A Carnival Cruiser tries HAL ... on our Honeymoon to Alaska - Zuiderdam May 21, 2011

[SwissMyst]

Your happiness is so obvious from the pictures you are sharing with us. Thanks for letting us all be members of your wedding party celebrations. May you always continue to live long and live well. Hear! hear! (sound of rice getting tossed on this very happy couple) :p

Now we know the answer when someone else asks are they [I]too young[/I] to do a honeymoon cruise on a HAL ship. We shall just refer them to your thread and the answer speaks for itself.

[sevenseasnomad]

DH wants to go back to Alaska, but I've been resisting, since we haven't been to Europe yet. So next summer it's the Med aboard NA and probably in 2013 we'll head back to Alaska. Your pictures & travel log convinced me. You're doing a great job. Keep it up, cant' wait to read the rest and see more lovely pictures. We cruised on Zuiderdam last December and enjoyed the ship & crew. Sounds as if you & your DH had a similar experience. Congratulations on your wedding & best wishes for a long & happy life together.

Would love to see a picture of your 1st formal night gown (mother of the bride dress). If you have none from your trip, simply take a snapshot of the ship's picture which I believe you said you purchased and upload it for us. I'll bet I'm not the only lady who'd like to see your dress.

[SwissMyst]

[quote name='sevenseasnomad']
Would love to see a picture of your 1st formal night gown (mother of the bride dress). If you have none from your trip, simply take a snapshot of the ship's picture which I believe you said you purchased and upload it for us. I'll bet I'm not the only lady who'd like to see your dress.[/QUOTE]

There is a lovely picture with a beautiful cream colored strapless dress in the pack of photos for formal night -- could this be it? If so, the bride's mother dress looks like she could have been the beautiful bride as well! -- maybe there was a demure "church jacket" that mom wore with this stunning dress? :o

[off2ctheworld]

Thanks for the great review and pics. Love remembering our Zuiderdam Alaskan cruise by looking at your pics and review. Congratulations on your wedding and Best wishes for many many happy years!

[scdreamer]

Thanks for sharing these lovely photos - glad you had such a wonderful honeymoon cruise. Your enthusiasm and happiness surely shine through!

[Taramar]

Brilliant piccies, some of your piccies ofthe wildlife made me smile, because they are the same as mine:) I loved Alaska well worth the long trip from England:p I'm so enjoying the log of your trip.

[kazu]

What fantastic pictures. I don't which is better - your reporting on your cruise or your pictures :) Both are enthralling. Thank you so much for taking us along.:)

[jenng1976]

Good morning - thank you all for the well wishes and I'm glad you are enjoying the review!

I will continue on later today - but thought I would post the first formal night picture due to popular request! I actually meant to earlier, but then got on to Whales and never went back, lol.


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And here is my Mom in the dress at our wedding, along with my beautiful sister (Maid of Honour).

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Cake we got the first night after we mentioned it was our Honeymoon!
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[Love the beach]

Enjoying all of this----thank you. Your photos are awesome--brings it all back!
Marge

[AZNative2000]

[SIZE="3"]Thanks so much for your wonderful report and photos. We are reliving our first cruise through you. When we return to Alaska we will seek out Harv and Marv with the hope we get to see the Orcas and seals too. Sorry you didn't have time for the tram. The view from up there is spectacular.

Wishing you two many happy cruises and years together. Cheers![/SIZE]

[SmokinActuary]

Great reviews and great pictures! Your happiness is contagious!

[SwissMyst]

Wow, the purple dress sets a new standard for Formal Night. No wonder you got so many compliments. Just what I love seeing along with the wonderful smiles of your husband also enjoying dressing up and stepping out with his stunning bride. Love that you got into the spirit of Formal Night and it also looks like your Mom and Sis are the next best candidates for a ........................... HAL cruise too!:D

[jenng1976]

[quote name='SwissMyst']Wow, the purple dress sets a new standard for Formal Night. No wonder you got so many compliments. Just what I love seeing along with the wonderful smiles of your husband also enjoying dressing up and stepping out with his stunning bride. Love that you got into the spirit of Formal Night and it also looks like your Mom and Sis are the next best candidates for a ........................... HAL cruise too!:D[/QUOTE]

Awwww, thanks! That's sweet of you to say!

I definitely lucked out that my Mom, sister and I are around the same size - I borrowed a few dresses from them to wear that week at dinner. Jim and I really enjoy that part of a cruise, dressing up for dinner. There's not too many occasions in regular life to do that!

My Mom & Dad have the cruising bug too - next up for them is Bermuda on Celebrity, but I'm sure they'll be on HAL sooner or later!

[jenng1976]

DAY 4 - SKAGWAY, AK

Wow, we are 1/2 way through the cruise already. Where does time go?

Today was an early start - we were in Skagway between 7AM and 9PM (or something along those lines) and we had an excursion booked that started at 8:30. So, we arranged for a wake-up call, showered then headed to breakfast just after 7 in the dining room. We had a long day ahead of us so we wanted a good breakfast!

We headed out around 8AM - no lines this early in the day! - and set out to find our meeting point. Here's a pic of our ship!

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We had booked a Yukon Train & Bus trip with Chilkoot Charters (+ dog sled ride) - and were doing the bus on the way up, train on the way back. It was a small shuttle bus that picked up up - we were the only ones from the Zuiderdam, and brought us to the other side of the dock (where the Princess ships were docked) to meet the rest of our tour companions. We had read that the right side of the bus was the preferred spot to sit for watching scenery - and we were lucky, despite being the last on the bus - there were two seats left on the right side at the back of the bus! Yay!! And yes, it definitely is the best side of the bus to sit if you're doing this trip.

Our tour guide was great - he had a lot of knowledge about the area and history and was very informative and entertaining. As we drove along to the Yukon we stopped many times to take pictures of the beautiful scenery.

Here are some of them ...

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Train we would be coming back on later that day ...
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[jenng1976]

And some more ...

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And then, up ahead we saw a car stopped along the side of the road. We stopped to see what they were looking at - and wow, there was a bear munching on dandelions! Apparently that is one of their favourite snacks! So, we stopped for a bit to take pictures - I like this one since he/she is looking at us! (Side note - we took the pictures in the bus through the window. The lady who stopped her car was actually OUTSIDE, just a few feet from the bear! To us, it seemed a little reckless to be outside, since you never know what a bear is going to do).

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As we continued along - more beautiful scenery. It's hard to take a bad picture with vistas like these!

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This was the Carcross Desert. At one point it was a Glacier, but when it receded this is what was left.

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[jenng1976]

We then stopped at Emerald Lake - amazing! The lake is only 9ft deep, and takes on its colour from the Marl at the bottom (fragments of decomposed shell mixed with clay) and how the sunlight reflects off it.

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Next up - we headed to Carcross, where we had a BBQ chicken lunch - along with mini donuts! Mmmm! We also had some Yukon beer to wash it down (not included, around $5/beer) - I had Whitehorse Lager and Jim had Yukon Ale - both hit the spot! After lunch we walked around and checked out the Puppies - so adorable! Then it was time for our Dog-sled ride! This was a 15 min ride through the forest - we thought it was a lot of fun and worth the extra money.

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And here's us next to the Yukon sign. The border agents had stopped the van before we crossed into Canada and checked everyone's passport. On the way back - they checked everyone on the train.

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The train ride itself was fun - again here the best spot to sit is on the right side. Lots of people seem to know this, so you have to be one of the first on the car to get a prime seat! We were lucky and got the last one.

While we enjoyed this part of the trip, I was kind of "sceneried" out by this time, it had been a long day! It was neat to sit in an old-school railway car - especially since Jim and I both work for Canadian Pacific railway so know a bit about trains! They did a good job with the commentary, though we had already heard a lot of it from our Chilkoot Tour Guide. I would highly recommend this excursion overall - it was a lot of fun and we learned quite a bit about the area.

Here you can see the harbour where the cruise ships are docked (a little blurry since it was on high zoom and the train was moving).

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Car we were in:
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[jenng1976]

Back in Skagway - it was around 5 by this point - we stopped at a local saloon and had a pitcher of Alaska Summer Ale! Boy did this taste good after a long day sightseeing.

We also walked around town a little, but didn't buy anything. We saw lots of people with shopping bags - but aren't really the souvenir type. All we usually buy on vacation is a new travel coffee mug from the ship we're on! The wonderful pictures is how we like to remember our trips!

We were back on the ship around 6 with plenty of time to get ready for our dinner reservation at 7. We were back in Pat's section tonite!

Here are a few pics from sailaway later on ...

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I think it might have been the Comedian show tonite - which was pretty funny. And we also spent a little time at the casino. I always play the 2 cent machines, I don't play expecting to win big, but it's fun nonetheless. We only gamble on vacation, and budget for it ahead of time so I don't feel guilty if I lose! Which always happens sooner or later unfortunately! Maybe one day ... :)

And that concludes Day 4 ... with Glacier Bay coming up next!

[jenng1976]

On to DAY 5 - Glacier Bay!

We were very much looking forward to today - since Glacier Bay was one of the main reasons we had chosen this particular cruise! And it didn't disappoint.

The scenery was just stunning - so quiet and peaceful and beautiful beyond words. We spent pretty much the whole morning out on our balcony - it was a bit cool, I got out the hat today to go along with the gloves/scarf, but it wasn't cold by any means.

We were lucky that our side of the ship was on the side of Marjorie Glacier, so we had an extended viewing time of her! Once we were right up close to her, the ship stopped and spent about a 1/2 in one place, before spinning around so the other side had the beautiful views.

It's hard to describe how quiet and peaceful it was, except for the sounds of the ice cracking, and the thunder-like sounds of the ice crashing down and calving. It was truly a magical morning and the pictures don't do it justice.

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[jenng1976]

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[jenng1976]

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[jenng1976]

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[jenng1976]

The rest of the day was spent relaxing in various parts of the ship. We had lunch in the Dining Room & at the Grill (those hotdogs were good!) ... read in some comfy chairs, played Trivia in the Crow's Nest.

All in all it was a wonderfully relaxing way to spend the day - especially after the busy-ness of the last couple days in port.

Tonite was also another Formal night - where I wore another of Mom's dresses coupled with a little silky jacket I had. Before dinner we also made the rounds of the photo stations, but didn't buy any from this evening.

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After dinner we went to the show - it was the Magician tonite I think. He was pretty good - it's amazing the things they can do!

Before we knew it, it was time for bed - next up ... Ketchikan.

[Sea42]

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your cruise with us. Our very first cruise was to Alaska and your pictures are bring it all back for me.
Thanks!

[jenng1976]

Well, here we are to Day 6 in Ketchikan. This turned out to be the most disappointing day of the cruise, though we didn't know it at the start of the day.
But more on that later!

The day started off pretty much like all the others - breakfast in the dining room - lounging around a bit - and then we got off the ship just after 10 I believe, shortly after we docked. This was the first and only day it rained on our trip. We later learned Ketchikan is one of the rainiest places in the world!

We had booked a flightseeing excursion with Island Wings, but that wasn't scheduled until 2:30PM - so we thought we would explore the town a little in the morning. We had heard about the Funicular before our trip, and thought that might be fun, especially since we missed the Tram in Juneau.

It took us about 10-15 min to walk there to the Creek St area, and the Funicular was a reasonable $2/person. However, don't expect anything interesting up there once you're at the top! There wasn't much there - we ended up going down a staircase and walking around a bit, ending up by the Totem Centre, but weren't interested in that, so walked back up and took the Funicular down again.

We weren't interested in shopping, so eventually just headed back to the ship for lunch. We both ate at the Grill today and enjoyed cookies & Ice Cream for dessert! It was nice being on the ship since it was fairly desserted from most people being out in town.

Sailing into Ketchikan ...
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[jenng1976]

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You can see the balconies for 4164 & 4166 here - ours was the floor above the red thing on the post.

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And now we're up to the disappointing part of the day. We had booked a flight with Island Wings for 2:30 to Misty Fjords & a Glacier stop. However - due to the weather it was eventually cancelled. It was just too foggy and unsafe to fly through the bad weather.

The worst part was that if we had had an earlier flight - we could have gone out. Which we would have had - except when I had originally booked with Island Wings in Fall 2010 I had made it for the wrong date. When I realized the error in Jan 2011, I rescheduled, however only the later time was available.

So, it felt even worse that if I hadn't made a booking error we could have gone flightseeing after all. But, what can you do? It is what it is - and we wouldn't have wanted to go out if it was unsafe, but totally made for a disappointing afternoon. I guess we just have one more thing to do for a future Alaska trip!

This was the plane we were supposed to go on ...

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