Our second port of call was in Juneau! Juneau wasn't near as cute and quaint as Skagway, ;) although we did find the Alaska State Capitol ^^ and some pretty crazy high up little homes we hiked to.
( Random thought - if you have little kids, I loved an umbrella stroller for this trip! ^^
There isn't a ton of walking so you don't need a crazy good stroller and it hardly takes up any room in your state room ;)
( Random thought - if you have little kids, I loved an umbrella stroller for this trip! ^^
There isn't a ton of walking so you don't need a crazy good stroller and it hardly takes up any room in your state room ;)
So I'll be honest and say we had ONE BUMMER for this trip.
In Juneau, we were supposed to have an excursion that helicopter'd you to a glacier and then you went dog sledding in the snow! It was cancelled because of weather :( we were totally ready to go and it was cancelled about an hour before it was supposed to leave! The weather is pretty crazy and literally rained every day we were there!
It's also REALLY foggy ( we never saw the sun) so apparently they actually have to cancel helicopter tours quite often because of visibility -- which is completely understandable! ( so if you have plans to go to Alaska make sure you have a plan B for tours that are cancelled! :)
We made the best of it and went whale watching which was pretty amazing! ^^
The whales are all around your boat and you can't beat the scenery around you!
There was a "frozen night" on the boat! ^^
They had a cute show for the kids outside and then made it actually SNOW!
It made being in the middle of the Alaskan mountains even more magical!
Came in from outside to see MINNIE! ^^
Luke was not quite so sure how he felt about it and Ryan's cheese face is killing me haha!
The last port of call was KETCHIKAN!! ^^
I loved this cute city! Given it was the "Salmon Capital of the World", why not go Salmon fishing!?
This was my very first time fishing and probably my favorite excursion of the trip!
I think I went fishing once as a kid with some friends - not sure if I ever even held the fishing pole? haha!
Anyways I screamed a little bit and the video of me reeling in my first fish is hilarious! Aaron filmed it and he will pull it up randomly on his phone just to watch it and laugh!
Between my whole family, we caught 29 total salmon!! ^^
Saw seal lions ^^ and whales.
The blood was a little hard to get used to ^^ HA! Hence my screaming in the video Aaron took of me as the fish was jumping around the boat and blood was spurting all over.
We were split up onto two boats. So this is our little crew with the fish we caught! ^^ all the salmon were sent back to my parents house in Utah and I'm wishing I could be there for a Sunday dinner to try fresh Alaskan Salmon!
If you know me, you know salmon is my favorite food ever.
Love this sweet fam of mine! ^^
Gosh, we loved this beautiful place!! And I secretly think we all loved being cold for a week haha! ;) I've only ever been somewhere warm on a cruise so this was something totally different and SO fun!
Instead of going for the unlimited ice cream every day, we went for the unlimited hot chocolate!
There is something magical about being in the beautiful mountains and bundling up with the ones you love!
The whole thing was incredible and I would seriously recommend this trip to ANYONE!
TIP: When going on an Alaskan cruise, PACK LAYERS and bring rain boots! Dress like an onion. You wont regret having too many layers. If I could do it over, I would buy us all some winter gloves and bring all my warmest winter sweaters / socks / hats! Luke had a raincoat as his warmest coat -- #momfail! We made due with lots of blankets and luckily there is so much to do inside the boat for the kiddos. The weather said it was in the high 40's to low 50's but with the rain and wind it felt more like low 40's/30's haha! Anyways I would be happy to answer any more specific questions about what to pack so please email me! XO
