Afternoon in Juneau

 Monday, May 2 - Juneau

I woke up at 5:45 am which would be 6:45 am yesterday and 8:45 am back home...I think. Switching time zones had my brain confused and it didn't help that yesterday we went back and forth not knowing what time it was! 

When I opened the curtains I knew we were in Alaska. No longer were we looking at endless water, but instead I saw snow covered mountains. There was some blue sky showing, but low hanging clouds circled the peaks.

Alaska!

Bob went down to walk on Deck 3, but he was nice enough to run up to the buffet and fill my travel mug with coffee. I like to start my morning slowly and by the time Bob had returned from his 3 mile walk, I was fully caffeinated and awake for the day. 

Bob snapped this early morning photo as he was walking on the promenade deck.

   

We were both ready to eat but knew we didn't want a repeat of yesterday's breakfast in the main dining room. When we got to the buffet it was crowded beyond my comfort level (a recurring theme on this trip) so we grabbed some food and headed back to our room to eat. Every time we did this I was thankful for our cabin location and how easy it was to pop up to the buffet and back down with a plate full of food.

Our cabin, #8143, was below and slightly aft of the sea view bar. That was also the smoking area on the ship and I worried about smelling smoke but never did. The nearby stairs took us right to the entrance of the buffet. Occasionally we could hear the chairs scraping above our cabin, but only faintly. The location more than made up for any noises we had.

It rained on and off throughout the morning, but that didn't stop us from sitting on the covered balcony and enjoying the view and a little bit of wildlife. We saw one humpback whale breach (no photo unfortunately) and also a pod of orca swimming by the ship. 

One of several orca we saw swimming by.

Today was our first port of the cruise, Juneau, but we weren't scheduled to arrive until 1 pm. I knew the weather wouldn't be ideal, but I had booked two tickets on the Mt. Roberts tram using some of the onboard credit we had. 

The closer we got to Juneau, the more there was to see on land. I used my zoom to get these photos of guys working along the shoreline but for the life of me I don't know what they were doing. Any ideas?

This guy is digging...but for what?

??????

With so many people wanting to get off the ship at 1 pm, the buffet was packed at lunchtime. We got our meal "to go" and came back to the cabin to eat. 

The lazy man's way to explore! 

The Eurodam is leading the pack into Juneau.

Once we were docked and had cell service, we went to the Seaview pool area and sent Marco Polos to our kids. The Eurodam was docked right next to the Mt. Roberts tram so we made sure to include that in our video so the family would know what we were doing in port.

But when we returned to our cabin to get ready to get off the ship there was a notice stuck in our mailbox. Our tram excursion had been cancelled because of mechanical issues. What?! This left us scrambling at the last minute. What to do??

I quickly looked through the Juneau tours listed on the Navigator app. Most were already sold out or weren't anything we were interested in (such as a salmon feed.) I did find one tour that offered a shuttle to Mendenhall Glacier but when I tried to book reservations I got a message that only one spot was left. 

I knew there would be tours offered on the dock so we got ourselves into rain gear and left the ship. We found a booth selling shuttle tickets to the glacier for $45 each. This was what we were going to spend on the tram tickets except those would have been covered by our onboard credit. Now the money was coming out of our pocket and who knows what we will do with all of our credits. 

The guy at the booth tried his best to also sell us tickets for a whale watching tour. Their boat was only partially full and he was willing to sell us tickets for half price. Neither one of us was interested in a boat tour on such a rainy day and we knew nothing we saw in Juneau could ever compare to the multitude of whales we had seen in Antarctica. He also tried to get us to combine the shuttle tickets with a visit to a gold mine for a greatly reduced price, but we declined that as well. 

The Glacier Express Shuttle operated by M & M Tours was waiting in the parking lot near the tram and we got on with a handful of other people. Our lady driver gave us a narrated tour on the 30 minute drive to Mendenhall Glacier and then dropped us off in the parking lot of the visitor center. Busses to return to the ship would leave every 30 minutes until 6 pm which meant we had lots of time to explore.

Rain began falling just as we got out of the bus...the same weather as we have encountered on our two previous visits to Juneau. We were ready with rain pants and rain jackets and began walking the Steep Trail (which isn't steep at all) to get to the visitor center. We stopped briefly at a covered overlook to FaceTime with our grandkids and by the time we started on the trail to Nugget Falls the rain was finished.

A few areas of the two-mile out and back trail to Nugget Falls was still covered in slushy snow but otherwise a fairly easy walk. The vegetation along the path was covered in green moss and the damp, woodsy smells were indications that we were in a rain forest. 

The trail to Nugget Falls

Very few other people were on the trail or around the beach area when we reached the falls. The sun poked through the clouds making it warm enough that we both shed a layer of clothing.

Mountain Goat Bob

Bob's view from above.

The shrinking Mendenhall Glacier. I am thankful we saw the more impressive version in 2014. Oh to have seen it decades ago. 

Our timing was impeccable because when we started back on the trail, we met hoards of people arriving. And just before we made it back to the visitor center, the sun disappeared and rain began again. Our watches said 4:25 when we came off the trail and we made a quick decision to forego the visitor center and try and make it to the shuttle pick up area for pick up at 4:30. I was doubtful that we would get there in time, but we did (just barely.) The bus was full and we were in the back seats but we were out of the rain and on our way back to the ship.

All aboard time wasn't until 9:30 pm, but neither of us had any desire to walk around Juneau in the rain. Instead we took nice warm showers, dressed and went to dinner at the buffet for Salmon Night. 

The clam and mussel cioppino hit the spot after our rainy afternoon.

We finished eating in time to get to the theater at 7:00 pm for Planet Earth II in Concert. Video clips from the BBC series were shown on a huge screen with the Lincoln Center Stage musicians providing live accompaniment. This was something we had seen on a previous cruise but still enjoyable. After the show we walked out on the promenade deck to get a few photos of misty Juneau before going back to our cabin. We didn't have an ounce of energy left to do anything else.

We finished the last part of the movie Field of Dreams (it only took us three days to watch it!) 😆 and then spent a little time online while we still had our cell signal in Juneau. 

I stepped out on the balcony before going to bed and took a photo of the Norwegian Bliss all lit up in the darkness...so pretty. And...it was still raining. 

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