It’s just another day, except it wasn’t. Today we were finally going to be in Alaska for the first time after a few years of trying and we were looking forward to it.
As we were not due to dock until 1pm we planned to go to the gym again after breakfast. We met up with T&G in breakfast and checked up on Tracey who has not been feeling well the night before. She was now fine and they both agreed to join us in the gym.
Today I listened to a Desert Island Disc Podcast as I completed my 30 minutes on the cross trainer watching as the ship navigated through the inner passage.
We all had a hot drink in the 11th floor Explorers Lounge before heading back for a shower and change. Karen & I went back to the Explorers Lounge to watch the ship approach Juneau and hear a talk about Alaska’s capital city and some of its wildlife.
Then we met T&G for an express Fish & Chip lunch in the Dining Room before going onshore for the first time.
There had been lots of debates about what we should wear and how many layers etc. Some other people on board went overboard with multiple coats, hats, waterproof trousers and gloves etc. I opted for the much more comfortable option of a pair of shorts, T shirt and a lightweight fleece. I got it right. It was 12c and dry.
The town of Juneau is not reachable by road. It has a population of 33000. Today we were one of the smaller five cruise ships that were visiting, increasing the population by at least 50%. It is surrounded on both sides by mountains. It rains on average 264 days each year.
Given the number of visitors we decided to use our pre purchased passes for the Goldway Tram first of all before it became too busy. Despite the name this is a cable car ride up to almost the top of Mount Robson. Conveniently the base station is almost in the port where we had docked. We walked straight on and were soon making our way to the top. The view was good in parts but obscured in others by low cloud.
We walked along one of the trails. There was however a distinct lack of direction signs. It was not particularly easy going and not very interesting. With many ‘Be aware of the Bears’ in this area signs, Karen was not ‘feeling’ the walk at all and so after going not too far, we turned around leaving T&G to carry on.
On the way back we bumped into a local who told us that we had not been going the right way to the designated viewpoints anyway and as he was heading to them offered to walk with us. This trail was easier and shorter. The viewpoints were worth the effort.
We met T&G back at the Tram Station and sent them off again in the right direction to have a look themselves, whilst we went into the free theatre to learn all about the Tlingot tribe whose land we were now on. Now this stuff normally washed over me but I found it very interesting.
Then it was time to head back down the mountain and to explore Juneau itself.
We thought the town was a big disappointment. It was not that pretty. It consisted mainly of mostly poor-quality tourist tack shops or rip off jewellery stores. We were not impressed. Of course, we went in a few shops but they all had the same stuff in at silly high prices. I understand that everything must be either shipped or flown in, but some of the ‘locally labelled’ souvenirs had ‘Made in China’ marked on them. The genuine Alaskan made goods had prohibitively high prices. We all left empty handed.
We walked further on through the town hoping to find some local stores but after the touristy bits there was just commercial premises. Disney would have done this town so much better.
Heading back along the waterfront and passing several totems poles we could feel the temperature starting to drop and I almost had to put another layer on. But as we were nearly back at the ship, I braved it.
Back on board we headed for the third time today to the Explorers Lounge where Karen and I thought we should have a glass or three of bubbles to contemplate the day. Of course, we could have opted to have gone on an excursion from Juneau to see a Glacier or Whale watching but neither of them had appealed to us and we could have another week in somewhere like Lanzarote for the price of one of those excursions. We had thought that exploring Juneau on foot would have been one of the cruise highlights – it wasn’t, although the cable car had been good.
After a quick change we met up with T&G back in the Dining Room, where I had the Fresh Alaskan Cod and Karen the Lasagne. They were both very good. We washed these down with some gin cocktails which were even better.
Then Karen & I headed to the Theatre to watch an American comedian who had been on America’s Got Talent. She was gently amusing and worth seeing. We went back to the Rolling Stone Lounge to catch the end of the bands ‘RnB’ set. It was surprisingly average until the finale of ‘proud Mary’ which almost took the roof off. We found seats and watched their final set of the day which was Country Crossovers. Some of these were good and they had much of the audience up line dancing for much of it.
With that we retired for the night. Overall, it had been a okay day but had not quite met our expectations.
