Day 7 - Juneau

I finally got a great night’s sleep. I stayed in bed until 9:00am! Mom and I headed to the Courtyard again for a quick breakfast while Peyton begged to go over to the kid’s club. We are docking in Juneau around 2:00pm and have a full day’s adventure planned. I went to the casino again and cashed out when I was up about $20.00, not much, but better than losing money. J

Juneau looked like a little town carved out of the mountainside. We were able to by-pass all of the lines to disembark since we were staying in a suite, so we quickly got off the ship and headed for the Mt. Roberts Tram. After a 5 minute line, we were heading up to the top in an enclosed car that carried around 15 fellow cruisers. The top of Mt. Roberts was stunning. We could see eagles circling above us and all different variety of birds chirping in the woods. We took a small hike up to two different observation platforms that afforded us beautiful vistas of the mountains and the harbor. We tried to hike the circular loop, but the path was covered in snow that seemed to drop off into the abyss, so we opted for a snowball fight instead. We watched a short film about the native Tlingit Indians that once inhabited the area which was really informative. We had to quickly head back down to the ship because our whale watching tour was going to be our next adventure!

A short bus ride took us around Juneau – where we even got a glimpse of the governor’s mansion. I don’t think Sarah Palin was there, but it was still very pretty to see.

The boat that took us out to Auke bay was around 40 feet and had an upper and lower deck. Due to the wind and cold weather, we opted to stay inside and staked out a nice corner view. The boat quickly zoomed around the harbor where we caught a far away glimpse of a whale diving in the distance. The boat took us to several different locations around the bay and we did have several sightings of the whales diving and even one good view of a fluke. One the way back, we stopped to watch about five sea lions frolic in the bay. They were quite animated. They jumped and put on quite a show for us for several minutes. Even Peyton found them interesting enough to stop play his DS and watch! The boat provided some delicious fruit, cheese and the best meringue cookies I have ever tasted. As evening approached, we slowly made our way back to the dock and boarded the bus once again for the ship. We let Peyton go back to kid’s camp while Mom and I got in a good workout. I had to get up early the next morning for my dog sledding adventure, so I got Peyton at 10:30 and we all crashed!