It features five giant curved pieces of steel, meant to symbolize waves.  They were built using computer imaging and a machine that once made nuclear submarines, so they are also designed to mirror the profile of battleships.

It is hard to gauge the size of these sculptures from my photo, so I made Ian stand in front to compare the height…

The park also features beautiful landscaping, which is divided into 4 separate areas.  The Valley was a forest of evergreen trees surrounding The Wave sculpture.  The Meadow was a grassy hill on either side of Elliot Avenue, which was the perfect place for Ian to run around.  The Shore was located along Elliot Bay, but it was high tide while we were here so we couldn’t visit the tide pools and small beach in that area.  Finally, The Grove ties the park together as it provides a transition from the city to the shore.  I noticed these bright red berries on the trees in this area, but I wasn’t sure what they were so I didn’t try to eat them.  

We continued walking along the path, which went back up the hill so we had another view point of The Wave and the forest in the background.

The next sculpture we saw along the path was created in 2014 by Ginny Ruffner, and called “Mary’s Invitation:  A Place to Regard Beauty.”  It was commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum in memory of Mary Shirley, one of the most passionate supporters and benefactors of the Olympic Sculpture Park.  This bench symbolized an invitation for visitors to linger and enjoy the sweeping views of the park, its artworks, and the scenery of Puget Sound.

If you sat on this bench (which I do not think you are actually supposed to do!), this would be your view.  We had not yet read the placard for that orange sculpture, but from this angle, I thought it looked like the back side of a dog.  We later learned that is not at all what this sculpture is intended to represent, but I guess art is always open to interpretation, right??

The Park had several sculptures dating back to the late 1960’s, but this next sculpture was the oldest piece of art from 1965.  This was Bunyon’s Chess, by Mark di Suvero, and featured crisscrossing steel beams with swinging pieces of wood, paying homage to two of Washington’s oldest industries. 

Next, we approached the front side of the giant orange sculpture (notice the chairs and family standing on the right for sizing perspective).  This was Alexander Calder’ 1971 piece, titled “The Eagle.”  Calder studied mechanical engineering before studying art, so “The Eagle” is architectural in both its construction and scale.  It displays its curving wings, assertive stance, and pointy beak in a form that is weightless, colorful, and abstract.  To be honest, even from the front I thought it looked like a dog, with an upturned pointy tail and a frontwards-protruding snout.  Like I said, art is open to interpretation!

I did want to point out something from this sign.  It mentions that “The Eagle” was a gift of Jon and Mary Shirley… that is the same Mary Shirly for whom the silver bench sculpture was commissioned, so it was interesting to see one of her presumably many gifts to the museum.

As we continued our walk through the park, I also enjoyed seeing the beautiful flowers in bloom.

We got to a point on the trail where we could have continued walking south, which would lead us down the hill and back to Alaskan Way.  Even the safety railing was sculptural, although I didn’t see any signs indicating if it had a name or was a specific piece of art.

Instead, we walked across a bridge over the train tracks, then continued on the path which made a hairpin turn and angled back towards the north.  

Up next, we saw Tony Smith’s sculpture called  “Wandering Rocks.”  This steel piece was composed of cross sections of tetrahedral and octahedral shapes resting on a point, appearing to hover above the ground. 

From this point, we had a perfect line of sight towards Pier 91 and a new pair of cruise ships.  We considered walking north along the Elliot Bay Trail to get a closer look at the ships, but ultimately decided against it because there wasn’t much else to see in that direction and we would still need to double back to this point to get back across the tracks to get back to the AirBNB.  It was hard to read the names of the ships, but I think this was the HAL Eurodam and the Royal Princess.  Funny enough, we saw both of those ships in Ketchikan on Tuesday, so the people getting off today were the same people in port with us earlier in the week.  It is really amazing how many ships sail in/out of Seattle every day.  Even though our cruise ended 2 days ago, I still felt connected to cruising by seeing the other ships throughout the weekend.

From this spot, we also had a view of another sculpture by Mark di Suvero, called Schubert Sonata, showing geometric forms spinning upon a single point as a way to show the possibilities for motion in sculpture.

We walked down the slope of the hill to sea level, where the park meets the Elliot Bay Trail.  When Jason lived in Seattle, he used to meet up with friends to run along this trail every weekend.  He actually thought he might see some of his old running friends while we were here, but then he realized he usually met them much earlier in the morning, so if they were running today, they would be long gone by now as it was 10:15am at this point.  With so much cloud-cover, it was a cool morning and there were still lots of runners and bikers enjoying the trail.  Ian challenged Jason to a race, so I stood with the stroller while the boys burned off some of their energy.

I enjoyed the views over Elliot Bay while I waited for the boys to finish running.

Once that was out of their systems, we continued walking south along the Elliot Bay Trail to see the last few sculptures.  Up next was “Echo,” a gigantic sculpture of a head, made in 2011 by an artist named Jaume Plensa.  It was modeled after the 9-year-old daughter of a restaurant owner near the artist’s studio in Barcelona.  The sculpture’s title references Echo, the mountain nymph from Greek mythology, who offended the goddess Hera.  To punish Echo, Hera deprived the nymph of speech, except for the ability to repeat the last words of another.  In this 46-foot-tall sculpture, Echo listens with her eyes closed, in a state of meditation.  She faces Puget Sound in the direction of Mount Olympus, visible from land and water.  The sculptures in this park were on such a larger-than-life scale that we really needed to stand in the photos to show the perspective.

As we exited the park, we saw one last sculpture within a fountain.  This was called Father and Son, and was created by Louise Bourgeois specifically for the Olympic Sculpture Park.  It depicts a father and son, reaching towards each other with outstretched arms.  The fountain encircles each of them separately, and rises and falls alternating back and forth such that the father and son can never reach each other.

We were now at the northern end of Alaskan Way, so we continued our walk along the waterfront.  We had already walked along the southern part of this area yesterday as we walked from Pike Place Market to the Bainbridge Ferry, so now we wanted to see some of the things along the northern end.

This was the ferry terminal for the Clipper, which offers day trips like whale watching tours and trips to Victoria, Canada.  In the background, you can see a large mural of orca whales swimming in the ocean, painted on the side of the Edgewater Hotel.

I noticed the artist’s name Wyland on the top corner of the mural.  I knew I recognized that name from somewhere, but I couldn’t place it right away.  We continued walking past the hotel towards Pier 66, and as soon as I saw the cruise ship docked there, I knew where I had seen the name Wyland before!

I had to laugh because had there not been an NCL ship docked here today, I’d probably still be wondering why Wyland sounded so familiar to me!

We walked a little further down until we reached the area where passengers were arriving to unload their luggage and board the NCL Bliss.  This seemed like an interesting place for embarkation/debarkation day, especially for a cruise ship that holds over 4000 passengers!  On the one hand, you are smack in the middle of all the action in Seattle, so I can imagine many passengers staying in the nearby hotels to be within walking distance of all the attractions.  On the other hand, as with most touristy areas, there was a lot of traffic, including pedestrians walking along the waterfront, bikers out for some morning exercise, and vehicles driving along Alaskan Way.  It just seemed very chaotic for the passengers trying to unload heavy suitcases from their taxis in the middle of all that.  I was thankful our cruise left from Pier 91, where at least we had a dedicated space when we arrived/departed and the only other people there were also people boarding/leaving the cruise ship.

By now, it was 10:30am and we left the Metropolitan Market at 9am, so we had been walking for an hour and a half.  Even though we had been going at a slow pace, stopping along the way to admire the sculptures and murals, we still had nearly a 2 mile walk to get back to our AirBNB from this point, so we decided to turn around and head back.  We retraced our steps along Alaskan Way until the road turned right and became Broad Street, then hiked back up the hill to First Avenue, turned left, and continued walking all the way back to where we started our morning.  Along the way, we realized that not only did we need to find somewhere to eat lunch today, but we also needed to pick up some supplies to make sandwiches for tomorrow’s flight home.  There was a Subway on our way (directly across the street from Shawn Kemp’s store, actually), but we decided to walk back to Metropolitan Market and find something there.  We saw some fresh baguettes that were about 3 feet long, so we bought one of those and packages of turkey and cheese, and decided to make our own sandwiches for tomorrow’s lunch.  We considered buying a little more to make sandwiches for today too, but as we were walking past the deli counter, Jason saw a freshly carved rotisserie turkey sandwich that he couldn’t resist.  I decided to pick up a Rainbow Roll from the Japanese counter, which I saw the sushi chef just finished making.  Just as we were starting to consider what we could pick up from Ian, we remembered he still had the leftover mac and cheese from the Harbour Public House sitting in the fridge at the AirBNB!  It will surprise no one that when we asked if he wanted us to reheat that for him to eat for lunch, he said yes.  We took all of our groceries back to the AirBNB, which was conveniently just across the street, and enjoyed our lunch at the kitchen table.

After lunch, we all took showers, then the boys napped while I packed.  When I originally packed for this trip back in Phoenix, I purposely packed our clothes for Seattle in separate packing cubes.  That definitely helped keep things organized, but I still needed to repack all of that stuff and reorganize the big checked bags because somehow, they were both over 50 pounds.  When we packed up the cruise ship cabin, I didn’t really pay attention to the weight of the checked bags because it didn’t matter at the time, but now I needed to sort things out so the lighter bulky items were in the checked bags and the smaller, denser, heavier items were back in the carry on bags as we had done to get them here 12 days ago.  That all kept me very busy while the boys napped.

Ian ended up sleeping for over 2 hours, and we had to wake him up at 4:15 to get ready or we would be late for our dinner plans.  Tonight, we had a 5pm dinner reservation to meet up with some of Jason’s old friends from when he lived in Seattle.  We left the AirBNB a little after 4:30 to walk to the restaurant.  I couldn’t resist having a matchy matchy mommy and me moment with Ian…

We had planned to meet Jason’s friends at Hop House, which is a pizza restaurant near the Seattle Center with a large local beer selection.  When we arrived, they said we couldn’t stay because they did not allow minors.  It was one thing when the Alehouse didn’t allow minors yesterday, but this was a normal restaurant!  It never even occurred to us that we needed to check about their age policy.  That was very frustrating because we had spent a lot of time picking a restaurant in a convenient location which had a menu with enough variety to meet everyone’s needs.  The waiter recommended we go across the street to Tom’s Watch Bar because he said they allow minors.  Really?  You are telling me your restaurant does not allow minors but the bar across the street does?!  I left Jason and his friends at Hop House and I took Ian across the street to investigate.  There was no sense in all of us going over there if they also refused to let in a minor.  I pleaded my case to the hostess, and she said it was no problem, children are welcome.  Whew!  I texted Jason and he and his friends walked over to join us.

Tom’s Watch Bar was actually a really fun place.  Their name is not meant to imply that they sell ways to tell the time, but rather that they have tons of TV screens showing all sorts of sporting events.  This place was huge, with 50+ beers on tap, and over 130 TV screens!  The TV nearest our table was showing some weird kind of obstacle course race where contestants climbed up an icy hill, then went under a pole limbo-style.  I had no idea what we were watching, but it was fun, and the restaurant had a great vibe and a huge menu, so everything worked out in the end.

I ordered the Mediterranean Bowl, with lettuce, quinoa, kale, edamame, tomatoes, artichokes, crispy garbanzo beans, smoked feta, kalamata olives, and grilled chicken, with a side of white balsamic dressing.  It was delicious, and felt very healthy compared to all the other food I had been eating on this vacation!

Jason ordered a cheeseburger, and Ian had mac and cheese (…yes, for the 2nd time today, and no, we weren’t about to stop him and risk a total meltdown!)  They both enjoyed their dishes, and it was good to catch up with Jason’s friends who we haven’t seen in nearly a decade. 

After dinner, we made the 10 minute walk back to our AirBNB, and put Ian to bed.  Despite his 2+ hour nap, he fell right asleep, and we could tell he was exhausted not just from today, but from the whole vacation.  We spent some more time packing, then relaxed on the couch to finish off the last of our beers.  Somehow, we managed to walk over 13,000 steps on this day which was meant to be low-key and relaxing, so we gave in to the exhaustion and were both asleep before 10pm.

Up next: flying home to Phoenix, but not without some drama!

I didn’t set an alarm for this morning, but I still woke up by 7am, feeling more refreshed than I had since leaving Phoenix.  A quick check of my sleep graph showed that I got a great night of sleep, which actually surprised me because we sleep in a king-sized bed at home and I was nervous about sleeping in a queen in our AirBNB.  I guess the exhaustion from a week of poor sleep finally got the better of me!

As I was getting ready for the day, I heard Ian was awake in his room.  I went inside to find him sitting up in bed, playing with his duckies.  I guess the pillows did the trick to keep him safe!  Jason woke up a few minutes later, so we all got dressed and left the AirBNB by 8:30am.  We requested an Uber and it was at our front door literally 1 minute later!  We’re not used to such prompt service, as when we request Ubers at home, they usually take 10+ minutes to arrive.  Our AirBNB was in such a popular location in the heart of Seattle, so there was always an Uber nearby when we needed one.

Our first destination today was to visit Jason’s company’s office.  He works for a large company, and while he works remotely from an office in a spare bedroom in our house in Phoenix, the company’s headquarters is located in one of the skyscrapers in downtown Seattle.  He has made several work trips there over the years, and he always talks about the incredible views they have from their 48th floor offices, so we knew we wanted to visit one day while we were in Seattle.  Conveniently, his company all had the day off today (one of the other reasons that traveling this week worked well for us- it was a freebie PTO day for Jason!), so it worked well to stop by this morning because no one would be there trying to do their work.  

We took the elevator all the way up to the 48th floor and were greeted with this amazing view:

We had no need to pay for tickets to go to the top of the Space Needle when we could get this view for free!  Plus, you can’t see the Space Needle in the skyline if you are in it!

The windows wrap around almost the whole building, so we walked around to see views towards the west.

We could even see the new cruise ships docked up at Pier 91 for their turnover day today.

Zooming in, I could see that there were 2 ships docked today: the Celebrity Edge and the RCCL Anthem of the Seas.

We spent about 20 minutes admiring the views and pointing out various landmarks to Ian, then we headed back downstairs.

Our next destination was Pike Place Market (as tempting as it might be to abbreviate, Jason warned me to always call it by its full name, and never add an apostrophe S to Pike!).  I have been here several times before on family vacations as a child and in 2016 with Jason, and of course Jason had been here countless times over the 6 years he lived in Seattle, but neither of us have ever taken a formal tour of the market.  I thought it might be interesting to take a tour so we could learn more of the history of the market and what better way to enjoy a market than with a food tour!?  There are many options of food tours, in various lengths, group sizes, and price points.  I found a company on Viator called Tasty Tours who offered a 10:30am tour 7 days a week, with a maximum of 12 people per tour.  I hoped that meant it would be easier to follow and hear our guide versus some of the larger 40+ person tours.  This tour averaged 4.8 stars from over 250 reviews, so I went ahead and booked tickets for the 3 of us.  Another perk was that Ian’s ticket was free, which was great because as it turned out, he refused to try a single sample the whole time!  I messaged the guide to ask if it made sense to bring Ian’s stroller.  We thought it might be helpful to keep him contained since we expected the market would be crowded during peak tourist season, plus then he could sit in the stroller for all the rest of the walking we had planned today since we wouldn’t have time to go back and forth to the AirBNB to retrieve it.  We got a reply a few days later encouraging us to use the stroller, and saying that he regularly avoids stairs on the tours to make it easier for everyone.  More on this later!

After walking down from Jason’s office, we were still a little early to meet our guide, so we tried to get a family photo.  Ian was in a mood today, despite his full night of sleep, so he wouldn’t smile or cooperate in photos, and this was the best we could get:

Our tour tickets instructed us to meet at The Crumpet Shop at the market at 10:30am.  We arrived at 10:15 and were a bit confused because there are 3 entrances to the Crumpet Shop.  Where exactly were we supposed to meet our guide?  One was just to the right of where we took the photo above, one was on the main street, and a third was in an alley just around the corner from the main street.  There were tons of other tour groups walking around, so it was very busy, but we saw another family with a husband, wife, and two teenaged sons who also looked like they were searching for a tour guide.  I asked if they were also taking the 10:30am tour and they said they were!  Okay, so now we had 7 of the potential 12 people on this tour waiting together, and we hoped that meant that if we were in the wrong spot, at least the guide was unlikely to leave without us.  There is strength in numbers!!

We decided to wait on the sidewalk outside one of the entrances to the Crumpet Shop, and every few minutes, one of us checked around the corner to see if we saw our guide.

At 10:28, someone approached us and said he was “Sonic John” and would be leading the tour for Tasty Tours.  Whew!  So now we knew we were at the right location!  Three other couples approached John to say they were also signed up for this tour.  John said that although he always caps his tours at 12 people, one of those couples called him yesterday asking to book the tour, and since he only had 11 people signed up, he allowed it.  One extra person isn’t a huge deal, but I thought I would mention it because technically one of the selling points for this tour was that it’s a small group with a maximum of 12 people, and John himself made several comments throughout the tour about how we were a big group and it was hard to keep us all together.

Anyway, John started off the tour by handing out stickers for everyone to wear so the vendors in the market would know that we were taking John’s tour.  He also explained that the market is home to over 500 independent businesses, spanning over 9 acres of multi-level buildings.  Every store in the market is the original location for that brand.  It was within the rules if a store wanted to expand and open other locations outside the market if they had already opened their first location here, but stores that already existed elsewhere could not open a store inside the market (ie: you will never see a McDonalds in Pike Place Market).  There is a location of Starbucks inside the market, but it is permitted because that was their original location!

With that background information, we set off to enter the market itself.  Two minutes later, John said we had to walk down a steep flight of stairs to continue on our way.  Ummm, say what?!  Didn’t you just message me a few weeks ago to say that you avoid stairs on your tours and we should bring Ian’s stroller??  We questioned it, but John brushed us off, saying that the building dates back to 1907, before the ADA required buildings to be accessible, and that we should carry the stroller down the stairs.  With that, he took off down the stairs, leading the group as he went.  We tried to coax Ian out of the stroller, but he was still in a bad mood and we could see the group was leaving without us.  Luckily, one of the teenagers from that family we were chatting with offered to help Jason carry the stroller down the stairs.

Unfortunately, that was not the only staircase we encountered on this tour, and we asked that teenager and his brother for help several more times until Ian finally figured out he was being a nuisance and agreed to just get out of the stroller and walk down the stairs so Jason could collapse it and easily carry it on his own.  Strike 1 against John.

It was a little odd that our meeting spot for the tour was in front of a Crumpet Shop, which was bustling with visitors the whole time we waited for John, yet we didn’t get to sample any food from there.  It was literally just a meeting spot.  

Our next stop on the tour was Beechers Cheese Shop.  Another one of the biggest selling points for this tour was that it specifically said we would get to sample the famous Beechers mac and cheese.  Of all the foods listed in the tour description, this was the only one that I knew for sure Ian would enjoy.  Imagine my surprise when John walks us through the store to the very back where they have a bowl of chunks of cheese and toothpicks to try a piece of cheese.  That bowl is free and available to anyone who walks in the store, so what happened to that sample of mac and cheese you promised us?!  I didn’t say anything at the time, thinking maybe the sample was coming later, but the entire tour came and went, and it wasn’t until later in the afternoon when I realized we never got to try the mac and cheese.  When we got home, I revisited the listing for this tour, and apparently he removed the Beechers mac and cheese sample from the tour description.  Ummm, what?  It is totally understandable that he might have to change the samples offered in his tour for whatever reason, but it is not understandable why he never notified people who were already booked and paid that there would be a change to the itinerary.  Strike 2 against John!

This post doesn’t have enough photos (because I honestly barely had a chance to take photos as we ran around following the group), so it seems like a good place to post this photo that I captured of John:

To be fair, there were some good parts to this tour, so I’ll explain every stop we made and then give some final comments at the end…

Our next stop was at Totem Smokehouse Smoked Salmon, where one of the workers explained how they make their salmon jerky.  She passed out samples to everyone, but again, this was the kind of sample she passed out to EVERYONE, not just those who paid for our tour.  It was a really unique and intense flavor of salmon, and she called it salmon candy.

Next, John led us out of the market building to a park which overlooked Elliot Bay.  He pointed out the building where Starbucks originally brewed their coffee.  This pre-dated the “original Starbucks” located at the corner of Pike Place and Pine Street where tourists flock today, as that was just the original place where they first operated in the restaurant format.  John left us to enjoy the panoramic views over Elliot Bay as he went to pick up our first real sample of food.

He returned with a tray of 13 handmade biscuits with Beechers cheese baked in, made by Honey Biscuits.  Up until this point, I wasn’t sure if Ian’s child ticket qualified him to try samples on this tour, but since the tray had enough for everyone, including Ian, we took one for him.  And then in his true bratty fashion, he refused to eat it!  He really missed out because the biscuit was delicious, and certainly something he would have enjoyed.  We saved it for him to offer it again later when he was in a better mood, but he never ended up wanting it and Jason and I split it later in the day.  

We were thankful that John gave us time to finish our biscuits before we continued on with the tour.  Next, he led us back into the main market building to visit the famous fish mongers.  John said that they don’t throw the fish nearly as much as they are known for, and it typically only happens when someone makes a purchase and the mongers need to move the fish from one side of their stall to the other.  There was a huge crowd of people waiting to see the famous flying fish, but we waited for 10 minutes and never saw it happen.  I have seen it on prior visits to the market, so I didn’t really care that we missed it today, but I’m sure others on our tour were disappointed.  This is one thing we can’t fault John for though because he did tell us that it’s rare to see it nowadays.  I wasn’t kidding when I said there was a huge crowd:

That crowd made me glad we had Ian contained to a stroller because it would have been easy for him to get trampled on or get lost in the crowd.

Our next stop was the Corner Market, who won the James Beard award in 2020 for their Filipino cuisine.  We sampled a half of a lumpia (similar to a spring roll) and a small piece of some kind of sausage.  I have tried lumpia many times before as I’ve had many Filipino coworkers bring them in for potlucks, and these were just as good as the homemade ones I’ve had before.

After that, we went to DeLaurenti Food & Wine in the Economy Market building near the original entrance to the Market.  They opened in 1946 and supposedly have the best pizza in Washington state.  Unfortunately for us, John did provide us with a half slice of their pizza, but the only option was pepperoni which no one in my family will eat.  I tried picking off the pepperoni, but this pizza had barely any cheese, so all that was left was sauce and soggy, greasy bread, and even the sauce was extremely spicy and I couldn’t tolerate it.  That was the single biggest sample of the tour, so it wasn’t ideal that none of us could eat it.

At some point in the middle of all those stops, we also walked through a section of the market filled with crafty vendors selling paintings, ceramics, jewelry, and more.  We didn’t expect to have time to stop and browse the stalls, so this was likely more meant as a pass through when going from one restaurant stop to another.  What we found weird was that it felt like John was highlighting the vendors he was friendly with.  He kept stopping to chat with vendors and telling us how amazing their products were, but it just felt like an infomercial for John’s friends and not necessarily the places any of us would have cared to shop.

It is hard to explain the pacing of this tour as I retell our story, especially since I don’t have a physical map to show the location of each stop, and I don’t have notes about the places he showed us which didn’t serve food (a magic shop, a dried fruit vendor, the first store where John started working in the market in 1987, and a record shop).  Perhaps the most random of our stops was when he brought us to see a duo of a man and woman, both dressed in cat costumes, playing an accordion and a violin.  Apparently the woman playing violin was John’s girlfriend?  He told us how the tips she earns from playing violin in the Market earn her more than she used to earn from her corporate job so now she does this full time.  She was decent at playing the violin, but it just came across like he expected us to tip her.  No one did.

We spent some time walking through the lower levels of the market.  One of the reasons I wanted to book a formal tour versus just walking around the market on our own was because whenever I have been there in the past, I always stayed on the upper level.  I knew this market was huge, spanning several levels below street level and across multiple buildings, but it is very overwhelming if you don’t know where to go.  My hope was that this tour would give us an insider’s perspective on the best places to go, and in some ways, it did do that.  I would have never ventured down to the lower levels and other buildings of the market if not for this tour.  The issue was just in the way John led the tour in such a random order, and it felt so frantic the whole time.

We stopped briefly at Pure Food Fish Market to sample a tiny bite of salmon, which again, was something they gave every visitor who stopped there (not just those on our tour).

Our next official stop was at Los Agaves in the Sanitary Market Building, where we each got to try one street taco al pastor.  This was one of the times when John commented about us having a very large tour group because he usually finds us seats at the restaurant, but we had too many people so he recommended we should instead sit along the benches outside in the hallway.  We were getting very tired (not surprising considering I had taken over 7000 steps by this point in the day!), so sitting on a bench was fine with me as long as I was sitting!  The tacos were tasty, and it was nice being able to enjoy them away from the crowds.

When we were done, John led us to our final stop, Chukar Cherries for an assortment of chocolate covered dried cherries and nuts as dessert.  We ended the tour standing on a bridge leading to an elevator to the parking garage below the market, which was probably helpful to some people but didn’t matter much to us since we didn’t have a car today.  We said our goodbyes to John and the other people on our tour, then went on our way.

Now for a few more comments about our tour:

It was a very busy day at the market (as expected), and we kept ending up at the back of our tour group because we allowed everyone else to go ahead of us with the stroller.  The problem was that each time we stopped to take our samples, the rest of the group had their hands free and could eat the samples as they walked to the next location.  Jason’s hands were both occupied pushing the stroller (which remember, John told us to bring!), so he needed a moment to pop the sample in his mouth.  We were already the last ones in the group to take each sample, but John was terrible at remembering to wait for us to rejoin the group before moving on.  With so many other tourists walking in every direction, it was very stressful to always come out of a store and not know where to find John.  For example, when exiting Beechers, John was a half block away and we had to run to catch up!  Based on all the reviews I had read, this was definitely not his first day leading a tour.  I feel like it’s tour guide 101 to keep track of your group and not leave without people, especially when it’s so easy to get lost in the crowd.

The tour continued like that for the entire time.  The whole thing felt so chaotic as John zig-zagged back and forth around the market, seemingly in no particular order.  We passed by the same spot on multiple occasions as we went from one store to the next.  Perhaps had he taken the time to plot a logical route for us to follow, he could have slowed down and had the time to wait for the whole group to catch up before darting off to the next spot.  I took a few photos as we were walking through the market, but honestly, I missed nearly all of his explanations because he was too far ahead of us to hear anything. 

I thought this sign for the restrooms was relatable, thinking back to life when Ian was an infant…

So I think it is pretty obvious how we felt about this tour and whether or not we would recommend it.  I still think there is potential for a fun and informative tour of Pike Place Market, but perhaps one that actually delivered all the paid samples it claimed to have (as opposed to bringing us to all the places that give everyone a bite to taste regardless of taking a tour), and definitely one that followed a more predictable path versus the chaos we encountered.  To John’s credit, we never would have known which places offered free samples without going into every single store, so he took out the guess-work for us, but I am sure if I looked hard enough, I could have found a free walking tour (where the guide just works for tips) that took us to all the same places.  We paid for this tour expecting something above and beyond that, and I do not think this tour delivered what we expected.

The tour ended at 12:30pm, so we took the elevator down through the parking garage to reach Alaskan Way.  We walked along the waterfront, people watching as we walked.  We passed all the big touristy attractions like the Seattle Aquarium, the Seattle Great Wheel, and a huge brand new playground (which in hindsight, we probably should have stopped at to let Ian play, but honestly, he was still in his bad mood from this morning and we preferred not to poke the bear).  We continued about a half mile south of Pike Place Market until we reached the terminal for the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

Jason used to love visiting Bainbridge Island when he lived in Seattle, and he brought me there for dinner one night when we visited in 2016.  Unfortunately for us, we picked the wrong night to go as the locals who live on the island throw a huge block party one night of July 4th weekend and most of the restaurants and shops are closed for the night.  It was just our luck that we picked that night to try to go out to dinner there, and the few restaurants that were still open had extremely long waits for a table.  We ended up at a Vietnamese restaurant called Thuy’s Phó House which served… pho, something we ate nearly every week back home in San Jose (where we lived at the time).  Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed our pho as we usually do, but that’s not what we really wanted from our trip to Bainbridge Island.  We wanted to stroll the quaint, uncrowded streets and have a relaxing evening away from the hoards of tourists back in Seattle.  We knew when we planned this vacation that we wanted a re-do, and this afternoon was our chance to do just that!

We took the elevator to the upper level of the ferry terminal, then bought our tickets for $10.25 per adult.  We laughed at the sign saying children aged 6-12 were free… does that mean Ian can’t come with us??  Or do children under age 6 cost extra? Haha!  The lady laughed, but said all children under age 13 were free.  It was now just before 1pm, so she said the next ferry was leaving in 10 minutes, at 1:10pm.  We went into the building to use the restrooms and wait for the ferry to arrive.  I also snapped a photo of the ferry schedule so we could time our return trip. **Foreshadowing**

The ferry arrived on time, and after everyone got off, they opened the gates for us to start boarding.

We found a spot along the back railing where Ian could watch all the cars drive onto the ferry.  This was the happiest he had been all day, so we let him stay out there as long as he wanted.  It’s really impressive how many cars they can squeeze into the lower level of this ferry.

While Ian enjoyed his view of the cars, I enjoyed looking at this view of the Seattle skyline.

We could still see the cruise ships docked at Pier 91.  I can only imagine how much traffic there was approaching the cruise terminal with such huge ships both doing turnaround day at the same spot.

I couldn’t get enough of the views of the nearby attractions with the Great Wheel located just a few piers away.

We could also see Ivar’s, the restaurant where we planned to eat dinner after returning to Seattle tonight.

There was a fireboat docked next to Ivar’s.  We tried to explain to Ian how this was like a firetruck but for boats, but he didn’t believe us.

Inside, the ferry has tons of open seating.  I don’t think it ever sells out for pedestrians as the ferry has a maximum capacity of 2,500 passengers.  We witnessed that they do sell out for cars as the ferry holds up to 202 vehicles, and we saw as a few cars didn’t fit when they finished loading the lower level.

At exactly 1:30pm, I felt the ferry start to pull away from the pier, so I guess they gave us 20 minutes to board.

The skyline views were incredible as we moved out into the bay.  You really can’t get this view unless you are out on the water, so the ferry ride is worth it for the views alone.

It was fun that we saw cruise ships every day we were in Seattle.  Usually when we stay in a city for a few days pre- or post-cruise, we only have a view of the port on embarkation and debarkation day.  I loved that we could see the port so easily from wherever we were in Seattle and I always made it a point to figure out which ships were docked.

The ferry takes about 30 minutes to cross the bay.  As we saw that we were getting closer to Bainbridge Island, we moved to the front deck to watch our approach.

At 2pm, we made our final approach towards the dock.  In the background, you can see all the cars lined up to board for the return ferry back to Seattle.  It must be so interesting to live on Bainbridge Island and rely on this ferry every time you need to get to the mainland.

After we finished docking and we walked off the ferry, Ian insisted on standing at the window inside the ferry terminal so he could watch the cars drive off the ferry.

Our plan for the afternoon was to walk down the Bainbridge Brewing Alehouse.  While we were on the ferry, I looked up the walking directions from the ferry terminal and it was only 0.3 miles away.  When you walk out of the ferry terminal, there is really only one way to go, and most of the other passengers are going the same way so it is hard to get lost.  We walked along the main road until we reached Winslow Way, then turned left and the Bainbridge Brewing Alehouse was the second building from the corner.  Much to our dismay, there was a huge sign at the entrance stating “no minors allowed”!  Ugh, really?!  I understand when bars who only serve alcohol don’t allow minors, and even when restaurants that have a bar section and a dining room section don’t allow minors in the bar section, but this place was so strict that minors can’t even go in the dining section.  They had a huge patio that wrapped around the outside of the building, and we hoped we could sit outside and watch the people walking by, but I asked the bartender inside and he said that minors are not even allowed on the patio.  

I didn’t have a Plan B prepared, so I took out my phone and started Googling alternative options.  We wanted somewhere that served local craft beers (for the adults) and some kind of food that would appeal to Ian.  I found a place called Harbour Public House, but they were on the opposite side of the Winslow neighborhood, 0.6 miles away.  Before we walked all the way there, I called them to make sure they allowed minors, and the lady on the phone answered me as if that was the weirdest question she’d ever heard.  “Yes, of course we allow minors.  We don’t have any age restrictions.”  Okay, so now we had our Plan B!  

The walk to the Harbour Public House took us through downtown Winslow, passing lots of cute boutiques and cafes.  I particularly liked this mural painted on the side of one of the stores:

We turned left when we got to Madison Avenue to continue walking down towards the water.  On the way, we passed this store and I could not resist taking this photo:

I’m sure everyone else on the sidewalk thought I was crazy! 

When we got to the water, we turned right and continued our journey.  This restaurant was definitely off the beaten path, but when that path is a boardwalk along a marina filled with boats, I am okay with that!

It took us 18 minutes to reach the Harbour Public House from when we left the Alehouse, but it felt like we were in a different world.  I am sure there were other tourists here, but it really felt more like a place for locals.  I noticed several tables occupied by large groups of friends, and when we found a table on the patio, the couple at the table next to us told us they live on the island.  The patio itself was built up on a deck overlooking the marina, and had the largest umbrella I have ever seen to provide shade.  It honestly felt more like the top of a circus tent than an umbrella!

There was a plaque on the wall inside the restaurant explaining the history of the building.  Instead of trying to summarize it myself, I will share this information from the restaurant’s website:

The Harbour Public House was originally owned by Ambrose Grow and his wife, Amanda, and their family. They came to Eagle Harbor in 1881. He was a Civil War veteran and came because of the descriptive letters he had read in the New York and Kansas papers telling of the virtues of Bainbridge Island. Selling his large farm in Manhattan, Kansas, he homesteaded 160 acres here along the waterfront. In addition to being a charter member of the Eagle Harbor Congregational Church and the Madrone Schools, he was a prolific correspondent to the happenings in Eagle Harbor and environs. The Grow Family Homestead still stands today as home to Harbour Public House.

The building had so much character and we could have spent hours reading all of the kitchy signs and looking at the memorabilia they had on display, but Ian was getting hangry so we knew we needed to get him settled ASAP.  Unfortunately, they did not have a kids menu.  The Macaroni and Cheese Bowl sounded delicious, so we ordered that for Ian, knowing that Jason and I would also take a few bites.

You place your order inside at the bar, so Jason went inside to order a Tieton Wild Washington Apple Cider (yes, made with real Washington apples!) for me and a Fremont Dark Star Nitro Stout for himself while I sat outside with Ian.  It was such perfect weather for sitting outside in the shade with a beautiful view of the marina.

Jason returned to the table with our drinks and a pager to notify him when the food was ready.

I just realized I never took a photo of the mac and cheese, but OMG, it was HUGE!  It was served in the same bowl they used for their entree salads, and it probably could have fed all 3 of us for dinner!  It was only 3pm and we weren’t ready for dinner quite yet, so we asked for a smaller bowl to serve a reasonable portion to Ian, and Jason and I each tried a few bites.  We ended up asking for a take out box to take half of it to go because there was just too much to finish it.

Before we left, I took Ian to use the potty.  I loved all these funny signs that were hanging on the walls of the bathroom…

When we were done, I used Google Maps to plot a different route for us to walk back to the ferry terminal.  Since we were already down by the water, it didn’t seem necessary to climb all the way up the hill to the downtown area, so I knew there must be a shortcut somewhere.  Sure enough, I found a road that would lead us to the Waterfront Trail, which ended very close to the ferry terminal.  I don’t think it saved us much time since it was still a 1 mile walk and took us 20 minutes to complete, but it was nice to see a different part of the island.  Bainbridge Island is actually huge compared to the small area that we saw today, but we didn’t have access to a car, nor did we want to spend the time utilizing the public buses, so this was really more of an excuse to ride on the ferry and see the views!

When we reached the end of the Waterfront Trail, there was a clear sign pointing us towards the ferry…

I appreciated that they made it easy to find your way back, as I am sure they know many tourists come out to visit and explore Bainbridge Island.  

While we were at the Harbour Public House, I checked the ferry schedule.  There was a ferry at 3:50pm, but it would have been a rush to make that one, so we opted to take our time at the restaurant and aim for the 4:45pm ferry instead.  As it turned out, that was a mistake!  We got to the ferry terminal at 4:25pm and stood in line to wait for boarding to begin.  Remember, these ferries hold 2,500 people, so we weren’t worried about getting a seat or anything, but we didn’t know how long it would take us to walk back, and we definitely didn’t want to miss the ferry, so we got there a little early.  Once you get down to the terminal, there’s really nothing else to do besides get in line for the next ferry, so that’s what we did.  Twenty minutes later, there was an announcement that the ferry was delayed leaving Seattle.  The ferry didn’t arrive in Bainbridge until almost 5:30, and then they still had to let all the pedestrians and vehicles off before we could board.  The good news was that once we were allowed to board, everyone got on very quickly, and we pulled away from the dock at 5:37pm, nearly an hour late!  We kind of regretted taking our time at the restaurant because an hour spent sitting on the floor of the ferry terminal was definitely not the best use of our precious minutes on vacation.  Jason and I joked that we once again had bad luck when visiting Bainbridge Island, as something always goes wrong when we head over there.  Maybe if we ever go back, the third time will be the charm and things will go more smoothly for us?

Anyway, we stationed ourselves at the back of the ferry so Ian could watch as the workers released the lines and we sailed away.

As Bainbridge Island moved further into the distance, we walked through the ferry to the front deck so we could watch the views as we approached Seattle.

I noticed the Celebrity Edge was just starting to sail away, enroute to Alaska.

We docked back in Seattle at 6:10pm, and by now, we were all hungry again.  We resisted the urge to snack on the leftover mac and cheese because we had something better in mind.  Every time I visit Seattle, I always love to eat at Ivar’s Fish Bar.  I can even remember eating there as a child on a family vacation to Seattle.  When I realized that Ivar’s is located right next door to the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal, I knew we had to go there for dinner tonight. 

Ivar’s has a large indoor restaurant, but the weather was too perfect for us to dine inside tonight.  They also have a Fish Bar, where you order your food from the counter, then sit at a picnic table along the side of the building to eat your food.  

The seating area has great views of the water and the ferry terminal, but the most unique thing about it is all of the seagulls who patiently wait along the railing, hoping someone will toss them a french fry to eat.  We knew Ian would get a kick out of seeing all the birds, and we were right!

In case you thought it was frowned upon to feed the seagulls and encourage them to hang around the pier, the Seagull Society of Seattle gave us permission!

And so did Ivar’s!

The Fish Bar also has an indoor seating area in case of rain (because, you know, it rains sometimes in Seattle!), but we opted to sit outside.  I suppose that indoor area would also be useful if someone didn’t want to see the seagulls?

Jason and I each ordered the salmon and chips, and we each shared some with Ian.  It was fresh and delicious, as expected!

We kept an eye on the seagulls while we ate, but they were surprisingly obedient and never tried to land on our table and steal food that wasn’t offered to them.

We finished up our food around 7pm, and walked out onto Alaskan Way to request an Uber.  Minutes later, a car picked us up and we were back at our AirBNB by 7:30pm.  We were all exhausted, which wasn’t too surprising considering my watch said I had walked over 14,000 steps today!  Jason and I put Ian to bed, then we relaxed on the couch, sipping the beers we picked up yesterday and debriefing everything we had done that day.  It was hard to believe that tomorrow would be our last full day of this vacation, which we started planning a year and a half ago!

Up next: a low-key day in Seattle

Jason and I spent July 4th weekend in Seattle in 2016.  On that trip, we bought the City Pass and did all of the top tourist activities so we did not feel the need to repeat those things on this trip.  We did the Argosy locks cruise, visited the Museum of Pop Culture, saw the Chihuly glass exhibit, rode on the monorail, explored Pioneer Square and took the Underground Tour.  Here are a few photos from that trip…

This time around, we wanted to do some things we missed last time, and of course we also wanted to pick activities that Ian would enjoy.  My original plan when we got off the ship Thursday morning was to Uber to our AirBNB, drop off our luggage, then spend the day exploring the Seattle Center.  Unfortunately, someone was booked at our AirBNB the night before us, and their check out time was 11am, so we were not allowed to drop off our luggage until 11:30am (check in time was 4pm).  If we had to be off the Luminosa by around 9am, that left us with 2+ hours of time in limbo before we could drop off our bags.  The AirBNB was only a 10 minute drive from the cruise port, and it didn’t look like there was anything to do at the cruise port, especially with all of our luggage.  We could have paid money to check our luggage at the port for a few hours, but that didn’t really make sense as there was nothing to do within walking distance, and if we took a taxi somewhere, we would have to return here at the end of the day anyway.  After a lot of thought about our possibilities, we decided to totally scrap our original plan and instead, we rented a car.  We could take an Uber to pick up the car, put our luggage in the trunk, and drive around the city until it was time to check into the AirBNB.

At first, I assumed we would rent a car with one of the typical car rental agencies, but none of them had a location near the cruise port.  The best we could find was an Avis/Budget office near the Seattle Center, but they were only open from 8am until 4pm, and you had to return the car before their office closed.  With the AirBNB check in time being 4pm, it just didn’t work with our plans to rent from that location.  

One night in June, we were watching TV and there was a commercial for Turo.  Neither of us have ever heard of Turo, but it is basically like AirBNB but for cars.  People rent out their own private cars through an app.  We found someone renting a Toyota Rav4 from a location about a mile from our AirBNB.  That seemed doable and our plans began to take shape.  We could take an Uber from the cruise port to pick up car, load our bags in the trunk, spend the day exploring, drop off the bags at the AirBNB at 4pm, go out to dinner, return the car, then walk the mile back to the AirBNB at the end of the day.  Turo offered free cancellation until the day before the car rental, so I booked the car and then started to research what we could do all day.

I wanted to take advantage of having a car and not needing to stay right in the main city center, and I also wanted to do something kid-friendly.  That’s when I discovered the Outback Kangaroo Farm.  It was located an hour north of Seattle, so even Jason, who lived in Seattle for 6 years before we met, had never heard of it.  They offered guided tours of their farm where visitors can interact with unique animals including kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos, llamas, lemurs, alpacas, and emus.  This just seemed like such a rare opportunity, even if it was a bit out of our comfort zone!  I called to book tickets and they explained that they do not take reservations (except for large groups), and we should just show up.  They have 4 tours per day, at 10am, 12pm, 2pm, and 4pm, but if you arrive after the tour starts, you cannot join it late and must wait for the next tour.  I preferred for us to catch the 10am tour, as Ian would likely be cranky and hungry by noon, but I wasn’t sure if it was possible to get off the ship, collect our luggage, go through immigration, get an Uber, pick up the Turo car, and drive an hour to the Kangaroo Farm all before 10am.  We decided to let that be a game day decision.  If we were making great timing and picked up the Turo at or before 8:45am, we would go straight to the farm.  If we were running later than that, we would first drive up to Kerry Park and the Fremont Troll, then head up to the farm for the 12pm tour.

When my alarm went off at 6am, we were already docked in Seattle.  I must say that knowing we still had three full days left on our vacation definitely took the edge off my usual debarkation day depression.  It felt like a full-circle moment when I went out on the balcony and saw the same view of the marina we had seen one week earlier on embarkation day.

The refueling barge was just pulling up to help the Luminosa prepare for her next voyage.

We finished packing and getting ready, then went up to the Lido buffet for our last burrito breakfast at 7:15am.  I expected to see a huge mob scene, but it wasn’t all that busy when we were there.  Perhaps a lot of people took their own luggage off the ship because Zach had already called the first few self-debarkation groups by then.  There was no line at all for our burritos, so I got our food while Jason sat at the table with Ian and all of our carry on bags.

When we were finished eating, we left the ship around 8am.  I forgot to mention this, but each port day morning, there was a big sign at the deck 9 midship elevators near the Lido buffet which told you where to go to find the gangway.  That was actually very helpful because the deck and location did vary from port to port.  Today, that sign said we should exit on deck 2.  We waited a while for an empty elevator with enough space for us, Ian in his stroller, and our carry on bags.  It took a few minutes for an empty elevator to arrive, but when we got off on deck 2, we couldn’t find the exit.  It turned out that  the sign was wrong and we needed to exit on deck 3, so we had to wait for another elevator to go up one deck.  That was frustrating because any other day, we would have just taken the stairs, but we had 2 overstuffed and heavy rolling carry on bags plus Ian in his stroller, so we didn’t have enough hands to carry everything up a flight of stairs and needed to wait for another elevator with space for us amidst all the other passengers who also had their bags.  Anyway, when we eventually found the gangway, there was a long line of people ahead of us, waiting to get into the terminal.

Once we finally got into the terminal and down to the lower level, we found our checked bags very quickly.  There was a porter waiting nearby, so we flagged him down and loaded all the bags on his trolley.  Passport control had no line, so we got through quickly, even with using our passports but Ian’s birth certificate.  The porter told us that if we wanted an Uber, we had to either take a shuttle or walk 10 minutes to the ride share lot.  That seemed like a hassle, so we just opted for a taxi instead.  Even if the taxi was more expensive than Uber, that was worth the convenience of not having to walk to the other parking lot.  The porter brought us to the first available taxi, but he refused our ride because we were just going downtown and not to the airport for a higher fare ride.  The porter got in an argument with him and tried to report him to the man in charge of taxis at the port, but he drove away.  Honestly, I was okay with that because I wasn’t thrilled about riding in his taxi after he was so riled up.  The next taxi driver to pull up didn’t ask where we were going and we knew the porter was smart enough to not say anything if not asked, so we put all our bags in the trunk and got seated in the backseat and then told him our destination.  It wasn’t a problem at all, and he said it would cost $28 for the ride.  I can’t imagine Uber would have been much cheaper, so we were happy with our decision to take the taxi.  We were on our way by 8:35am. 

As we drove to the Turo pick up location, I messaged the owner through the app that we were on our way.  She said she pulled the car out of her garage and parked it on the street for us, so I saw the car immediately when the taxi dropped us off.  Turo requires you to take 15+ photos of both the interior and exterior of the vehicle at both drop off and pick up, which I suppose isn’t the worst idea as a CYA.  I took the obligatory photos of the car while Jason loaded our luggage in the trunk and got Ian into his car seat. 

By the time we finished all of that, it was a few minutes after 9am and we knew we wouldn’t make it to the Kangaroo Farm in time for the 10am tour.  I think that ended up working out for the best with how the rest of our day flowed.  We already had our Plan B in mind, so we typed in the address for Kerry Park into the GPS and off we went.

Kerry Park is located up on a hill in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle.  The park itself is well-kept, but it is small. No worries though because the real reason it is worth a visit is for the sweeping views over Seattle.

They have binoculars that you can use to get a better look at things in the distance.  We spent a few minutes here, pointing out some of the landmarks to Ian.  I thought we might be able to see Pier 91 and the Luminosa, but it was just beyond the curve of the hill and we couldn’t see it.

Next, we drove across the Fremont Bridge into the Fremont neighborhood.  For once, I was actually hoping the draw bridge would be raised because Ian has never seen a draw bridge before.  It was down, so we didn’t mention anything (we didn’t want him to be upset at missing out on seeing it!) and just drove over it like any normal bridge.

Fremont is a funky area of town, with lots of interesting shops and restaurants, but that’s not why we were here.  Under the Aurora Bridge sits the Fremont Troll.  I first learned about this troll when it was used as a filming location from the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, and Jason took me here to see it on our 2016 trip.  I thought Ian would enjoy it, even if he didn’t know the pop culture movie reference, and since we already had a car to drive up there and it was on our way towards the Kangaroo Farm, we made a quick stop.  When we were here on a weekend in 2016, it was crowded with lots of other people seeing it too.  This time, however, we were here on a Thursday morning, so we got the troll all to ourselves.

It was nice to see that he was being well maintained and they had painted over the graffiti on his face and hands from when we visited in 2016.

The troll is huge, and you can really see the perspective when Jason and Ian climbed up to the top.

This looked like a little trail next to the troll, but we decided not to explore it because our car was double parked.  I guess that’s the one downside to the troll’s location- there is no parking lot and street parking is very limited.

Standing with your back to the troll, you get a cool view of the underside of the Aurora Bridge.

We were back in the car by 9:50am, so it was still a little early to drive up to the Kangaroo Farm.  The lady on the phone had said there is nothing to do on their grounds, so she didn’t recommend we arrive early.  More on that when we get there!  If we went straight there, we would arrive before 11am and have an hour of time to kill.  Instead, we decided to stop at a Target that we saw from the highway along the way.  We figured that would give Ian a chance to go potty (remembering we hadn’t seen a bathroom since getting off the ship at 8am!), and we could kill any remaining time by walking around the store.

Aside from that small detour, it was an easy drive from Seattle up to the town of Arlington.  We spent most of the drive going north on I-5.  We were both surprised to see how much traffic there was on the southbound side going towards Seattle considering it was so late in the morning for a typical rush hour commute.  When we got off I-5, we drove for about 15 minutes through the town.  At one point we were behind this logging truck, which is not something I’ve ever seen before.  It felt very Pacific Northwest!

The driveway entrance to the Outback Kangaroo Farm came up quickly, and the sign was so small we almost drove right past it!  We arrived at 11:30am, so we were still a bit early for the 12pm tour, but we figured that would give us time to give Ian a snack and buy our tickets to the tour.  Remember how the lady told me there isn’t anything to do on their grounds before the tour?  Maybe she thought I meant I wanted to play with the animals on my own?  I’m not sure, but there was actually quite a lot to do.  They had these cute photo opportunities (which of course, Ian refused to do):

There were picnic tables and other places to sit while you waited.

There were a bunch of chickens roaming free on the property.

There was a cage with lemurs right behind the main office.  Honestly, we could have just sat and watched the lemurs for an hour and been happy!  They were so cute and energetic, and sort of looked like if a cat mated with a raccoon.

And there were two peacocks walking around the grounds as well.

I really think that lady undersold all that there was to do and see aside from the tour itself, and we had plenty to see to fill our time while we waited for the 12pm tour.  

I went inside the front office to buy our tickets.  The tour costs $25 per adult, and $15 for children aged 2-12.  There was no physical ticket for the tour, so I don’t know how they kept track of who paid their entrance fee, unless they just went by the honor system and assumed no one would drive all the way out there to be dishonest?  The lady told me the tour would start promptly at 12pm at the lemur cage, so I went back outside to find Jason and Ian.  By then, there were already a handful of visitors waiting around the property, and it was starting to get crowded.

By the time our 12pm tour started, there were over 100 visitors there!  Where did all of these people come from?!  Jason lived in Seattle for 6 years and had never heard of it!  It wasn’t just families either- there was a minibus filled with residents from an assisted living facility!  We really didn’t expect it to be this crowded, especially considering it was a Thursday afternoon, and now we kind of wished we got off the ship earlier this morning since the 10am tours were said to be less crowded on most days.

The lady who sold us our tickets entered the lemur cage to feed them while she explained the rules of the zoo.  

She said the most important thing was that if you approached an animal and it walked away from you, you should just let it be and don’t follow it.  She said we shouldn’t run because that excites the animals, and not in a good way!  She also advised us that when we are feeding the animals, if the food drops on the floor, we should not pick it up to try feeding them again because you never know what germs are on the ground.  If the animal still wanted the food, it could eat it off the ground on its own.

After that brief introduction, they split us up into 2 groups, and we proceeded through the zoo in opposite directions to make it less crowded with the animals at any one time.  Our group started with a visit to the kangaroo pen.  They had around 10 kangaroos inside this space, and we each took one leaf from a tree outside the pen that we could feed to the kangaroos.  I have never seen a kangaroo up close before, so while we were really here for Ian’s enjoyment, I thought it was fun too!

Throughout this vacation, Ian has really impressed us with his willingness to do things that are out of his comfort zone.  Part of me feared he wouldn’t want to participate, since at home, he only likes seeing animals from a distance but gets scared when they come close to him.  If he sees someone walking their dog, he runs to me and says he doesn’t want the dog to lick him.  I started to second guess our plan to come here at all because I thought he might be scared of the animals.  Well, that was so far from what actually happened.  Ian took his leaf and went right up to the kangaroo to feed it!  

The kangaroos were very calm and must be used to having visitors enter their space throughout the day.  Not only did they allow us to feed and pet them, they seemed to enjoy it.  It reminded me of a dog who loves to have his belly rubbed.  

When he saw me pet the kangaroo, Ian said he wanted to do it too!

Just look at that kangaroo’s face!  He was loving all this attention!  Meanwhile, from these photos you would never realize how many people were in this pen with us.  The grounds were quite large, giving the kangaroos a ton of space to run (err, hop) around, and the visitors all had plenty of space to spread out.  Of course we all wanted to see the animals, but only a few families shared each one, and we all took turns so everyone had a chance to take photos and interact with them.  We stayed with the kangaroos for 10 minutes, then moved on to the next area.

Up next, we got to feed the mini donkeys.  They were fenced into their pen, so we couldn’t get as close as we did to the kangaroos, but as soon as they saw us coming, they went right up to the fence because they knew they were about to be fed.

Next, we saw the Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  It was nice to see that while they were all excited to be fed a snack, the animals were all very calm and we felt safe being so close to them.  Our guide handed out the appropriate food as we approached each new animal, and he showed us how to properly feed them.

Next up was the emus.  At first, I thought these were ostriches, but our guide, Ernie, corrected me.  Among other differences, ostriches are larger and are native to Africa, whereas emus are smaller and are native to Australia (which makes sense as to why they are at this kangaroo farm!).

This miniature horse had his own pen.  Ernie said he is feisty and tends to bite people so we should keep a safe distance from him.

The last stop on the tour was to visit the llamas and alpacas.  I usually (and mistakenly) use those words interchangeably, but they are different species.  Llamas are larger and have a longer face and ears.  Alpacas are smaller, with a shorter, more blunt face and smaller, pointed ears.  They play nicely together so they shared a pen at this zoo, and we were able to get as close to them as they let us.  They were all very friendly, and we could see them standing patiently behind the fence, waiting for Ernie to let us in.

Once we entered the pen, they came right up to us!

Ian has a few Llama Llama books at home, so we knew he would enjoy this part of the tour.  He really took to this alpaca, but it took us a while to convince him it wasn’t a llama!

Proof that I was there too!

The tour was 45 minutes long and we thought it was worth every penny!  At first, we questioned spending $65 for 45 minutes at a petting zoo considering we have a similar zoo near our house in Phoenix which is free (although it has different animals like pigs, chickens, peacocks, goats, and sheep).  As soon as we saw how much fun Ian had petting and feeding the animals, we knew we made the right decision to come here.  And even Jason and I had fun getting to feed and pet the kangaroos, llamas, and alpacas, as that is certainly not something either of us had ever done before.  On our way out of the last pen, Ernie encouraged everyone to use their hand washing station before returning to the car.  We also changed out of our dirty sneakers and into flip flops before getting in the car so we wouldn’t track all of that dirt into the rental.

It was now 12:45pm, and the place I wanted to go for lunch didn’t open until 2pm, so we had some time to kill.  There was a Walmart that we had to drive past anyway, so we stopped in to buy a few beers to bring back to the AirBNB, since we knew we’d be trapped there after putting Ian to sleep each night.

I knew we would have some time in the afternoon after finishing at the farm and before we could check into the AirBNB at 4pm.  I looked into some options and discovered the Five Rights Brewery in Marysville.  It was located just off I-5, about midway between the farm and our AirBNB, so it was on our way.  Aside from their selection of craft beers, they had a full menu including a kids menu, so it was the perfect place for a late lunch.  We arrived right as they were scheduled to open at 2pm, and there were already a handful of other people inside.  I guess they opened early today?

Jason and I both ordered a pint of the German-style hefeweizen, and we shared the flatbread pizza so we wouldn’t spoil our dinner.  We got Ian the Mini Mac from the kids menu, which we thought was funny that they served it in a coffee mug!  Everything was delicious and this was a great place to stop for a quick light lunch on our way back towards Seattle.

We finished at the brewery by 3pm and got back in the car for the hour-long moderately-trafficy drive back to our AirBNB.  We pulled into the driveway at exactly 4pm, just in time to check in.  The AirBNB host had messaged me this morning with the access code to open the front door, so we let ourselves in.  I quickly took some photos before we had a chance to mess it up.

Our unit was the bottom level of a duplex, with our front door facing the back alley between the houses as opposed to the main street where the upstairs unit entered from.  It had two bedrooms and one bathroom, plus a full kitchen, a living room, and a parking space.  

This bedroom was at the back of the house, right next to the front door and across from the kitchen, so we let Ian take this room because it would be quieter for him versus facing the main street.

This was the kitchen, with the front door open at the right, and Ian’s room just to the right of that.

Turning around 180 degrees, this was the living room space with a couch and a smart TV.  We could have signed into one of our own streaming accounts, but we never even turned the TV on while we stayed here.  Straight ahead was the bathroom, and the door to the left was our bedroom, so it worked well to have Ian far down at the other end of the hall where he wouldn’t hear us talking when he was trying to sleep.

This was our bedroom, with a queen-sized bed, a desk, a dresser, and a big closet.

This was the bathroom.  I find that there is often something quirky when we stay in an AirBNB.  In this house, it was the bathroom… for some reason, the toilet was elevated on a 6” platform.  I felt like a little kid sitting on that toilet with my feet dangling off the edge, since my legs were too short to reach the ground.  I am sure there was something about the unit being partly below ground that made this necessary for the plumbing pipes, but it was so awkward!  I will give our AirBNB host credit for being very responsive in answering all of my questions before arrival and during our stay.  She has two kids around Ian’s age, which was one reason we picked this rental because we knew she would understand if Ian had an outburst and she heard it upstairs.  I messaged her to ask if she had a step stool Ian could use to reach the sink to wash his hands, and she brought one down for us five minutes later!  

We packed our evening clothes in my carry on bag for quick access, so we all changed into nicer clothes (ie: clothes that didn’t touch a kangaroo and alpaca earlier in the day!), and got back in the rental car at 4:45pm.  Before the cruise, I had made a 5pm reservation for a nice seafood restaurant called Palisade.  We picked it because it is part of the Landry’s group of restaurants.  Costco sells discounted gift cards to use at any restaurant operated by Landry’s, and Jason had stocked up our supply a few months ago when Costco was running an additional sale giving us the equivalent of 40% off.  We used to go to the Scottsdale location of Chart House every year on our anniversary, but in June, I found out that the restaurant closed.  There really aren’t many other Landry’s options near us, so when we realized Palisade was operated by Landry’s and was located so close to our AirBNB, we decided to go there for tonight’s dinner.  I packed our Costco gift cards so our bill would be heavily discounted, and it gave us something nice to look forward to after the cruise.  I knew the restaurant was located very close to Pier 91, but I didn’t realize just how close it was until I stood on our balcony and saw the restaurant right there!

As a reminder, this was a photo I took from our balcony on embarkation day, and the brown building behind the marina was Palisade.

Driving to the restaurant was a little confusing as there were several exits from the Magnolia Bridge and we didn’t want to end up back at the cruise ship terminal!  We got turned around a few times, but eventually found our way to the correct parking lot, just a few minutes late for our reservation.

The inside of this restaurant is beautiful and rather unique, with a huge koi pond running through the middle, and an overpass bridge so you can walk from the bar area to the dining room.

I checked in for our reservation and apologized for our tardiness, but the hostess said it was no problem at all and led us to a large table for 4, along the wall of windows overlooking the marina.  I just realized we missed a great photo opportunity and should have asked the waiter to take a picture of us seated at the table with all the boats in the background.  Guess we’ll just have to go back and eat there another time!  This was the view from our table:

We placed our food and drink orders, then I went back outside to take some photos of the marina without the glare from the windows.  We knew that making a 5pm dinner reservation meant we would likely be too late to watch the Luminosa sail away.  It was crazy to think that we had just debarked this morning, since it felt like we had done so many things since then!  I checked on Cruise Mapper, and sure enough, the Luminosa was well on her way up the Puget Sound to bring a new set of passengers north to Alaska.  There was another ship also docked at Pier 91 today.  I honestly didn’t even notice her presence when we debarked this morning, but I assume she was there and I just wasn’t paying attention?  Anyway, that ship was Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, and she was still docked when we arrived for dinner, and I could see her beyond the smaller boats in the marina.

By the time I returned to the table 10 minutes later, our cocktails had arrived.  I ordered the Effervescence, made with Tito’s Vodka, Italicus Bergamot Liqueur, Fiorente Elderflower Liqueur, lemon, and prosecco.

Jason’s cocktail was called Smoke and Bourbon, made with Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon, Combier Orange Liqueur, Meletti Amaro, Filthy Black Cherry Syrup, and Cherry Wood Toast.  The waiter brought all the ingredients for Jason’s drink on a bar cart and prepared it tableside, including lighting the flame for the smokey flavor.

We sipped our cocktails and continued to admire the views.

A few minutes later, the waiter brought out our entrees.  Jason ordered the King Salmon, because he always tries to eat as much salmon as possible when he visits Seattle.  He said it was very fresh and cooked perfectly.  I ordered the Shellfish Linguine, with lobster, shrimp, mussels, clams, scallops in a garlic butter sauce.  When I ordered, the waiter told me this dish was similar to cioppino in that it’s more of a broth than a pasta sauce, but that was fine with me.  This felt like an upscale version of the penne mariscos I ordered last night on the ship, and it was delicious.

As we were eating, I looked up and noticed the Queen Elizabeth was sailing away.  Ian got a kick out of getting to watch the cruise ship sail by, so it was nice that our timing worked out.

Overall, we had a wonderful experience at Palisade.  All of our food and drinks were delicious, and you really can’t beat the views!  We left the restaurant around 6:45pm, drove to a nearby gas station to fill up the car with gas, then drove back to the pick up location to drop off our Turo car rental.  I took the necessary photos of the inside and outside of the car, and returned the keys to the mailroom in the owner’s apartment building as instructed.  The whole process of renting with Turo was very easy and we would definitely consider renting through that app in the future.  I guess the one problem with it is that you can’t do a one-way rental.  We need to rent a car for our cruise with my parents in December, but we are picking it up from the Orlando Airport and need to drop it off near Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, so we will need to use a mainstream car rental agency.  I doubt someone who owns a car in Orlando and uses the Turo app to rent it out would appreciate having to retrieve their car from Ft. Lauderdale!  But for a simple one-day rental where you stay nearby the same city all day, Turo worked out great.

One of the reasons we picked this particular Turo rental was that we would be dropping off the car 1 mile from our AirBNB.  We purposely scheduled our day with time to unload the suitcases from the trunk when we checked into our AirBNB so now we were luggage-free and could walk back tonight.  There were plenty of ways to get from Point A to Point B, but we opted to cut through the Seattle Center to give Ian a better view of the Space Needle.

On our way, we passed KOMO Plaza, which was the building used for exterior shots of Seattle Grace Hospital in early seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.  It is not a hospital at all, but is actually home to a TV station and several other businesses.  Still, it was still fun to see in person after watching that show for 2 decades.

It makes sense why the show’s location scouts were drawn to this building as it is located directly across the street from the Space Needle, setting the scene for the Seattle-based drama.

Ian’s face lit up as soon as he saw the “Space Noodle” right in front of him!  

We continued walking through the Seattle Center and passed by the Chihuly Glass Garden and Museum.  We did not pay to enter here on this trip as Jason and I had already been there in 2016 and we didn’t think Ian would really appreciate it.  We did point out the giant whimsical flowers though.

We got back to the AirBNB at 7:45pm.  We gave Ian a very thorough bath to wash away the grime from playing at the farm, then we got him ready for bed.  We were a little nervous about letting him sleep alone in the front bedroom because the bed was much higher than any other bed he has slept in.  He has a tendency to lay at the very edge of the bed, which is fine at home where his bed is only a few inches off the ground, and it was even fine on the cruise ship all week because the couch bolsters were placed along the side as an added cushion.  This AirBNB had a ton of throw pillows in both bedrooms and on the living room couch, so we placed them around the perimeter of the mattress, hoping that would keep him centered on the bed while he slept.  We also put more pillows on the floor around the bed, so just in case he did fall off, there would be something to cushion his fall.

Ian was asleep by 8:15pm, which is impressive considering how many late nights he had this week, although not all that surprising considering he missed his nap today.  Jason and I stayed up a little later, talking through the logistics for tomorrow, then we went to bed by 10pm.

Up next: Pike Place Market Food Tour, then taking the ferry to Bainbridge Island

The Jones Act, or Merchant Marine Act of 1920, says that cruise ships operating between U.S. ports must be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, and U.S.-crewed.  As far as I know, the only cruise ship currently sailing to meet this requirement is NCL’s Pride of America which sails week-long cruises through the Hawaiian islands.  As a work-around, the cruise lines utilize foreign-flagged vessels and make stops at foreign ports of call to avoid violating the law when traveling between U.S. ports.  But what about cruise ships sailing out of Seattle and visiting Alaska?  All of those places are in America, so they must also include a stop in Canada to qualify as a foreign port, even if they only stop there for a few hours.  Ideally, that stop would have more traditional port times, but because of the time it takes to travel from Ketchikan back south to Victoria, our ship (and most other 7-day Seattle round trip itineraries) wouldn’t dock until 8pm, with an all-aboard time of 11:30pm. 

When I originally booked this cruise, I assumed we would just stay on the ship when it docked in Victoria.  This was the last night of the cruise when we would need to finish packing, and we didn’t think there would be any activity we could do with Ian so late in the evening.  Even after we were on the ship, I intended for us to skip this port.  At some point yesterday, Jason mentioned the idea of leaving Ian in camp and just him and I getting off the ship for a few minutes to walk around.  We decided to leave our options open and see how we felt after dinner.  If we were able to pack up our big suitcases during the day, and Ian was content with spending another night at Camp Ocean, then perhaps we could get off the ship and walk around just for a few minutes.

Since we weren’t docking until 8pm, today really just felt like any normal sea day at the end of a cruise.  We didn’t have anything specific on the agenda, so we left our alarm clocks off and slept in until Ian woke us up at 8am.  Unfortunately, “slept in” wasn’t fully accurate as I woke up a bunch of times throughout the night and never once entered deep sleep.  I don’t think I have ever gone so many consecutive nights with such poor sleep!

Once we were all awake and dressed, I requested a table for sea day brunch and it was ready almost immediately!  I guess everyone else on the ship opted to sleep in too!  We sat in the very back of the dining room with a view of the wake, but it was so foggy we could barely see anything.  It was hard to complain though considering we had such great weather when it mattered most!

Remembering how painfully slow our service was on the first sea day brunch, we were impressed at how fast it was today!  I ordered my usual bagel with lox and cream cheese so I could eat the lox and Ian could eat the bagel.

I also ordered the skillet cake again, and it was equally as fresh as earlier in the week.

I usually also order 2 fried eggs but decided to skip that today because I wanted to be hungry when it was lunch time.  Even though we were eating at 8:30am, I find that I usually eat way too much at sea day brunch and then I’m not hungry a few hours later when it’s time for lunch.  This was our last opportunity to try some of the lunch options at the buffet, so I wanted to make sure I was at least a little hungry!

Side note: As I mentioned earlier, the Luminosa only has one dining room.  This morning, they had the “Thing 1 and Thing 2 Birthday Party” which I have seen them host on other ships in a different location from sea day brunch.  That works great on ships that have at least two MDRs, but on the Luminosa, they held both things in the same location.  We were seated downstairs on deck 2 for sea day brunch, and the “Thing 1 and Thing 2 Birthday Party” was held upstairs on deck 3, with a huge open space between the 2 decks.  That meant that we could hear all of the music from the birthday party while we ate brunch.  At first, I couldn’t figure out why we were listening to the Hokey Pokey and Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, but when I heard them play the Happy Birthday song, I finally realized what was happening.  I checked the Fun Times and realized our mistake… we should have waited until 9am for brunch so we could eat after the birthday breakfast was over and it would have been a lot more relaxing!

We left brunch at 9:10am, so we were there for about 40 minutes… a huge improvement over the brunch on our other sea day!  Daryth’s final lecture, titled Whales Alive, started in the theater at 9am, so we knew we missed the beginning of it but we still went to catch the second half.  We sat at the back so we wouldn’t disturb her or anyone else as we entered, but it wasn’t all that crowded anyway.

When the lecture was over, we took Ian upstairs to Camp Ocean when they opened at 10am, then we went back to the cabin to tackle the daunting task of packing.  Sigit had yet to clean our cabin, so we put up the do not disturb sign because once we pulled out the 2 big suitcases and started folding all the clothes back into their packing cubes, there was no way he could get in to clean the cabin.  We spent a solid 2 hours packing as much as we could, but we weren’t quite finished by the time we wanted to pick up Ian for lunch.  We left the do not disturb sign on our door when we left, but then we ran into Sigit in the hallway.  We explained that we did not need him to clean our cabin today, and he said that was fine with him but was there anything else we needed to get through the rest of today and tomorrow morning, like towels or soap or anything.  We were fully stocked, but I asked if he could quickly make a towel animal to leave for Ian because I knew he would miss it if we didn’t have one today.  Sigit did us one better:  He gave us the towel animal that was decorating his cleaning cart!  I know on my previous Carnival cruises, the stewards usually leave us a towel heart on the last day, so this puppy was definitely an improvement and would be much more exciting for Ian.  We brought it back to the cabin and put it on Ian’s bed as a little surprise for nap time.

We picked up Ian at 12:15pm and went to the Lido buffet for our last lunch on the ship.  Ian wanted the meatball sandwich again from the deli, so Jason went to get him that plus a sandwich for himself, while I went to Chopstix to pick out a few things that looked good.  My last few Carnival cruises have had the Mongolian Wok, and as much as I enjoy that, it was nice to have a full Chinese food station with lots of options since that is one of my favorite cuisines.

After lunch, we took Ian back to the cabin for his nap.  He was thrilled when he found the towel puppy waiting on his bed!

We told Ian it was time to start packing up his toys in preparation to get off the ship tomorrow.  All week, he stored his toys in the cabinet under his nightstand.  I also hung this collapsible organizer for some of his clothes, books, toys, and crafts that he brought back from Camp Ocean (notice King Ian’s crown still on display!)

As he was packing up his toys, he lined up all of his new duckies from the dinner waiter so I could take a photo.  He is definitely my child in wanting to document everything with a photo!

When Ian and Jason laid down for their naps, I wanted to sit outside on the balcony but it was a complete white out from fog and everything was very wet.  Last night, we had a sign hanging on our door to notify us that they would be cleaning our balcony today and we would not have access to it during that time.  I found it annoying that they opted to clean our balcony on a “sea day” as opposed to while most passengers were off the ship on a port day.  As it turned out, today was way too cold, wet, and foggy to use the balcony anyway so it didn’t matter in the end.  In fact, even if they did clean the balcony today, it probably looked dirty again soon thereafter given the bad weather.

I considered taking my iPad somewhere else on the ship to edit some photos, but decided to just do it in the cabin and sit at the desk/vanity area instead.  At some point, Zach made an announcement that the casino and the shops would be closing today at 3pm as we exited international waters and entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  I was afraid his announcement would wake up Ian, but luckily, he slept through it and didn’t wake up until 4:15pm  Since he got in such a long nap, Jason and I decided we would plan to get off the ship in Victoria after all.  Had he skipped his nap, he might have been too cranky to leave at camp, but we thought he would be good to go now that he caught up on some sleep

It was nice to see that the skies were starting to clear and the fog had mostly lifted as it was now 4:30pm and we were getting closer to Victoria.

We spent a few more minutes packing everything except what we would need for tonight and tomorrow morning, but opted not to put the 2 big suitcases out in the hall quite yet.  The paperwork said we should put it out between 9-11pm, so we kept it inside the cabin, assuming we would be back around 10pm when camp closed and could throw in today’s clothing before putting out the bags.

We went down to the MDR for our final dinner at 5:15pm.  There was hardly anyone else eating in the dining room tonight, so perhaps they were all planning to go out to dinner somewhere in Victoria?  Ian asked to bring his blue baby duckie from last night when we went to dinner.  We got to the table and saw that the waiter brought him two new duckies tonight, so now he had a duckie family to watch him eat!

For Ian’s dinner tonight, I ordered him the adult appetizer portion of penne mariscos.  I always order this dish on Carnival ships and I knew when Ian saw my pasta, that he would end up eating most of it and I wouldn’t have any left for me.  Thinking ahead, I ordered him a dish of his own, assuming that I would eat the shellfish and leave him the pasta.  Imagine my surprise when Ian ate all of the shrimp from his dish!  We were so proud of him for trying so many new foods and experiences throughout this vacation!  Too bad that adventurous spirit stayed behind when we flew back to Phoenix, as he’s now back to his old ways of wanting Mac and Cheese for every meal!

None of the daily appetizers appealed to me tonight, so I just ordered the shrimp cocktail and caesar salad.

I forgot to take a photo of Ian with his dish, but this was my entree portion of the penne mariscos.

After dinner, we went back to the cabin to grab our hoodies because it was getting chilly as we approached Victoria.  We took a peek outside on the balcony and were greeted with clear blue skies, even if the air felt cooler than when we were in Alaska!  It was going to be a lovely night in Victoria!

There was still some time before Camp Ocean opened for the evening session, so we went to Ocean Plaza to listen to the band Beauty and the Beat.  We hadn’t seen them perform yet this week, so it was fun to listen to something new.  

We took Ian up to Camp Ocean when they opened at 7pm, and we let them know we planned to get off the ship for just a short walk, but we would be back long before the 10pm pick up time. We appreciated that it was no problem to leave him on the ship while we got off.  I don’t know if I would have felt comfortable getting off the ship without him if we planned to venture further into the city, but we planned to stay in walking distance and only be gone a short while.

We still had some time before the ship was docked and we were cleared to get off, so we went to the comedy showcase in the main theater at 7:30pm.  It was kind of ironic that they used the big main theater for this show tonight when hardly anyone showed up, and the smaller Limelight Lounge throughout the week when many more people wanted to see the shows, but that probably had more to do with the production show and headliner act schedules than anything else.  

As always, Jem Jem took the stage first as an opening act and to lay out the rules of the show.  She really did an excellent job as comedy club host all week.

Each of the two comedians did a short 15 minute set.  Up first was Kier:

…then Chris Cope:

They were both funny as always, but what made it even funnier was that the entire time, the ship kept vibrating as we docked in Victoria.  They are used to performing when the ship is out at sea in the evenings, so the noise and vibrations from docking made for some good side jokes.

The comedy showcase ended at 8:05pm, so we went back to the cabin while we waited for the initial rush to get off the ship.  We spent a few minutes out on the balcony, watching our final approach into Victoria.  It was the perfect timing to catch the sunset and golden hour!

By the time we went downstairs, the crowds had thinned and there was no line to get off the ship.  

For the second time this week, we were in Canada!  

There isn’t much to do in the port itself, so we followed the clearly marked path out to the street, turned left, and just kept walking.  

Since I had not planned to get off the ship in Victoria, I did zero research on exactly where we should go, or what would be a good destination for our walk.  

I knew I wanted to get far enough from the buildings near the port that I would have a clear view of the ship.  Less than 10 minutes after leaving the ship, I found the perfect view!

The Luminosa looked stunning as it reflected the orange sunset hues.

We kept walking until we reached Fisherman’s Wharf.

By now, it was after 8:30pm so it was very quiet with no one around aside from the people from our ship.  It was so pretty seeing all of the boats tied up for the night.

We considered walking further towards downtown, but decided against it.  I didn’t want to be gone from the ship for too long, remembering that we had left Ian on board.  Also, it was surprisingly cold outside!  I really wish I knew it would be this cold because I certainly had a whole wardrobe of warmer jackets and pants sitting unworn inside our cabin!  

Not that there was any chance we could get lost, but I appreciated the clear signage for the return walk.

A few more photos on the walk back to the ship…

When we got back to the unobstructed view towards the Luminosa, the skies were so pretty that I couldn’t resist taking a few more photos.

While I was taking photos, this pick up truck drove down the boat ramp.  It looked like he might drive right into the water, but he just stopped and parked.  I was glad we arrived a moment ahead of him so I could take my unobstructed photos!

There were signs all along the path so you really couldn’t get lost.

All of these people were waiting to board the shuttles to downtown.  It was almost 9pm, so I hope they didn’t have to wait too long for the next shuttle!

The path back to the ship had these pretty flowers painted on it.

The building behind that sign with the red awning was a souvenir shop.  We didn’t think to bring our wallets off the ship because we thought we were just going for a walk, so we didn’t have any money to buy anything, but we looked around inside for a few minutes (and secretly reveled in the warmth because we were both freezing at that point!).  We only stayed for about 5 minutes because it was very crowded in there, then we headed back to board the ship.

We were back onboard at 9:10pm, and Jason said he was hungry, so we went to the deli to get him one last sandwich for the cruise.  When he finished eating, we picked up Ian from camp.  I honestly don’t even think he knew we had gotten off the ship without him!  The counselors gave him a drawstring Camp Ocean branded backpack filled with a coloring book, crayons, a bubble wand, and a blow up microphone.  He also got a medal because apparently he had won a dance contest.  Now, if you know my child, there was very little chance he won a dance contest, so I suspect that was more of a participation medal than a winners trophy, but that’s okay.  He had a wonderful time at Camp Ocean all week, and we profusely thanked his counselors for all of their work.  

When we got back to the cabin, we changed into pajamas so we could put today’s clothes in the checked bags, then put them out in the hallway before the 11pm deadline.  Fingers crossed we had space for all our remaining stuff to fit in our carry on bags tomorrow morning!

Up next: Debarkation Day back in Seattle

One of the biggest downsides to most 7-day roundtrip Seattle to Alaska cruises is that they only get a few hours to spend in Ketchikan.  Like many other ships, we would only be in port for a half day from 7am until 1pm, with an all-aboard time of 12:30pm.  That didn’t leave much time to explore, especially when I had no intentions of getting off the ship right at 7am when we docked.  My original plan was that we would just spend the morning walking around on Creek Street and shopping for souvenirs as this would be our last few hours in Alaska before returning south to end the cruise.  

One day last summer, I was fiddling around on Viator’s website and I noticed an excursion that sounded really interesting.  Alaska Puddle Jumpers offered a tour that would take us out to explore some nearby tide pools, and I couldn’t believe the unique marine life shown in the photos of people who reviewed the tour.  We’re talking purple starfish, sea urchin, crabs, and a gigantic starfish that must have been 2 feet wide!  After that, they would take us to Totem Bight State Park to learn about the totem poles.  The tour was 2 and a half hours long, leaving us an hour or two to walk around on Creek Street after the tour.  This sounded like such a unique experience that would also be child-friendly for Ian.  The one question was: what time is low tide on the day we will be in Ketchikan?  Looking at their calendar on Viator’s website, they had only posted the schedule for the 2024 cruising season, and it looked like they operated the tour at different times based on when low tide happened that day.  There were many days that had no availability at all, so I assumed that meant low tide was in the middle of the night.  The Alaska Puddle Jumpers website had very few details, and it said you must book the tour using Viator, so I sent a message through their website to ask when they expected to post the 2025 schedule.  That was in mid-August, and I never got a reply, so I made it part of my morning routine to check every day on Viator for when they expanded their schedule.  

It occurred to me that I could look up the tide schedule for Ketchikan, because the only way we could take the tour was if low tide fell in the late morning on the day we were in port.  If low tide fell early in the morning or overnight, we would be out of luck.  Imagine my delight when I learned that on July 29, 2025, low tide in Ketchikan was at 10:22am!  That was perfect, and gave me confidence that eventually I would be able to book this tour.  Finally, in mid-February, 6 months after I discovered this tour, Alaska Puddle Jumpers updated their bookings on Viator.  They would only be running this tour 7 times in the month of July, and one of those times was at 8:30am on July 29!!  It could not have worked out any better than that, so I immediately booked our tickets.

My alarm woke me up at 6:15am, and I finally felt as though I had a decent night’s sleep.  It still wasn’t perfect, but at least the moments when I woke up were brief and I always fell back asleep.

I quietly got ready in the bathroom, then woke the boys up at 6:30am.  As had become my routine on this cruise, I went out on the balcony to see how the weather looked.  We were just about to tie up to the dock in Ketchikan, but sadly our perfect weather streak had ended as it was currently raining.  Ketchikan is known for having lots of rainy days, so I wasn’t all that surprised that we were here on one of them.  I kept my fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be a total wash out and we would have some breaks in the rain, even if the sun never fully came out.

I took my packable raincoat out of its pouch for the first time all week, and grabbed jackets for Ian and Jason, and we headed up to the Lido buffet for our usual port day breakfast.

By now, the ship had finished docking and the gangways were open for passengers to head off the ship.  We sat at a table by the window so we could watch all the action while we ate.

I got up to get a cup of water, and noticed the stewards were busy this morning setting up towels on all the lounge chairs.  I always think it is so fun when they do this, but I never thought to look for it on our hectic port day mornings, so I got lucky that I happened to walk by this morning.

By the time we finished breakfast and got off the ship at 7:50am, the rain had slowed to a drizzle.  That was more tolerable since we still had a bit of a walk to reach our meeting spot for our tour.

We were docked at Berth 1, so we started walking towards the visitors near Berth 2.  We didn’t need to meet our guide until 8:30am, but this gave us a few minutes to get our bearings.   Ian liked looking at the Rain Gauge.  We showed him where Phoenix’s annual rainfall of 7 INCHES falls on the scale, as opposed to the 12.5 FEET they get in Ketchikan!

Opposite the Rain Gauge was a statue called “The Rock,” which depicts the miners, loggers, fishers, and pilots who originally settled in Ketchikan.

Of course, we couldn’t resist the quintessential tourist photo with the Welcome to Ketchikan sign:

At 8:15am, I got a text message from our guide, Clarke, saying he had arrived to pick us up.  Since we were already there, we could start our tour a few minutes early.  As it turned out, we were the only people who booked this tour today, so we ended up with a private tour!  Clarke walked us over to the 12-person van he had parked in the small parking lot next to The Rock statue, and we got on our way.

Clarke drove us about 10 minutes south of the cruise port to Rotary Beach so we could explore some of the tide pools.  

He led us down a staircase to the beach, and we followed him across the slippery rocks in search of some wildlife.

At first, we saw lots of moss and kelp, but no animals.

I liked this heart-shaped piece of kelp:

There were a few rocks that were covered with blue mussels.  He said people will come out here with buckets and pick the mussels off the rocks, throw them in a pot of boiling water, and cook up a fresh dinner!

We continued walking closer towards the water until we found what we really came for: the starfish!  It was sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack!

Clarke said they like to travel together, so when we saw one starfish, we knew there would be others close by.  Sure enough, just a little further up the rocks we found 3 more.  These were unlike any starfish I have seen before as they were purple!

This guy was trying to stretch an arm way up high to climb up the rock:

Clarke reached down and picked up one of the starfish to show us.  

Then, he handed it to me to hold:

Yup, it’s definitely purple!

Ian tends to be very shy about trying new experiences, and we have learned that a great way to peak his interest is if we do the activity first and he sees us enjoying it, then he wants to do it too.  I knew the only way he would go anywhere near this starfish was if I held it first, and sure enough, a moment later, he asked to hold it too!  We were so proud of him for going out of his comfort zone and trying something new!

I tried to get him to take it from me so I could get a photo of him holding it, but that was too much for him and he declined.  Okay, fair enough, baby steps for now.  I still consider it a win!

We looked around for a few more minutes, unsuccessfully searching for more animals, but since we were already standing at the edge of the tide, we couldn’t go out any deeper.  

I knew from reading reviews and seeing photos from other people who took this tour that there is a giant starfish who lives somewhere nearby, but the water was still too deep for us to go find him.  It was a little disappointing that Clarke brought us here between 8:40 and 9am when low tide wasn’t until 10:30am.  In hindsight, I wish we would have done the whole tour in the opposite order and gone to Totem Bight first thing in the morning, with the added bonus of likely arriving before any other tours (more on that when I get to that part of our day).  That would have gotten us to the tide pools an hour or two later, closer to the true low tide time of 10:30am and I’ll bet we would have seen a lot more.

Another thing I want to mention about this stop at Rotary Beach was that it was extremely slippery.  Since the tides come and go very quickly, we were walking along a section of beach that was underwater just a few minutes earlier.  The rocks and sand were all still wet as they hadn’t had a chance to dry, and being a cloudy and rainy day certainly didn’t help that process.  I had emailed Clarke a few weeks before our trip to inquire about the best option for footwear.  Would we need rain galoshes?  Hiking boots?  Aqua socks?  He replied “The water won’t be high. You can wear whatever shoes you’d like. You don’t need to bring special shoes.”  Hmm, that was not helpful at all!  I considered bringing Crocs for Ian in case he wanted to walk around in the water, but in the end, decided not to pack his Crocs just for this one tour and instead, he wore his old sneakers from last year at school (they were already so beaten up that I didn’t care what happened to them, and he actually wore them for all of our port days).  I wore a pair of sneakers that I had sprayed with Scotchgard.  My sneakers had a thick sole that kept my foot 2 inches off the ground, hopefully keeping me dry in case we were in shallow puddles.  Jason opted to wear flip flops because he only brought one pair of sneakers on the trip and he didn’t want to risk them getting ruined if our feet got fully submerged.  While I can understand Clarke telling me the water won’t be high enough to need rain boots just for this tour, I think he should have emphasized the importance of wearing sneakers with good traction.  These rocks were very slippery, so the issue wasn’t us getting wet as much as it was maintaining good traction to safely walk along the beach without falling.

We stayed at Rotary Beach for 20 minutes, then walked back to the van to head off for our next stop.

Next, Clarke drove us to Herring Cove.  This spot is very popular with all the tour groups, so it was very crowded when we arrived.  Clarke dropped us off and told us to go where all the people were standing as that’s where you get a good view of the river.  There are usually lots of salmon swimming here, and that attracts bears looking for a snack, so that’s why so many tour groups come here.  Clarke said he was going to drive the van back up the hill so he wouldn’t get trapped by other tour vans, and he would come down to meet us.  This was one of those moments when it was convenient being on a private tour as we were easily able to find a spot between the other tour groups for the 3 of us to stand and admire the view.

We spotted two eagles perched atop the poles in the distance.  Unfortunately, they were facing away from us so we really only got a view of their backs:

We scanned the length of the river, trying to see the salmon, but honestly, I didn’t see anything swimming in the water.

I did notice there was a platform nestled in the trees, packed with so many people I questioned if they were safe.

A moment later, one of them stepped off the platform and slid down the zipline!  He moved too fast for me to capture him in a photo, but that must have been a stunning spot to go ziplining!  

We stayed in this spot for 10 minutes, searching for more animals.  The eagles remained perched on their poles, but there really wasn’t much else happening.  At one point, I noticed some movement in the trees:

Do you see it?  Let me zoom in a little more…

There was a beautiful blue bird flying between the branches.  

When he finally emerged, he flew off into the distance so fast that my photo was just a big blur.  After 10 minutes, we were ready to move on, disappointed we didn’t get to see a bear, but hopeful we would see some more animals at our next stop.

When Clarke came back down the hill to meet us, we told him we were ready to move on since there wasn’t much to see here, so we walked back up to his van.  He drove us around the corner to a small parking lot for a tent selling homemade honey and jam.  Clarke said that very few tour groups get to park in this spot.  He is friends with the woman who owns this land and she allows him to park his tour van here to bring visitors down to the beach along Herring Bay, so this spot was much less crowded than Herring Cove where we just left.  We hopped out of the van and walked down a hill to reach the beach.

By now, the rain had stopped, but it was still very cloudy and gloomy.  

Clarke walked over to the rocks and started flipping them over, searching for little critters hiding underneath.  You can see him in the green shirt in this photo:

He used his empty coffee cup from this morning to collect his findings, then called us over to show us the tiny Dungeness Crabs.

He also found Hermit crabs and a tiny eel:

Ian loved this part of the tour and was so curious to look at the tiny animals as they crawled along the beach.  

Another family was fishing at the far end of the beach.  They caught a few fish while we were there, but they kept throwing them back in before we could walk over to see what they caught.  Other than them, we had the rest of the beach to ourselves.  It’s funny to think that there were 3 cruise ships in port today, totalling close to 9000 passengers, yet we had this whole beach nearly to ourselves.

We noticed a few more eagles way up high in the trees surrounding the beach.

Clarke said that based on their feathers, he could tell those eagles were 2 or 3 years old.  A little while later, an adult eagle came to join them!

He landed on top of one of the tallest trees, and just sat there, overlooking the beach and water below.

When it was time to move on from the beach, Ian just wanted to stay and explore more!  

We eventually lured Ian away from the beach with the promise of going to see totem poles!  We walked back up to the van and drove north, passing through downtown and the cruise port area, then driving even further north until we reached Totem Bight State Park.  For some perspective, Herring Cove is about 20 minutes south of the cruise port, and Totem Bight is 20 minutes north of the cruise port, so this tour takes you to two opposite locations, 40 minutes apart, with no shortcut or highways or any faster way to get there.  After returning home and looking at Google Maps, I found it strange that we didn’t visit Saxman Village instead.  Saxman is very similar to Totem Bight in allowing visitors to see a few totem poles and replicas of native tribal houses, but it is located on our way when driving between Herring Cove/Bay and the cruise port.  We literally drove right past it (but didn’t know it at the time) and that would have saved us a ton of driving on an already-too-short port day.  To be fair to Clarke, I think he wanted to show us something else next to Totem Bight (more on that later), but it would have been better if he asked us our preference.  Did we want to go to Saxman to save a lot of time driving, and then have more time after the tour to visit Creek Street?  Or did we want to drive up to Totem Bight and also visit another place (Potlatch Park), but it would be a much longer drive.  Since it was just our family on the tour today, I think that would have been a reasonable adjustment had he asked us what we preferred.  

On our drive north, we passed Ward Cove, NCL’s private dock for when its ships visit Ketchikan.  There weren’t any NCL ships in port today, but I can attest that Ward Cove is very far from the main downtown area.  A few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot for Totem Bight, so I would definitely recommend this as a great place for NCL cruisers to visit since it is so close to where their ship will dock.

We drove past the visitor center and parking lot for Totem Bight and continued down a long driveway to a smaller parking area.  This was actually for the site next door called Potlatch Park.  Clarke explained that most tours only visit Totem Bight, but he would also take us on a tour of Potlatch Park, but we could pick which order we toured them in.  While we had the opportunity to use an outhouse at both Rotary Beach and Herring Bay, we all held out for this stop on the tour because Clarke had told us this would be our only chance for clean, indoor bathrooms.  Clearly, that was our first order of business!  The bathrooms were located inside the museum at Potlatch Park.

Bio break complete, we spent a few minutes looking around the museum.  We could have spent a lot longer there as there were a ton of things to see, but we just took a quick glance so we could carry on with the tour.

Clarke suggested that we should visit Totem Bight first, so he escorted us back along a path to the main entrance, and showed us where we could use the machines to purchase our tickets for $5 per person.  He recommended that we pick up the guide brochure, and then left us to walk around on our own, saying he would meet us back at Potlatch Park in about 15 minutes.  I thought it was a little strange that he didn’t come into Totem Bight with us to explain what we were seeing, but perhaps he needed this time for a break?  At least we had a detailed brochure to tell us what we were seeing.

Just as we finished buying our tickets, two huge tour buses with 50 passengers each pulled up and started unloading.  We hurried up to get ahead of them so we could enjoy the park without the crowds of people.

Totem Bight follows along a path through the woods, and it makes one big loop so it’s easy to follow on your own.  At the start of the path stands two shorter poles…

Thunderbird and Whale:

And Eagle Grave Marker:

This was the fee booth, but we had already paid our fee in the automatic machines in the parking lot.

We followed this path for a few minutes.  It was smooth and even, so it was easy to walk on.

Man Wearing Bear Hat:

After a few minutes, the trees opened up to a view of the water, and we could see several totem poles on display.

We continued around the path until we came upon a building where they were restoring old poles.

It is interesting to see the poles laying down because you can get a better look at the details in the wood which are normally very high up and hard to see.

Next, we saw a replica of a clan house.  The hole in the bottom of the pole was used as the entrance door to the house.  When we met back up with Clarke, he explained that the hole was designed so that if the clan were all sleeping inside of the house and they were being invaded, only one person could enter the house at a time.  If the opening was too big, the invaders would be able to attack all at once and the clan didn’t have a fighting chance, so they made the hole small enough for only one man to enter at a time, in hopes that the first invader would wake the whole clan up and they could defend themselves before any other invaders entered.

The purple lupine really stood out amongst all the greenery.

This next pole was called Pole on the Point, and stood 68 feet tall!  I should have made Ian stand next to it for some perspective!

Blackfish Pole:

Land Otter Pole:

There was a fenced boardwalk that surrounded some of the poles.  I’m not sure why we were allowed to get very close to some, but these poles were protected by keeping visitors at a distance.

Back along the path, we caught up to a big tour group from the Discovery Princess.  Instead of getting caught up with the crowd, we skipped ahead two poles and leapfrogged them.

I appreciated that they put discrete numbered plaques at the base of each pole, making it easy to follow along in the guide brochure.  This was the Kadjuk Bird Pole:

We asked someone to take a family photo for us, but Ian wasn’t having it!

He actually started screaming for some unknown reason, so we took that as our cue to finish up and head out to find Clarke, sparing the Discovery Princess passengers from listening to Ian’s tantrum.

We found Clarke sitting outside the Potlatch museum, so he escorted us through Potlatch Park, explaining everything we were seeing along the way.

First, he took us inside the carving shed and explained how a woman named Brita Alendar hand carved this totem pole.  Totem carvers are a field dominated by men, so it was remarkable that she was able to prove herself and create such beautiful art.  

Clarke had actually spent most of our 40 minute drive up here explaining about Brita, but I am not an auditory learner and I honestly didn’t process most of what he said.  I intended to come home and Google her, but there isn’t much information about her online.  On the other hand, if I meant to search for “Brita Calendar” then there is endless information about how to track when my water filtration system needs its filters replaced!  

I just conferred with Jason and he remembers hearing the same thing I remember… Clarke told us that he knew Brita very well, in fact, they were once engaged to be married!  He said she spent many years honing her craft and applied to train under one of the master totem carvers, but he denied her request and said she must first prove herself by carving a replica native village.  He said that Brita worked on this village for 40 hours a week, over the course of 20 years until it became the Potlatch Park we visited today.  When I tried Googling more information about Potlatch Park, I did not find anything to verify Clarke’s story.  Brita’s name does not appear anywhere on the Potlatch Park website, and the information I did find seemed to indicate that no single person was credited with building this entire village.  I can’t definitively confirm or deny what Clarke said, but maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.

This was as close as we got to a bear today:

After we left the carving shed, we walked down along a path to enter the replica village.

This was a historical depiction of how the local tribes would have lived through the 1800s.  There were a series of smaller clan houses, with hand-carved and painted symbols on the outside.  Each of these walls told a story, identifying the people who lived inside.

This canoe was also hand-carved…

This larger building was the clan house.  Clarke pointed out that the opening to the door here was significantly smaller than the one we saw in Totem Bight.  This was when he told us the story about the importance of having a small opening to keep the clansmen safe from invaders.

They closed off the actual opening, but visitors were welcome to enter this building through a traditional door (on the right side of the photo below… that door would have been a solid wall in a native village).  Inside, we saw the space they used for fires, and how the ceiling above was open to the sky to let out the smoke.  The wall at the far side displayed a huge wall carving of a mother bear and her cub.

On the opposite wall was another huge Thunderbird carving.  There were several other carvings both inside and outside the house of Raven, Killer Whales, Wolves, and Eagle.

There was so much attention to detail inside this house, even the walls were carved for a decorative texture as opposed to just sanding the wood smooth.

Back outside, we looked at some of the intricate wall carvings…

Clarke explained that this park is privately owned by a very wealthy family, and they also collect antique cars from the early 1900’s.  I thought this seemed somewhat random amidst the native wood-carved totem poles and tribal houses, but it was still interesting to see the cars (and of course, Ian loved this part!)

We walked all the way down to where the park meets the water to view the last few buildings.

That was the end of the path, so we turned around and walked back towards the parking lot.  On the way, Clarke had one last thing to show us: the skeletal remains of an orca whale!  Those were some huge teeth and ribs!

I took that photo at 11:20am.  This tour was scheduled to start at 8:30am, and was supposed to take 2.5 hours, meaning we should have been done at 11am.  We were still a 20 minute drive north of the port (actually longer because there was construction and traffic on the way back into town).  We had planned to walk around Creek Street before returning to the ship, but all aboard was at 12:30pm, so time was running out.  I didn’t object to Clarke spending more time with us and allowing us to see everything at our own pace, but as I said earlier, I think the flow of the day would have been more efficient if we visited the totem poles first, then went to the tide pools after so we could have been there right at peak low tide.

As we drove back into town, we told Clarke we wanted to visit Creek Street.  He said we wouldn’t have time to walk the full loop, nor to hike up Married Man’s Trail.  He recommended that he could drop us off in a parking lot at the middle of Creek Street, and we could walk half of it just to see it and take a few photos, then walk back down towards the ships all within 30 minutes to be on time for all-aboard time.  He also offered to just take us straight back to the ship, but we wanted to at least say we saw a glimpse of Creek Street.  In hindsight, I wish I would have asked if he could drop us off at the top of Creek Street on Park Avenue near the salmon ladder.  I really think Ian would have enjoyed seeing that, and it doesn’t look like it was much further to walk back to the ship from there.  Hindsight is definitely 20/20 on this tour!

Clarke dropped us off at the parking lot in the middle of Creek Street at 11:50am.  With two other ships in port who both had all aboard times later than us, it was still very busy along Creek Street.

I would have loved a family photo under the sign, but it was just too chaotic to even attempt it.

We looked down at the river in hopes of seeing some salmon, but couldn’t spot any.  I’m not really sure if this was the best place to look for them, but we tried to work within the time we had left.

In another moment of hindsight, I wish we had walked straight at this point all the way to the red bridge, as then we could have cut a shortcut back to our ship at Berth 1.  Instead, we doubled back to where Clarke dropped us off and cut through town, which meant we ended up at Berth 2 and had to double back to get to Berth 1.  We reached the line to board the ship at 12:15pm, so we had 15 minutes to spare and would have been better off had we known to be dropped off at the salmon ladder.  Oh well, I know we will be back here again at some point, so now we know better.

There wasn’t much of a line to board when we arrived at 12:15pm, and they had two gangways open so it moved quickly.  Definitely a huge improvement over yesterday’s fiasco!!

Once we got back onboard and went through security, we went straight up to the Lido buffet for lunch.  I expected it to be a complete madhouse as everyone else probably also wanted lunch now after returning from their own tours.  I was pleasantly surprised that while it was busy, it wasn’t overwhelming and we easily found a table.  This was day 6 of our cruise and we had yet to try a burger, so I knew that’s what I wanted for lunch today.  I was also expecting a huge line to get burgers, but there was literally no one else in line and I returned to our table with our burgers before Jason even finished getting Ian settled.  In fact, this photo was taken exactly 10 minutes after the prior photo from waiting in line to reboard the ship (and in the interim, we had to get to the top of that line to scan our cards, go through the security x-rays, wait for an elevator, find a table in the buffet, walk over to the burger station and get 2 burgers, and return to our table!)

Much like the debate over the tacos and burritos station being Blue Iguana Cantina, there was also a lot of debate over if the burger station on the Luminosa was Guy’s Burgers or not.  Once again, I am convinced that they serve the exact same food as Guy’s Burgers, and the only thing missing is the official branding and signage.  Jason and I both had a cheeseburger with fries, and we thought that everything looked and tasted the same as Guy’s Burgers on other Carnival ships. 

Ian wanted a meatball sandwich from the deli (again!), so while getting that, I also got some grilled onions to put on our burgers and that made it even better.  I think the grilled onions are really intended for the hot dog or one of the other deli sandwiches, but they tasted perfect atop our burgers!

When we finished our burgers, I went to the dessert station and couldn’t decide what to get because so many options looked good to me.  I decided to take a piece of chocolate cheesecake, chocolate layer fudge cake, and apple pie, and the 3 of us shared all 3 pieces.  Yum!

After dessert, we went back to our cabin to get Ian ready for his nap.  This guy was waiting for us on the bed, but I’m not really sure what kind of animal he is!

Jason and Ian took a shower to wash off the grime from our day of exploring along the beach, and then Jason said he would get Ian ready for his nap so I could sit out on the balcony.  Our cabin was on the dock side of the ship, so I had a great view to watch as the workers prepared for sail away. 

I saw this forklift driving all the way down the pier, and at first I wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

He swooped in, perfectly aligned to the middle of the gangway…

Then lifted it up, like cradling a baby in his arms…

Then he perfectly maneuvered on the narrow pier to turn the gangway 90 degrees so it lined up with the edge of the pier, where he put it down and left it in place for the next ship to dock here.

It was quite impressive to watch this man operate the forklift so precisely, and I could tell that he has probably done this 100 times before.

I soaked in the last few views of the Ketchikan harbor, and said goodbye to Alaska as we sailed away.  These magical four days were not nearly enough, and I know we will return here someday in the future to spend more time exploring this amazing state.

Bye for now, Alaska!

As we sailed away from Ketchikan, there was still a lot to see as there were many businesses lining the water.

Alaska General Foods selling wild Alaskan salmon:

Next, we floated past the US Coast Guard:

There were also several houses lining the water…

A few minutes later when we were out further into the water, we saw the Allusian Ballard sail past us, heading back from one of their tours.  For those unfamiliar, this boat was featured on the TV show Deadliest Catch, and now is used to operate crab fishing tours.

With Jason and Ian now napping in the cabin, I sat outside on the balcony, curled up in a fleece blanket.  As I admired the scenery, I couldn’t help but think back about the amazing 4 days we had just spent in Alaska.  We were truly so fortunate to have nearly perfect weather (aside from some drizzle this morning in Ketchikan, but then it was just cool and cloudy the rest of the day with no more rain).  In addition to the indescribable beauty of the scenery, we also saw so many different animals, including humpback whales, porpoises, a seal, sea lions, grizzly bears, eagles, crabs, starfish, eels, dahl sheep, and technically there was a moose somewhere in my distant line of sight, even if I don’t think I really saw it!  This trip had already gifted my family with countless memories and new experiences, and we still had 5 more days to go before returning home!

When the boys woke up from their nap, it was their turn to enjoy the balcony views while I showered and got ready for formal night.  Part of me wished we had longer times scheduled to be in port each day, but in the end, it was very convenient to be forced back on the ship with enough time to relax in the afternoons before dinner.  Had we been docked into the evenings as some other ships do, I know I would have planned a bunch of activities for us to maximize our time in port, and then we would be too exhausted to enjoy our dinner and nighttime entertainment on the ship.  This itinerary gave us the best of both worlds, with enough time to take fulfilling excursions during the morning/early afternoon, but then a few hours of downtime in the afternoon.

With everyone dressed for dinner, we went down to the MDR and asked someone to take a family photo before we (ie: Ian) got messy while eating.

The waiter brought Ian two duckies tonight.  He really loved that smaller blue duckie and called it his baby duckie.  You know he loves a toy when he takes it to bed with him at night instead of a car toy!

I ordered the calamari appetizer, but was disappointed to only see 3 pieces of calamari on the plate.  I just looked back at my photo from our Panorama cruise a year and a half ago and I was given 6 pieces.  Cutbacks!

I also ordered the beef carpaccio from Emeril’s menu.  

Tonight was the lobster tail formal night, so you know what I ordered for my entree.  I remembered to ask for two lobsters, knowing they are very small, and the waiter was nice enough to bring them on one plate since I didn’t really need double the potatoes and broccoli.

While we were eating, the waiters came out singing and dancing for show time.  These were our waiters for the cruise.  I forgot to write down their names in my notes, but I know the one on the left was Michael as he was the one who brought Ian a new duckie every night.

Once again, I ordered the chocolate melting cake for dessert.  I usually love eating dessert, but the two daily options each night never appealed to me so I kept having to fall back on the melting cake.  This was my fourth night of the cruise eating the same dessert, and by now, I was getting sick of it and didn’t even bother to take a photo.  

After dinner, we had a few minutes before we could bring Ian to camp, so we stopped back at the cabin for me to change out of my heels.  We found the debarkation information waiting for us in our mailbox.  Boo!  Hiss!

We brought Ian up to Camp Ocean, and were happy to see the doors already open at 6:50pm so we could drop him off a few minutes early.  Then, we decided to switch up our evening routine.  We had been going to the 7pm shows in the theater, but tonight, we decided to hold off for the 9pm show.  That gave us two hours to enjoy some of the other evening entertainment, and we realized we actually got to do a whole lot more by switching the order.

Up first, we went to the 7:15pm comedy show with Chris Cope.  He had boarded the ship in Skagway a few days ago, but this was the first time we saw one of his shows.  We arrived at the Limelight Lounge at 6:55 and it was already packed, 20 minutes before the show was scheduled to start!  These passengers really loved their family friendly comedy shows!

We both thoroughly enjoyed Chris’s show and hoped we could see him perform again before the end of the cruise.

Up next, we went down the secret spiral staircase (or maybe I should call it the hiding-in-plain-sight staircase) located right outside the Limelight Lounge for quick access to Ocean Plaza.  Zach was hosting the Decades Music Trivia Party.  Perhaps this was a misnomer because when we arrived, they were playing a game where the room was divided in half, and the goal was to try NOT to sing along as they played well-known songs.  If someone was heard singing along, their side lost that round and the other side gained a point.  It was surprisingly hard to stay quiet when hearing such popular songs, and we felt like we couldn’t even talk to each other for fear of being mistaken for singing along!  

We stayed for 2 or 3 songs, then decided it was kind of a weird game.  This was probably the only time all week when Ocean Plaza was silent, aside from the music through the speakers.  It just didn’t feel fun to us, so we moved on to our next activity: the Piano Bar.

We thought we would have great timing and arrive at the Piano Bar promptly at 8pm to hear the first set of Michelle’s show.  When we arrived, we were surprised to see that they were doing something different tonight.  Julian plays guitar in the Piano Bar space earlier in the evening, and tonight, he stayed later into Michelle’s timeslot so they could perform together.  They pre-rehearsed a set list so it wasn’t like a typical night in the Piano Bar when you can submit requests, but it was fun to hear their duets.

In an attempt to fully maximize our entertainment tonight, we only stayed at the Piano Bar until 8:25pm, then we went back over to the Limelight Lounge for the 8:30pm adult comedy show.  This time, the comedian was Kier, the other one who joined the ship in Skagway.  Although it was crowded when we arrived, we were able to find seats together at the back of the room.  We both enjoyed Kier as much as all the other comedians we had seen throughout the cruise.

Kier finished his act just in time for us to walk across the hall to the theater and get seats for tonight’s production show, Vintage Pop.  This was the only production show that was new to me, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  This show combined classic oldies like “I Got Rhythm” and “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” with modern pop songs like Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” and Megan Trainor’s “All About That Bass.”  The costumes and set designs all had a glitzy Roaring ‘20s theme, and the band played live on stage throughout the show.  We both thought the show was a lot of fun!

The show ended at 9:45pm, just in time for us to go straight up the forward elevators to pick up Ian at camp.  I wish we had thought to switch our schedule around earlier on the cruise because we really maximized our time and saw so many different things around the ship tonight!

Back in the cabin, we had to spring our clocks forward one hour tonight as we neared the end of our cruise.

Up next: the weirdest port day schedule I have ever experienced on a cruise

One of the things I definitely wanted to do in Alaska was to go whale watching.  Jason and I went whale watching in Puerto Vallarta when we stayed there for a week in 2018, and honestly, it was underwhelming.  We spent 3 hours out on a boat, but it wasn’t until the very end on our way back to the dock that we finally saw 2 whales swimming below the surface alongside the boat for a few minutes.  Yes, that was very exciting, but we spent the whole rest of the time unsuccessfully searching for whales and it just got monotonous by the end.  With all of the research I did for this cruise, the Alaskan whale watching tours all seemed much more exciting than what we did in Mexico and I really wanted to give it another chance.  Since we only had a half-day in port in Ketchikan (and Ketchikan is not known for having great whale watching anyway), and I knew I wanted to go up to the Yukon on our day in Skagway, that left Juneau as our day to see whales.  There are many options of tour operators with all different sized boats and tour lengths to choose from.  I weighed the pros and cons of taking a larger boat to save some money versus a smaller boat where we could get closer to the whales, and I decided the extra cost would be worth it to go with a smaller boat.  Plus, it would be nice to have only 6 people max on the tour when we were half of them, so hopefully Ian would get a good spot to see the whales and not get lost in a crowd of taller adults.

After reviewing all of our options, I decided to book with Jayleen’s Alaska based on all of the excellent reviews from prior guests.  She had 4 boats which all held 6 people each, so we were guaranteed a small group tour.  Her tour was 4 hours long, including transportation to/from the cruise port, and we would be out on the water looking for wildlife for 3 hours.  I sent her an email in late April 2024 to request to book our tour, and she replied the next day to say that they would open up bookings for 2025 on May 1, so I should write back again then.  The next week, on May 1, I emailed her again, and she replied that we are confirmed for our tour at 8am, and that she will collect our deposit in January 2025.  My one concern was that there might be a minimum age requirement to go on her small boat, but she said that was not an issue and our 4-year-old was welcome, but he must wear a life jacket that she would provide for us.  Perfect!  

On January 1, Jayleen emailed us to collect payment of our deposit.  Funny enough, I received that email while sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta on our last cruise on the Discovery Princess!  It was kind of crazy to think about planning for our next cruise while we were enjoying a port day on our prior cruise, but I just bookmarked the email to remember to send in my payment when we got home.  Jayleen emailed us again in March, when the cruise ship docking schedule was released, with instructions on where to meet her for the tour.  

A quick side note for anyone planning a cruise to Alaska: There is a website where they publish where every cruise ship will dock for every day of the Alaska cruise season (https://claalaska.com/?page_id=1250).  They usually post the schedule at some point in the spring, and it was very helpful because where your ship docks can make a huge difference in the logistics of your port day.  For example, in Ketchikan, most ships dock right downtown within a few blocks from the main tourist attractions around Creek Street, but some ships dock a 20ish minute drive north of town at Ward Cove and passengers must take a shuttle to get downtown.  Imagine my surprise when I checked the schedule for our cruise and found out we would be tendering in Juneau.  That was a huge disappointment because usually cruise lines tell you in the itinerary details if there will be a tender port, but Carnival didn’t give us advanced warning about the tender and I needed that information to coordinate timing for our whale watching tour.  As soon as I saw that we were scheduled to tender, I emailed Jayleen and she was extremely helpful and eased all of my concerns.  I was worried that we don’t have any kind of priority for tender tickets (not Platinum VIFP and not in a suite), so I had no idea how long it would take us to get off the ship by tender.  The idea occurred to me that we might be tied to the dock in the morning because we were the only ship scheduled to be in port at 7am (4 or 5 other ships were joining us but not until noon or later), so perhaps they would let us dock in the morning to get everyone off on their excursions, and then move the Luminosa out to tender around 11am so the other ships could use the docks.  Jayleen said that scenario was likely based on what she had seen in the past, but she offered to move us to the 9am excursion as a precaution (we originally booked an 8am tour).  That would give us a little more time in case we did need to tender in the morning, since we likely wouldn’t know the exact logistics until we were on the cruise.  Once the cruise season started in May, I used the berth schedule to see what other days the Luminosa was scheduled to use the ACT dock (meaning Anchor Cruise Terminal).  Each morning, I checked the webcam for the port of Juneau (https://www.juneauharborwebcam.com/), and sure enough, I could see a live video feed of the Luminosa tied up at the dock in the morning…

…and then anchored in the bay in the afternoon.  

These screenshots were taken on July 14, but I noticed the ship did the same maneuver for several weeks in May and June as well.  That was very reassuring because although the idea of waiting in a long tender line to reboard the ship after our excursion didn’t thrill me, it was much more important that we be docked in the morning to avoid tender tickets and possibly missing the start of our excursion!

When we got back to the cabin after dinner on Skagway night, we found this letter in our mailbox.  I wasn’t surprised at all because that was what the Luminosa had been doing all season, but now it was official…

My alarm was set for 7am, but I woke up at 6am and decided to get ready for the day.  While still not a great night of sleep, this was a huge improvement from the last few nights…

The boys were still asleep, so I slipped out onto the balcony and was thrilled to be greeted by clear blue skies as we sailed into Juneau.  It was going to be a glorious day!

We were close enough to Juneau that I could turn on my data and check the weather forecast for today.  This was a HUGE improvement over the mid-50’s and rainy weather that was originally predicted for today!

It was still only 6:15am, so instead of just sitting on the balcony, I took this time to walk around the ship and take photos of all the indoor venues while most of the passengers were still asleep.  I already posted those back on embarkation day, so I’ll just skip ahead.  At 7am, I went to the buffet to pick up burritos for Jason and me, and a few slices of cheese and French Toast for Ian, and I brought it all back to the cabin.  This was one of those times I really liked having a cabin so close to the mid-ship elevators because I was carrying a lot of food!  The boys were still asleep when I returned, but it was time for them to get up and get ready for the day.  Once they were dressed, we took the food outside to eat on the balcony as we admired the views.

The one thing I couldn’t juggle with all the other food was a cup of coffee for Jason, so when we all finished eating, we went back up to the buffet for him to get his caffeine fix.  We brought it down to the deck 3 Promenade so Ian and I could admire the views from the starboard side of the ship overlooking the action in port.

This would be a stunning day to ride the Mt. Roberts Tramway.  I imagine they could see incredible views on such a clear day like today!

Jason finished his coffee, and we got off the ship at 8:20am.  It was still too early to meet up with our guide, so we walked around the boardwalk area for a few minutes.  First, we took the obligatory photo with the Welcome to Juneau sign.  We didn’t have great timing because the sun had just crested over the mountaintop and was now shining harshly from behind us.  This would have been a much better photo if we took it 10 minutes early, but oh well!

At least the Luminosa looked radiant in the morning sun!

This is a good photo to point out our cabin location.  Do you see the sections of mid-ship balconies on the bump out?  Our cabin was in that section, circled in red in this photo:

We walked a little further along the boardwalk to see some of the totem poles.

We were told to meet our guide next to the Mt. Roberts Tramway building at 9am.  We decided to walk over a little early just to make sure we knew where to go.  We were given very detailed instructions about our meeting spot, and sure enough, there was a small parking area for tour buses right where they described.

We were told to look out for a blue van, so we spotted Jayleen immediately when she pulled up early at 8:45am.  When I booked the tour, I had been emailing directly with Jayleen and we got along well so I asked if I could request that she be our captain on the tour.  She said she didn’t decide until that day who would be the captain for each tour, but she would make a note of my request.  I was so excited to see that it was Jayleen driving the van and that she would be our captain today as I have heard wonderful things about her.  I walked over to greet her at the van and noticed another couple approaching her too.  They were visiting Juneau for a few days and booked our tour as well (they did not come from the cruise ship), so it would be just 5 of us on the tour today.

Since we were all already there, we got in the van and got started a few minutes early.  As we drove north to the marina, Jayleen explained that she is Marv’s daughter from the popular tour company Marv and Harv, but her dad sold the company in 2011 so she isn’t competing with her parents for business.  She was born and raised in Juneau and has been on boats for her whole life.  When she was younger, they lived on an island off the coast, so her parents had to take her places in their boat.  When she turned 11, they told her she needed to learn to drive the boat on her own because they didn’t want to chauffeur her around anymore, and she’s been driving boats ever since!  I told her that reminded me of the character Kya from the book/movie Where the Crawdads Sing… Jayleen said it was close, but she had a much better family dynamic when she was growing up!  I revised my answer and said it also reminded me of Dawson from Dawson’s Creek, and she agreed.

As we drove up to the marina, we spotted an eagle perched atop the light pole.  I realized the baby eagle we saw yesterday didn’t have a white head, and when I mentioned that, Jayleen told me that’s because the eagle’s feathers turn white around 4 years old.  Who knew!?

We drove 15 minutes north of town to a small harbor where Jayleen keeps her boat.  She dropped us off and told us we could use the bathrooms here while she went to park her van.  

When she came back, she had a small life vest for Ian.  I had emailed her Ian’s height and weight a few days ago so she was prepared.  We got him snuggly bucked in (much to his dismay), then Jayleen led us down a steep ramp to the docks.

As we walked to her boat, she pointed out a starfish that likes to hang out below the docks.  She said it was low tide right now so we could easily see him, but by the time we returned, the tide would rise and this water would be too deep to see to the bottom.

This is a horrible photo because they were very far away, but we also saw two adult bald eagles scavenging for breakfast along the shore in the land exposed during low tide.

We boarded Jayleen’s boat at 9:30am.  I had seen 4 boats described on her website when I booked this tour last year, but we were very lucky that today, we would be riding aboard her brand new boat that was custom-built in 2025.

The dock wobbled a little bit as we walked to the stern, so she helped us all climb aboard safely, then gave us a quick tour of the boat and a safety briefing.  She had two camping chairs set up on the back deck, and comfortable padded benches along the inside of the cabin.  We all found somewhere comfortable to sit, and we set out on our journey a few minutes later.

We didn’t stay seated for long, as I couldn’t stop taking photos in every direction.  It was a gorgeous morning to spend on a boat, and I just couldn’t believe we were actually here.

Ten minutes after leaving the harbor, Jayleen slowed the boat to a stop and told us to turn around.  Behind us, we had a great view of the Mendenhall Glacier.  I know a lot of tourists in Juneau visit this glacier and hike out to see Nugget Falls next to the glacier.  We didn’t have time for that with our relatively short port day, so it was nice that she stopped to point it out to us now.

She offered to take a family photo for us, but Ian didn’t want to be in the photo.  

Jayleen said it would take us about 20 minutes to motor out into the bay, so since there were only two camping chairs on the back deck, we told the other couple they could take them if they wanted to (they did), and we sat inside the cabin.

Jayleen had a little snack bar on the boat, which conveniently included Ian’s favorite Z-Bars, so we let him eat a little snack to keep him happy.

She also had a cooler filled with bottles of water, soda, and seltzers.  Inside the cabin, she had a poster of “Juneau’s Local Celebrities” mounted inside the cabin.  Does anyone want to guess how many of these whales we saw on our tour?

At 10:10am, Jayleen slowed the boat alongside this island.  She said the currents in this area bring a lot of fish, so the whales like to hang out here.  Just a few minutes later, we spotted our first whale!  You can see the water spout close to the shoreline at the center of this photo…

Then we saw him arch his back across the surface of the water, and we noticed it was actually two humpback whales!

And finally, we saw two whale tails as they dove down underwater.

Okay, that was great!  I’ve already seen more on this tour than on our entire tour in Puerto Vallarta, and it was just the beginning.  I guess we can go home now?  Just kidding!  We weren’t going anywhere!

While we waited to see if the whales would come back to the surface, Jayleen dropped the microphone from her hydrophone into the water.  We could hear a series of clicks and low, deep, rhythmic sounds, which Jayleen said were the whales communicating with each other.

It all happened so fast that I didn’t really process what we saw, so Jayleen explained what we were watching was called bubble feeding.  She said that only 20% of whales know how to perform this skill, so it was rare to see it on a tour.  The whales blow bubbles under the water, and that attracts fish to the area.  The whales swim in a circle so the fish will cluster close together, and when the timing is right, the whales rush to the surface with their mouths open, scooping up all the fish.  As a viewer on a boat at the surface, we can’t see all of that activity underwater, but as the fish gather, so do the birds because they also want to eat the fish.  As soon as we saw all the birds fly over, we knew the whales had summoned more fish and they were about to jump up to eat them.  

Step 1: Spot all the birds flying to the area:

Step 2: Blow spout, formed by warm, moist air from the whale’s lungs being forced out and condensing in the cooler surrounding air:

Step 3: Peduncle arch:

Step 4: Whale tail:

This whole process repeated several times so we really got to understand the sequencing, with 5-10 minutes between each cycle so we could calm our adrenaline and set up to witness it again!

Remember how I mentioned that the Luminosa was the only cruise ship in port this morning?  Well that also meant there weren’t many whale watching tour boats either.  In fact, we were the only boat here to witness this show!  

Jayleen opened up a door in the front windshield of the boat so we could sit out on the bow while we weren’t moving.  Jason took Ian out there, and I sat in the passenger seat next to an open window, so I could rest my feet on a ledge to stabilize my camera.  The other couple enjoyed having the back deck to themselves, and we were very happy with our decision to book this small tour because we all had so much space to spread out, and everyone had a perfect view of the whales.

Oh!  The birds are coming back again!  We’d better get ready for the show!

This happened so fast that my camera couldn’t focus in time, but the whale rushed to the surface with so much power that his head actually came out of the water!  All of the other times, his head stayed below the surface, so this was incredible to see and capture in a photo (even if it’s a little blurry)…

Everyone on the boat, including Jayleen, just sat there with our jaws dropped, unable to process how amazing it was to see that happen so close to our boat!

We decided to stay in this spot for one more cycle of bubble feeding.  This time, the blow spout reflected a rainbow.  It was kind of ironic that something so gross (basically, it is from the whale blowing his nose) could look so pretty!

Right around the time we were getting ready to move on to our next spot, the whales were also ready to move on as they started to swim further from our boat.  I couldn’t imagine seeing anything more magical than what we had just witnessed, but Jayleen was up to the task!

We passed a view of a glacier in the distance.  I don’t remember which glacier this was, but I know it was not Mendenhall.

As we motored to our next stop, a pod of Dall’s porpoises swam over to play in our wake.  It was basically impossible to capture a photo of them as they were so small and moved so quickly, but Jayleen started driving in large circles to entertain the porpoises, and they kept jumping behind our boat.

Even without the wildlife in view, we still had a beautiful day to be out on the water, with stunning scenery surrounding us.  I was so glad that some of the snow was left atop the tallest mountains because I had feared a late July cruise would mean all the snow had melted before our arrival.

Jayleen slowed the boat as we approached this buoy because she knew that a colony of sea lions often lay here to warm up out of the water.  

I just loved seeing the contrast of the bright red buoy against the blue sky and water.  We drove a few circles around the buoy so we could watch the sea lions from all angles.  Ian got a kick out of hearing them “talk” and he tried to imitate their sounds.

There was a lighthouse in the distance so Jayleen positioned the boat for us to get the lighthouse and buoy in the same photo.

By now, it was 11am, so we were halfway through the tour and it was time to go in search of some more whales.  On the way, we passed a larger whale watching boat.  There must have been over 100 people on that boat, and I was so thankful for our more intimate experience.  I couldn’t imagine trying to elbow my way to the railings to get a good photo from that boat, let alone how I would have kept Ian protected from being stepped on.  We definitely made the right decision in booking with Jayleen!

We continued driving around until we spotted another blow spout in the distance up ahead.  Jayleen said that to protect the whales, she had to stop her boat a certain distance away from them, but if they chose to swim closer, that was their choice and we could just let them do what they wanted to do.

When we stopped, we noticed this was a pod of about 9 or 10 whales, including two baby whales!  See, just when I thought Jayleen couldn’t top the 2 whales she showed us at the start of the tour, she found this large pod as our grand finale!  

At first, they were swimming pretty far away from us, but each time they came to the surface, we noticed they were getting closer and closer to our boat.  

At one point, Jayleen backed up a little bit and ran the motor to churn up the water and let the whales know we were there.  That only seemed to make them more curious about us, and they swam even closer!  It is really hard to capture this in photos because mostly, we just saw their backs swimming in the water.  They weren’t bubble feeding, and they never breached, so all you can see are their backs and the occasional spout.  What really made it special was that there were so many of them, and they were so close to our boat that I was actually slightly worried they might knock into us when they came to the surface to breathe!  

I think this is a day we will all remember for years to come!

That was quite a grand finale, and it was now time to head back towards the marina.

As we approached the harbor, Jayleen thanked us for joining her on this tour today.  She passed around a box filled with photos she had taken over the years, which she had printed and mounted onto greeting cards, and she invited us to each take one home as a souvenir.  I picked two for the three of us to take home, as these reminded me of the things we saw during our tour… 

I also took a moment to tally up all of the whales we had seen during our tour.  Each time a whale showed us the underside of its tail, Jayleen was able to identify it and tell us its name.  I was amazed that she could identify them so clearly because the patterns on the underside of the tail were only visible for a split second before the whale dove back underwater, but Jayleen said she has been watching these same whales for decades, so she knew them well.  We saw at least these 8 whales, plus the two babies who were not yet named and included on the poster.  There were also 2 or 3 other whales who Jayleen didn’t recognize, so they aren’t included either.

Jayleen tied up to the dock at 12:30pm.  She told us she needed to close up the boat and prep it for the afternoon tours, so we should walk back up the ramp and use the bathrooms if needed.

When we were all done, she met us in the parking lot with her van so we could drive back to the port.

On the way back, Jayleen pointed out this view of the Mendenhall Glacier.  I had seen a few other whale watching tours who stop here for a photo op with the glacier in the background, but honestly, I think we got a better photo from on the boat at the start of our tour!

Jayleen dropped us off promptly at 1pm back at the port next to Mt. Robert’s Tramway.  We tipped her and thanked her for a fabulous morning of whale watching.  I cannot recommend Jayleen’s tour enough, and I won’t hesitate to book with her again if we return to Juneau.

According to the paper left in our mailbox yesterday, the last tender was scheduled to leave at 1:45pm.  We weren’t scheduled to sail away until 3pm, so had we been able to remain tied to the dock all day, all aboard would have been 30 minutes earlier at 2:30pm.  Now that we were anchored in the bay and needed to take a tender to return to the ship, we lost 45 minutes from our time in Juneau, so that was definitely not ideal.  We considered going somewhere for lunch, but feared we didn’t have enough time.  Instead, we just walked along the boardwalk to see some of the other ships that had arrived while we were gone.

Oh, good!  The Luminosa was still anchored in the bay and hadn’t left without us! 

When we got to the end of the path, we turned around to head back towards the line for the tenders.  We joined the line at 1:30pm, and I was honestly shocked at how long it was.  It stretched all the way back to the Juneau Library, and the front of the line was where we got off the ship that morning near the tramway.  Just for perspective for those unfamiliar with Juneau:

We knew we would be in this line for a while, and Jason was tempted to jump out of line and grab a beer somewhere.  I told him I didn’t think we would have time because as long as the line looked, I have seen tender lines move very quickly.  Each tender holds approximately 150 people, so there was a chance they would load the tenders quickly, and as soon as one was full, they would have an empty one waiting.  

As it turned out, I have no idea what they were doing down on the loading dock, but this line moved so slowly that we didn’t board our tender until 2:20pm.  We waited in line for 50 minutes!!!  So much for the last tender leaving at 1:45pm, and we definitely had time to grab a quick beer or lunch and rejoin the end of the line for the last tender.  We were actually the last people to board our tender, so we had to sit in the very front row with our knees nearly touching the front windows.  I really took this photo to act as a time stamp for my notes and never intended for anyone to see it (that’s how I keep track of what time we did things when I write my reviews- by using the time stamp in my photos), but I’ll just share it to prove my point.  I was actually hoping to have a nice view of the ship as we took the tender back this afternoon, but we couldn’t see anything out this salt-covered window!

Being the last ones on the tender also meant we were the last ones off.  We reboarded the ship at 2:30pm and went straight back to the cabin so Ian could nap.

This little elephant was waiting to greet us:

Jason offered to get Ian ready for his nap so I could go out on the balcony to take some photos, just as the next tender approached the ship.

As you can see in this photo, we were anchored very far to the side of the bay, so close that I thought we might drift into that pier.  In mid-June, there was a storm with winds so powerful it ripped the Celebrity Edge from its moorings and it nearly crashed into the Luminosa!  I actually saw the whole event happen because someone recorded a video and posted it online.  Luckily, the captain of the Luminosa acted quickly and moved the ship out of the way, avoiding a potential crash.  As a result, the Luminosa now must anchor further away from the docked ships to prevent any possible incidents in the future.

Around 3:15pm, they started hoisting the tenders back up into position on the Luminosa.  I have never seen this process, so it was fun to have a front-row seat for all the action.

Meanwhile, there were a bunch of sea planes taking off right in the same path where the tenders were traveling.  It was such a busy afternoon on the water!

Apologies that these photos are all a little blurry.  I left my Sony in the cabin and didn’t want to go back inside and disturb the boys’ naps, so I just did my best with my iPhone.

 Let’s take a roll call for the ships in port today.  First up is Holland America’s Koningsdam:

Next, was Holland America’s Eurodam:

At the far end was the Royal Princess and Celebrity Edge, but we’ll take more up close photos of them when we sail away.

Speaking of sailing away, I felt the ship start to move at 3:42pm, so we were definitely late leaving port today.  Luckily, we had plenty of time to reach Ketchikan by 7am tomorrow, so it wasn’t that big a deal.

Now I can get a better view of the Royal Princess:

It looked like this tug boat was towing a smaller boat back to the docks…

And finally, the Celebrity Edge, who likely had no issues remaining tied to the docks today as we had perfect weather with hardly any wind at all!

As we continued to sail away, I saw an interesting tour approach.  It looked like some kind of jet ski tour, and everyone looked like they were having a ton of fun!

So long, Juneau!  Until we meet again!

Once we got past the port area, the scenery looked similar to what we saw last night leaving Skagway.  The main difference was the lighting, as it was only 4pm and the sun was still high in the sky.

When Ian woke up from his nap, he asked to join me out on the balcony.  Now that we were in the shade and the ship was moving a little faster, it was chilly enough to benefit from the fleece blankets Sigit brought us.

We stayed outside a little longer, then went inside to get changed for dinner in the MDR.

Ian was excited to see which new duckie the waiter would bring him tonight.

I ordered the stuffed mushrooms appetizer, and I noticed that the portion size has definitely decreased over the years.  They used to serve this in the same dish they used for escargots, with individual spots for 6 mushrooms.  Tonight, they only gave me 3 (which honestly was fine as it meant I had more space for a second appetizer, but I just thought it was worth noting.)

I also ordered the linguine and clams appetizer.  I knew my entree wouldn’t come with pasta, so this filled that void.

For my entree, I ordered the chicken parmigiana.

Ian and Jason really got into it when it was time to wave their napkins for showtime!

This was another benefit of our table along the glass railing: we had a view of the dancing down on deck 2.  

Jason ordered the cheese plate for dessert tonight.  If you have read my previous reviews, then you might remember Jason’s love for cheese plates on cruises.  When we sailed on the Carnival Panorama over New Year’s Eve 2023-2024, the cheese plate had just 5 tiny cubes of cheese.  It was such a sad looking cheese plate and really showed the extent of the cutbacks Carnival had made in their dinner portions.  We were both pleasantly surprised to see that tonight, Jason was served medium-sized triangles of each flavor of cheese.  This was certainly an improvement from the Panorama and I told him he had to let me take a photo to share with you before he started eating!

None of the dessert options appealed to me, so I just ordered the tried and true melting cake.

We finished dinner by 6:15pm, and walked around the ship until it was time to take Ian to Camp Ocean.  Then, Jason and I went down to the theater for tonight’s production show, America Rocks.  This is another show that we saw on our Carnival Dream cruise, but we enjoyed it then and hoped we would enjoy seeing it again tonight.  This show features music from some of America’s best known rock bands, with a live band on stage to accompany the singers and dancers.  Because we dropped Ian at camp just a minute or two before the 7pm show started, we again opted for seats at the back of the theater where we wouldn’t disrupt anyone as we entered in the dark.

After the show, we went to the piano bar to listen to a few songs before we needed to pick up Ian from camp.  It had been a long day, and we had one more early wake up call tomorrow, so we didn’t want to make it too late of a night.  We picked up Ian around 9pm and went back to the cabin to re-pack our backpacks for tomorrow and get ready for bed.

Up next: Ketchikan

The town of Skagway was created nearly overnight during the gold rush era as thousands of men used this town as a starting point for their trek to find gold.  We used to live in the Bay Area, so we have taken several tours which talked about a similar history in San Francisco, and I was intrigued to learn about this town in Alaska.  Skagway is also known as the Gateway to the Yukon, and cruise passengers can access this region of Canada either by driving along a scenic highway, or riding a train along the cliffs of the mountains, or a combination of the two.  It did not take much research for me to decide I wanted to see as much of this beautiful scenery as possible on our day in Skagway.  There are several private tour companies offering such tours, but the one that appealed to me the most was Dyea Dave Tours.  It seemed like all the companies followed the same itinerary and stopped at the same attractions and photo spots, but Dyea Dave’s pricing was significantly cheaper than the other companies, plus children under age 5 were free!  They got outstanding reviews on both Trip Advisor and Cruise Critic, and they seemed to really cater to their guests, ensuring we saw as much as possible while avoiding the crowds of the larger tour buses.  Booking the tour was easy… I sent them an email expressing our interest in the tour, and Frank replied within a few hours to say we were booked!  No deposit needed, and he just asked that we let him know if our plans changed.  I emailed them again in June to ask a few logistical questions, and Frank replied exactly 19 minutes later!  Plus, I appreciated that his emails were always quite funny (like telling me that we are currently the only people signed up on our day, but his crystal ball isn’t working to predict if anyone else will sign up too before then.)

Here is the official tour description from the Dyea Dave website:

Emerald Lake Tour

Travel with us 75 miles into the Yukon, Canada, to the scenic and beautiful Emerald Lake. We offer a more personalized tour than the larger, more expensive outfits. They’ll take your cash and leave you wanting more.  Our buses are equipped with large windows, so you can see all the awesome views of the White Pass, including the Falls and the trail the Miners actually had to climb!! We make multiple stops for photos along the way. Our experienced drivers will help you enjoy every moment.

We meet up with passengers at the boat docks as well as the Fraser Rail Station. No matter where you start or end your tour with us, here’s what you can expect from our Team.  Our tour buses depart Skagway promptly at 8:30 AM with arrival back in Skagway prior to 4:30 PM. 

We went back and forth for several months, trying to decide if we wanted to add the White Pass Yukon Railroad train ride to the end of our day in Skagway.  It was so tempting because I knew the views would be beautiful, and Ian would probably enjoy riding on the train.  My concern was that it would be at the end of an already long day, and I had read several reviews of people mentioning that the rocking of the train lulled their kids to sleep, and that was a lot of money to spend for their kids to take a nap!  In the end, we decided to skip the train ride.  The tickets for a 1.5 hour train ride cost more than the Dyea Dave tour for the whole day, so it wasn’t just a cheap little add-on experience.  Plus, we knew we would return to Alaska when Ian was old enough to do the more active excursions, so we could always ride the train then.  

For the sake of keeping true to the timeline, today started at the early hour of 12:30am when Jason woke up on the hunt for the Northern Lights.  He tried not to wake me when he got out of bed, but as you can clearly see on my sleep graph, not only did he wake me up, but I didn’t fall back asleep until after he returned.

The good news was that Ian slept through it, because Jason would never have heard the end of it if he woke the child!  Unfortunately, it was all for naught as the clear skies from earlier in the evening changed to heavily cloudy skies overnight.  It honestly didn’t surprise me as mid-summer is not the best time to see the Northern Lights with so many hours of daylight and such a short window of time when the skies are dark enough to show the aurora.  

After Jason was back in the cabin, I eventually fell back to sleep until my alarm went off at 6am.  I was eager to see today’s weather for fear of a rainy day ruining our scenic drive.  At this early hour, it was still hard to tell what weather the day would hold as the skies were mostly cloudy, with small breaks where the blue sky could peek through.

I quickly got dressed, then woke up Jason to get himself ready while I dressed Ian.  Just before we left the cabin, I looked out on the balcony again and we were just pulling up alongside the dock.

My favorite breakfast to eat on port days on Carnival cruises is a burrito from Blue Iguana’s Cantina.  Prior to the cruise, there was a lot of talk in the online forums about whether or not the Luminosa served those breakfast burritos.  I knew they didn’t have the official Blue Iguana’s Cantina because that required signage and branding which hadn’t been added during the Costa to Carnival renovations, but they did have a section of the buffet labeled as “Tacos & Burritos” on the deck plans.  Some reports indicated that they served the same food as all the other Carnival ships, just without the Blue Iguana branding, while other reports claimed the food was different (and not as good).  Well, I am pleased to report that I thought this was the exact same breakfast burrito as I have eaten on every Carnival cruise since 2013.  The menu was identical, and all of the ingredients tasted the same.

The one issue I had was that they didn’t open for breakfast service until 7am, and we wanted to leave the ship by 7:40am at the latest because we had to meet our tour guide off the ship at 8am, so that didn’t give us much time to eat breakfast.  We packed up all of our bags for the day and headed up to the buffet at 6:50am.  My goal was to be the first person on line for burritos right when they opened at 7am.  My plan worked perfectly!  All of the tables opposite this station were open, so I stood by the counter to ensure no one got ahead of me in line, and Jason parked Ian in his stroller at one of the tables, facing in so he could see me, and then went off to find himself some coffee and a bagel for Ian to eat.  

Since the crew was already finished setting up, they took my order a few minutes before 7am, and I was able to order burritos for both Jason and myself.  Not only is the menu the same as other Carnival ships, they also wrap the burritos in the same paper and serve them on the same metal tray as on the other ships.  At this point, I don’t know why they don’t just install the signage on one turnaround day and stop all of the pre-cruise speculations!

We were all finished eating by 7:30, so we decided to just get off the ship now.  A few minutes later, we stepped foot for the first time on Alaskan soil!  While we were technically in Alaska yesterday while cruising through the fjord, we never touched land, so this was a special moment.  I loved how the port had wood planks lining the pier.  It just felt so Alaskan!

We climbed up the ramp to exit the security gate…

…and found an area where lots of people were meeting guides for their excursions (both through the ship and for private tours).  

It was still 20 minutes before we were scheduled to meet our guide, so I left Jason and Ian to wait there in case she showed up early, and I walked around to take a few photos.

This map had magnets with each ship name, placed in the location where they were docking today.  The Luminosa was on the far left at the Ore Dock.  I took a photo to ensure we didn’t get lost on our walk back to the ship later today.

I walked back to where Jason and Ian were waiting near the small parking lot, watching as each tour van/bus arrived to see if it was for us.  Moments later, a white mini-bus pulled up and parked, and a woman climbed out carrying a sign for Dyea Dave.  I walked towards her and saw another woman walking towards her as well.  It turned out that someone else booked this tour after all, and funny enough, it was a woman also named Dana, and her cousin.  It is rare that I meet another Dana, so we thought that was funny.  The tour guide introduced herself as Mo, and she said she was only picking up the 5 of us from the Luminosa so since we were all there already, we could board the bus and get going a few minutes early.  The bus had 28 seats, so there was plenty of space for us to all spread out.  Mo said that we could collapse Ian’s stroller and lay it on the floor in the back row of seats, and that she also had a car seat Ian could use.

We drove away from the Ore Dock and I thought we were going to head out of town, but then Mo turned right and drove back towards the Coral Princess so we could pick up 2 more passengers.   So in the month since I last asked Frank, 4 more people booked our tour, leaving 7 of us to share the 28-passenger van.  A private tour would have been nice, but this was still a small enough group that we could get off/on the van quickly at each of our stops.

Once we were all settled in our seats, Mo drove away from the port at 8:05am, heading up towards the Klondike Highway.  I tried taking some photos during the drive, but there was too much glare from the windows for my liking so I mostly just watched and listened to Mo’s commentary as she drove.

Fifteen minutes into our drive, Mo thought to confirm that none of us planned to ride the train later this afternoon.  We said no, as did Dana and her cousin, but the couple from the Coral Princess (let’s call them the Corals, since I never asked their names) said yes.  They pre-booked their tickets online, but Mo said they needed to pick up the paper tickets from the YPRR station back in Skagway and we needed to turn around.  Honestly, that was very frustrating as I had read tons of reviews about how the driver always takes people to the station in Skagway to pick up their train tickets at the start of the day, so this is a common and routine occurrence and Mo should have been in the habit of asking everyone immediately if they needed to make that stop.  She said she was distracted this morning and forgot to double check, so we made a U-turn and headed back south.  On our way, we saw several tour buses pass us going north, including a handful of 50-passenger buses that we knew were filled with people from the cruise ships.  One of the biggest reasons I booked with Dyea Dave was to have a small group and start our day early enough that we could stay ahead of the big buses, but Mo’s mistake prevented that.

We drove back south, crossed the bridge, and drove into town.

Mo parked outside the train station and the Corals got off to pick up their tickets.

A few minutes later, the Corals returned to the bus and we could get on with the day.  I guess the good part of re-doing our start to the drive was I was more prepared to snap photos along the way.  This looked like a holding space for some of the YPRR train cars…

At 8:45am, we passed the spot where we made our U-turn, so Mo’s mistake delayed us by 25 minutes.  That may not seem like a big deal, but we definitely felt the impact.  We approached several overlooks, but there was no space for us to pull over and park our bus because there were already large buses parked there.  Mo said we would stop at those places later in the afternoon, but I’m not really sure if we ever did.

Anyway, let’s get on with the tour… As we drove further north along the Klondike Highway, the terrain became more mountainous.  Before the cruise, I had tried to figure out which side of the bus would offer better views (because people reported that there was definitely a “better” side of the train and I assumed the bus would have the same logistics), but honestly, I think it didn’t really matter.  As we drove north, sometimes where I was sitting on the passenger side had the better views, and other times I was facing a rock wall and had to climb over to the driver’s side to see the views.

I will do my best to remember what each of the overlooks/waterfalls/etc were called, but we probably got on and off the bus 20 times, so it got hard keeping my notes organized.

Our first stop was at Pitchfork Falls, as seen from across the valley.

The white tubing you can see to the right of the waterfall is for hydroelectricity, so some people mistakenly call the waterfall “Pipeline Falls”.

We stayed at each stop for just a few minutes, long enough for everyone to take their photos and be ready to move on.  Stop #1 completed, we all climbed back on the bus.

The next stop was Bridal Veil Falls.

There were lots of breaks between oncoming cars, so it was easy to dart across the two-lane road if we wanted photos from the opposite side.  I was curious where the metal tube at the base of the waterfall let out, so I crossed the street to find this:

I imagine if you viewed this waterfall from across the valley, it was probably much bigger than the part we could see.

I tried playing around with the shutter speed settings on my camera, but I didn’t have a tripod, so I couldn’t quite capture the silky water I was hoping for.

I am borrowing this photo from an Alaska travel blog, so I cannot take credit for it, but this was the kind of photo I was trying to take:

When we all got our fill of photos, we piled back in the bus to continue on our way.

We passed the William Moore Suspension Bridge, which is no longer in use today.  It was built in the 1970’s and crossed an active earthquake fault line, so they only anchored it on the downhill side allowing it to sway freely in the event of an earthquake.  They constructed a new more stable bridge which was completed in 2019, so the old bridge was left standing as a historical landmark.  There were 2 big tour buses parked at the viewing area here so we opted for a drive-by photo instead.

Just beyond the William Moore Bridge, there was a gorgeous overlook, so I understand why those 2 buses stopped here:

Eight minutes later, we arrived at our next big stop, the Welcome to Alaska sign!  Ian was pretty moody today, and often gave us a hard time about posing for photos, so that’s why you will see more photos of just Jason and me (or even just me alone).  Ian was always somewhere nearby, but we left him out of the photos to avoid a total meltdown!

This was the view from behind the sign:

We made another stop but Ian refused to get off the bus.  Mo took everyone else on a short hike down into the valley, but we stayed behind with Ian.

Our next stop was at Outhouse Hill, so I’ll bet you can imagine how it got its name.  Yup!  Because there were outhouses that we could use here!  It was actually a large pull out with the outhouses down at one end, and a view of Summit Lake on the other end.  I wish I thought to take a photo of the outhouses, but this was the view of the lake:

We stopped here for several minutes so everyone had a chance to use the facilities, then got back on the road.  I don’t remember the name of our next stop, but it was stunning and the view went on for miles.

While we were all taking our photos of this view, someone noticed some movement in the grass in the distance.

Mo went back to the bus to grab her high-end binoculars, and I went back to switch to my 18-300mm zoom camera lens.  This animal sighting required more reach than I get with my iPhone!

If you look closely in the grass along the peninsula, you can see a family of grizzly bears!  We were extremely far away from them, but it was still so exciting to see them in real life!

This was the moment that justified me carrying around such a heavy camera lens for this vacation!  There’s no way any of my point and shoot cameras or my iPhone could have captured that!

When we got back on the bus, Mo told us to all dig out our passports as our next stop would be the Canada Customs Border Crossing at the Fraser train station.  She told us what to expect so there wouldn’t be any surprises when we arrived.  There were a few cars ahead of us in line when we arrived, so I watched the YPRR trains at the Fraser Station while we waited.  We would be back at this station later in the day so we weren’t getting off the bus quite yet.

When it was our turn, an agent boarded the bus and walked down the aisle.  We were instructed to hold up our passports, turned to the page with our photo, so she could quickly check that everything matched.  When she got to my seat, I showed her Ian’s birth certificate and she compared it with Jason’s and my passport to make sure we were his parents.  The whole process took two minutes, then she got off the bus and we were on our way again, free to enter into Canada.  

As we continued driving along the Klondike Highway, Mo asked if we wanted to stop at the Yukon Suspension Bridge.  She said there was no way to just view it from the road and you had to pay the $24 per person admission to go there.  We all thought that was too pricey for a quick stop at a bridge and decided to skip it.  

A few moments later, Mo pulled over on the side of the road and told everyone to get off the bus.  We were standing along an area filled with tall trees, so we knew this wasn’t a scenic overlook.  Why are we stopping?  

Mo pointed up into the trees to show us 2 baby eagles in their nest.  She said they were about 4 months old and she had been stopping here to see them all summer.  It was very high in the trees, so my iPhone photos just weren’t cutting it.

I got back on the bus and quickly grabbed my Sony camera for a better view…

Much better!  I could only capture one of the baby eagles in my photo, but you can sort of see the wing and beak of the other one peeking out from behind the tree trunk.  We watched them for a few minutes, hoping the mother would fly back to the nest, but eventually decided to just move on.

As we continued driving, we passed an overlook for Lake Tutshi.  There were 3 huge tour buses already parked in the pull out space, so Mo said we would stop here on our drive back south in the afternoon.  This was the view out the window of our bus:

I loved the bright purple flowers lining the road.  Mo said they were a native flower to Alaska called lupine.

The highway followed along Lake Tutshi for 10 miles, so we had plenty of opportunities to enjoy the views as we continued driving.

Mo turned off the highway and drove down a long driveway to a parking lot for our next stop along the shore of Lake Tutshi.  This was one stop I wished we made later in the day.  We were there at 10:30am and the sun was on the far side of the lake, casting everything in shadow.  I don’t like how any of these photos came out, but I had to work with the circumstances we were given.  I just know this lake would have been stunning in better lighting.

https://flic.kr/p/2rokFxw

You can sort of see the green water in the lake if you look in the other direction…

Ian wanted to try skipping stones by throwing the rocks into the lake.

Another big tour bus pulled up, so that was our cue to hop back on our bus and move on.

When I researched this tour, I learned that there were 2 optional stops that the group can elect to make or skip.  The first was the Yukon Suspension Bridge, but we had already vetoed that stop.  Part of my logic in wanting to skip the bridge was that I was looking forward to stopping at Tutshi Sled Dog Tours to play with the husky puppies and learn about mushing.  As we drove past an abandoned tent, Mo said that the “p-u-p-p-i-e-s” camp was closed already for the season.  I appreciated that she spelled it out so Ian wouldn’t know what we were missing.  (Pro parenting tip: tell your kids as little as possible about your plans for the day so if something doesn’t go as planned, you can avoid a meltdown!)  She wasn’t sure why they closed already, and I just looked at their website as I’m typing this and there is no indication that they would have been closed because it says they are open 7 days a week in June, July, and August.  That was definitely disappointing because it was one of the few parts of today’s tour that I thought Ian would love.  For the most part, we were just stopping to look at pretty scenery.  I loved the views and photo opportunities, but that was probably boring for Ian, so the puppies were supposed to be fun for him.  Oh well, I guess I’ll just add that to my list for things we want to do if/when we return to Alaska.

Our next stop was at the Yukon sign.  I have seen photos from prior years where this sign was made of wood, similar to the Welcome to Alaska sign, so I was surprised to see this new sign made of aluminum and galvanized steel.  Mo said the sign was replaced because the old wooden signs were deteriorating and becoming structurally unsound.  

The sign now features a painting of dahl sheep, as they can often be seen climbing along the mountainside.  Mo let us borrow her binoculars, and sure enough, there was a herd of sheep at the top of the mountain just above us!  It is nearly impossible to see in this photo, but the white cluster in the middle of the top of the mountain is the herd of sheep.  

I guess you can add that to the tally of animals we have seen in Alaska, but they were so far away that we couldn’t really get a good look at them.  After we all had our turn watching them through Mo’s binoculars, we got back on the bus again.

We drove north for another 20 minutes until we arrived at the small town of Carcross.  Originally settled during the gold rush, it remains one of the oldest communities in the Yukon.  Mo said we would have 45 minutes here to explore the downtown area.  There was a Bistro where we could order a sit-down lunch, a coffee shop where we could pick up a quick lunch to go, and several stores we could visit.  We wanted to have some time to walk around the town, so we opted to get lunch at Caribou Crossing Coffee shop.

There was a display case filled with pastries and pre-made sandwiches.  We both thought the Mediterranean Square looked good, filled with spinach, feta, tomato, and egg, so we ordered 2 of those and a carrot muffin for Ian.

They heated everything up for us and we took it outside to eat on one of the picnic tables.  By now it had warmed up to the low-70s, but it felt much warmer in the bright sunshine.  

Everything was delicious, and we ate our lunch quickly so we could spend some time exploring.  All of the shops were hand-carved and painted, and there were also a few totem poles and a playground, so there was a lot to see in this small town.

This was The Bistro where we could have eaten a sit-down lunch.  It would have been perfect weather to enjoy that outdoor patio!

We walked across the large parking lot to the other side of the town to see the Carcross Railway Bridge over the Nares River.

Next, we walked across the street to the Matthew Watson General Store.

Mo had told us they have a table outside the store where you can stamp your own passport.  They used to provide this service at the post office in town, but now it is just a self-serve station.  I figured, why not?  My passport is due for renewal next year and I still have tons of blank pages, so may as well get a stamp to remember this trip!

Just as we finished our stamps, we heard the White Pass Railroad coming down the tracks!  Ian was so excited to see the train, and I have to admit, even Jason and I thought it was cool to see it roll across the bridge into town.

The train stopped right in front of the general store since the train station was directly across the street.  That was fortunate for us because we were due to meet the group back on our bus in the parking lot in 5 minutes and still needed to use the bathrooms first!  

TMI potty training side note:  I was very concerned about how Ian would handle this tour in terms of using the potty.  I knew there would not be a toilet on the bus, and I knew we were spending most of the day driving along a road with no public bathrooms.  I actually bought some disposable urine bags on Amazon to keep in our backpack in case Ian urgently needed to go.  None of that concern was necessary.  Mo pointed out every time there was a bathroom we could use (Outhouse Hill earlier this morning, the large (and clean!) public bathroom here in Carcross, and the Fraser train station where we would stop in an hour or two), and Ian was a champ at using all these facilities and holding it in the rest of the day.  

We all met back at the bus at 12:15pm for the short drive to Carcross Desert.  This area is often called “the world’s smallest desert” but it isn’t truly a desert at all because the climate here is too humid to be classified as a desert.  It is a series of sand dunes that formed during the last glacial period when large glacial lakes deposited silt.  When the lakes dried, the dunes were left behind.  Today, this area is home to many species of plants native to the Yukon, as well as lots of animals, including bears.  Mo said we were free to walk on the dunes, but she recommended we stay close to the road for our safety in case there were bears nearby.

Living in Phoenix, we didn’t need to schlep all the way to the Yukon to see a desert, so this was more of a novelty due to its location.

Next, we drove north for 10 more minutes to reach the highlight of our day: Emerald Lake.  This stunning lake features bright shades of blues and greens, formed from light reflecting off the deposits of limestone gravel that eroded from the nearby mountains and were carried here 14,000 years ago by the glaciers of the last ice age.  Glacial erosion also scooped out the shallow lakebed, leaving the limestone deposits visible through the water.  The only way to really appreciate these colors is with a top-down view point, so it is very fortunate that the highway winds through the side of the mountains, offering the perfect place to pull over and look down towards the lake.

When everyone had their fill of the overlook views, Mo had a treat in store for us.  We drove down a steep side street, then got out of the bus and walked down a dirt trail for a few minutes until the trees cleared and we were greeted with this view:

She said this was a secret access point to Emerald Lake, and that no other tours come down here because the access road is too narrow for the large buses.  The view was just as stunning as from the overlook point, but now we could see the reflection in the crystal clear water, so it was even more special.

Locals use this as a camp ground and it looked like someone had set up their camp but then left for a bit, so we had good timing.  Their camping chairs were still there but since they weren’t around, we could go right up to the lake without feeling like we were in their way.

Mo offered to take photos for each of us, so she did the normal photo of us facing the camera, but then she told us to turn around and she would also take a photo of us admiring the view.  Even though our faces wouldn’t be seen in the photo, all of us still smiled for this photo.  Old habits die hard, I guess!

Emerald Lake was our turnaround point in the tour.  We were approximately 75 miles north of the cruise port, so now it was time to head back down south again.  On the way, we made a few more stops, including some of the places we skipped because they were too crowded earlier this morning.

The island in the middle of Nares Lake is called Bove Island, named for Lt. Bove from the Italian Navy, who went on an Arctic exploration in the 1870’s.  Mo said that people will ride kayaks out to the island to go camping there throughout the summer.

This overlook is a popular stop for tourists driving along the Klondike Highway.  There were a few information boards to explain the history of this area.

Next, we stopped at the panoramic overlook of Lake Tutshi that we had to skip this morning.  It was now 1:15pm and we had the whole place to ourselves.

As we got back on the bus, we noticed some darker clouds were rolling in.  We had been very lucky all day and although there were partly cloudy skies, the sun was always peeking through, but it looked like our luck was starting to run out.  The good news was that we only had a few more stops before the end of the tour.  As we continued driving south, we drove across the train tracks for the YPRR.  Mo said she often spots moose in this area, but there weren’t any here today.

Our next stop was the Fraser Lookout Point over Bernard Lake.

From here, we could see the train tracks as they came around the river and continued down to the Fraser Train Station.

We left the overlook at 2:05pm and drove down the street to the Fraser Train Station.  This was the same spot where we stopped earlier for the Canada Customs Border Crossing, but we didn’t need to stop there again now.  We pulled into the parking lot of the train station, expecting that we were just here to drop off the Corals for their YPRR train ride.  Mo said that we needed to wait here for the train to come into the station so she could make sure the Corals got on without incident.  If we just dropped them off and drove away, and then if something happened preventing them from riding the train back south, they would be stuck in Fraser.  Obviously no one wanted that to happen, so of course we waited for their train.  The problem was that it was now 2:10pm, and the train wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 2:30pm when it needed to let off the prior passengers, so we had a lot of time to kill.  

This was the customs building:

The train station has a large, clean bathroom so we all used the facilities and just stood around, waiting for the train.  This was the one and only time all week that I encountered Alaska’s state bird, the mosquito.  I’m not sure if it was because we were close to the lake, or because the skies were growing dark with rain clouds, but those mosquitos were out in force!  I had packed bug spray wipes, but I forgot to put them in my backpack this morning so of course, they were back in the cabin on the ship.  I put my hoodie back on to keep my arms covered, and luckily, none of us got any bites.

Right on schedule, the train pulled into the station at 2:30pm.  Ian loved getting to see so many trains today!  Part of me regretted not buying tickets for us to ride the train this afternoon because I know Ian would have had so much fun.  I just had to keep reminding myself the reason for my decision, and that it was likely the train would rock him to sleep and he would miss most of the ride anyway.

Just as the train came to a stop, the skies opened up and it started to rain.  We took that as our cue to get back on the bus, and Dana and her cousin joined us.  I felt bad for Mo that she had to stay out in the rain with the Corals, waiting for the prior passengers to get off the train, and for the ticket collectors to assign the Corals a train car and get them checked in.  That process took about 10 minutes, then Mo came back to the bus and we were able to pull away at 2:45pm.  In all, we were at the station for 35 minutes, plus the 25 minute delay earlier this morning to return to Skagway for their tickets, so we lost an hour of our day for the Corals to ride the train.  I sure do hope they enjoyed the ride!  Now we were down to just 5 of us on the bus for the rest of the tour.

While we were waiting for the train, one of the station employees said she heard the incoming train spotted 2 moose in the lake about 8 miles away.  We didn’t know exactly where the moose were, and of course they could have already moved somewhere else, so we tried to track them down.

We pulled over in the area where Mo thought they might be and we all got out and scanned the water.

There was a lot of area to cover, and I couldn’t see any movement, but someone else said they thought they saw something over towards the right.  

This was in a spot where the road veered away from the lake, so we couldn’t get any closer to them.  I think the train continues to hug the edge of the lake down by that area so it made sense that people on the train could see the moose.  Mo used her binoculars and said she could see them, but they were very far away.  Even with the longest zoom extended on my lens, I couldn’t capture them in a photo.

Mo let me borrow her binoculars and I still couldn’t find them, but everyone else said they saw them so I believe they were there.  Maybe they walked around behind a rock before I had my turn?  I don’t know, but in theory there is a moose or two in that photo!

That was our last official stop on the tour, so the rest of my photos were taken out the window on the bus as we drove back down to Skagway.  It rained on and off for most of the drive, so we got very lucky that it held off until after we saw everything we came to see.

This was William Moore Falls, located opposite the William Moore Suspension Bridge we saw earlier in the day.

Pitchfork Falls looked much prettier this afternoon, versus when we stopped here this morning and the sun put it in silhouette.

Driving back across the Skagway Bridge for the fourth time today as we drove into town.

Mo mentioned that she usually takes her tours on some sort of a hike to see a waterfall, but we had to skip that today because when she took the group yesterday, they saw a grizzly bear on the trail!  We would have enjoyed that hike, but obviously were okay with staying safe and avoiding the area in case the bear was still nearby!  

At 3:30pm, Mo parked the bus on the corner of 7th Avenue and Broadway, towards the top of downtown Skagway.  We paid her in cash for the tour, plus a bit extra for a tip, and said our goodbyes.  Overall, this was a great way to view the beauty of the Yukon, with the flexibility of getting off the bus whenever we wanted to take a photo.  It would have been nice if we had known from the start of the day that we had to skip the waterfall hike and the dog sledding camp, because then we would have paid for the stop at the Suspension Bridge.  Without any of those stops, it was just a day of scenic view points, with a 45 minute lunch break in the middle.  I look forward to returning here some day when Ian is older and we can take a more active excursion, but for what it was, it was a good day overall.  There are many vendors who offer similar tours, but Dyea Dave had the best pricing by far.  Even with a few hiccups, I would still book this same tour again.

All aboard wasn’t until 7:30pm, so we took our time walking back into town.

We considered visiting the Red Onion Saloon, but it looked crowded with people waiting outside, so instead we went across the street to the Klondike Brewery.

They had plenty of open tables inside, but when the hostess mentioned that they also had a patio in the back, we couldn’t resist!  By now, the temperatures were in the mid-70’s and we couldn’t believe how lucky we were to have such perfect weather.  Remembering that we can never sit outside on a patio back home in Phoenix over the summer, this was our chance! 

We weren’t really hungry and didn’t want to spoil our dinner, so we just ordered some beers to sip as we reflected on the day.  I don’t remember what Jason had, but I ordered the Devil’s Punchbowl and it was delightful.

We left the brewery around 4:30pm to walk back to the port.

We knew the general direction we had to go to get back to the ship because we could see it from a distance, but it was reassuring that they also had signs along the way so you don’t get lost.

We could see the Luminosa peeking out from behind the containers.  Coral Princess was still at her dock too.

Just keep walking along the path…

We knew we were almost there when we stepped onto the wooden pier…

Someone was nice enough to take our photo.  Don’t worry, we didn’t forget Ian.  He was just on borrowed time after skipping his nap, so he was on the verge of a meltdown and we didn’t want to press our luck by making him smile for a photo.  We did try to convince him to nap on the bus after our last stop, but of course he refused.

We got back on the ship at 5:15pm, which was our dinner time.  We knew we would be a little late, but decided to take advantage of the 30 minute arrival window listed in the app.  We went back to the cabin to drop off the stroller and our backpacks.  We were greeted by this guy… perhaps a dinosaur?

We didn’t even take the time to change our clothes before going down to the MDR and we got to our table at 5:35pm.  It was no problem that we arrived late, and most of the other tables were empty.  I’ll bet the waiters are used to Skagway being a slow night every week with the late all-aboard time.

Ian was thrilled when the waiter brought him another new duckie tonight, especially because his favorite color is red!

For my appetizer, I ordered the crab and shrimp cake from the Emeril section of the menu.  This was similar to the fish cake entree I had on formal night, and I enjoyed it just as much.

I also ordered the caesar salad appetizer.

I ordered the Chicken Roulade entree from the Emeril section, so I guess I was just having an Emeril kind of night!  

After we finished our entrees, Ian said he needed to go potty.  There was a women’s room located right outside of the dining room next to the stairs, so I took him.  Ian saw a helicopter through the window to the promenade deck.  It was returning from a tour and he wanted to go outside to watch it land.  It was a gorgeous evening in Skagway!

The landing spot for the helicopters was very close to the port, just on the far side of the parking lot where we met Mo this morning.

I eventually pulled Ian back inside, lured by the promise of dessert.  When we got back, it was already on the table waiting for us.  My key lime pie was the perfect end to the meal.

We were all done with dinner at 6:45pm and opted to just come back to the cabin and put Ian to bed early.  He missed his nap 2 days in a row and we could tell from his behavior all day that he was overtired.  In an attempt to get him back on track, we opted to skip the evening entertainment on the ship and make it an early night.  I was a little sad to miss the Love and Marriage show as it is usually very funny, but I was willing to make that sacrifice.  

Sail away was scheduled for 8pm, and we had just gotten Ian into bed when I felt the ship moving.  Jason and I stepped outside onto our balcony just in time to watch as the Luminosa pushed away from the dock.

With Ian asleep inside the cabin, Jason and I spent the evening on the balcony, sipping on glasses of the wine we carried on from embarkation day, and marveling over the stunning views as we sailed through the fjord leaving Skagway.  The ship moved slower than normal and it felt like we were silently gliding through the water.  

At first, there was a harsh shadow on the lower half of the mountain, created by the sun setting behind the mountains on the opposite side of the fjord.

Once the sun set a little more, we were able to see the details along the mountainside, with many waterfalls peeking out from between the trees.

I can’t remember ever spending a night sitting on the balcony after dinner.  We always spend our evenings enjoying the entertainment on the ship, but this turned out to be the perfect end to our day.  It definitely justified upgrading from our 4K inside cabin!  We finally called it a night after I took this photo at 9:30pm.  

That reminds me… I was a little concerned that Alaska’s endless summer daylight might impact our ability to fall asleep in a balcony cabin.  Our cruise was in late July, one month after the summer solstice, so it might have been more impactful had we cruised one month earlier.  We honestly didn’t have any issues at all.  The sun had pretty much set by 9:30pm each night, and it was dark by 10pm.  Sunrise was around 4:30am every day, but the blackout curtains in our cabin did a great job at keeping the light out (as long as we remembered to pull them closed beyond where the window ended, and held it in place with Ian’s stroller so it didn’t slide open overnight).  

Up next: Juneau!