Ruby Princess - Alaska Inside Passage - June 22 - 29, 2019

[jaycruising]

There are no crosswalks or street lights so you just cross wherever you want.

 

 

 

 

The most photographed building in Skagway & super mom making her way back to the ship!

 

 

 

We did stop in a couple of shops, and we stopped int he Christmas store and I bought a decoration, I collect them from places I visit.

 

We had to stop at the train crossing for a train heading back to the Ruby.

 

[jaycruising]

As we got closer to the ship it got very windy.

 

 

 

Mom did awesome on the walk back to the ship, those new knees are working awesome.  We were back on the ship in plenty of time since all aboard wasn't until 7:30pm.

 

 

We got back on board and cleaned up and headed down to dinner.

 

We ended up sharing a table with 3 siblings and one of their spouses, they were travelling together to celebrate a birthday.  They were great company and the dinner tonight was crab legs, which were amazing, but I didn't take a picture, I don't usually when we share tables.

 

The food tonight was amazing, but the atmosphere was not.  Seated next to use was a table of 4 kids (between 7 and 11ish), their parents were a large group sitting at a table near by, and they paid NO attention to the kid's through the whole dinner, the kids behaved badly through the whole dinner ending with them chasing each other around the table until one of them ran into the wall and got a bloody nose, sorry for the kid.  Us and the people around us were all quite annoyed.  If you are going to bring your children into a fine dining establishment please pay attention to them and ensure they have manners, they are also very rude to waitstaff.  The head waiter knew none of us were very happy when we left.  I am ok with kids and enjoying themselves, but this was far beyond.

 

It was 8:30 by the time we left Skagway, after dinner mom and I went and played cards for a while, but I had to take a break so I could go and take some sunset photos.

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

We finished playing cards, I lost 😞 and went to bed pretty early since we had a very early morning coming up.

 

I'm going to leave it here for the night, please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

[turquoisesea]

I can’t wait for your next installment!!!  Thank you for sharing these amazing pictures and great info. 

[IrishLassie]

REALLY enjoying your post & your pictures are BEAUTIFUL.  It's so nice that you travel with your Mom.  Wish I could do that with mine, but she's now in a home & at 99 1/2 yrs. old, don't think she could travel any more.  Enjoy the rest of your cruise & I look forward to hearing more & seeing more of your pictures.  (we LOVED Alaska, & hope to go back again).

[CruzinNoony]

Love your sunset pictures leaving Skagway!!  Looking forward to reading more!

[travlngar]

Skagway is such a wonderful port of call, but even leaving the port at night and watching all the beautiful scenery passing by on the promenade deck is always a highlight. Thank you for sharing you wonderful photos.

[Tucker in Texas]

What side of the train were you sitting on?

[jaycruising]

12 hours ago, turquoisesea said:

I can’t wait for your next installment!!!  Thank you for sharing these amazing pictures and great info. 

 

Thank you so much, here it comes!

 

11 hours ago, IrishLassie said:

REALLY enjoying your post & your pictures are BEAUTIFUL.  It's so nice that you travel with your Mom.  Wish I could do that with mine, but she's now in a home & at 99 1/2 yrs. old, don't think she could travel any more.  Enjoy the rest of your cruise & I look forward to hearing more & seeing more of your pictures.  (we LOVED Alaska, & hope to go back again).

 

Thank you so much!  I am very lucky that we get to travel together, it's not something we could do when I was younger, but I think we appreciate it more now.

 

8 hours ago, CruzinNoony said:

Love your sunset pictures leaving Skagway!!  Looking forward to reading more!

 

I have about a hundred more, but I needed to narrow it down a bit!

 

8 hours ago, travlngar said:

Skagway is such a wonderful port of call, but even leaving the port at night and watching all the beautiful scenery passing by on the promenade deck is always a highlight. Thank you for sharing you wonderful photos.

 

You are welcome, glad you are enjoying them.  Skagway is beautiful, I definitely want to return and explore more.

 

1 hour ago, Tucker in Texas said:

What side of the train were you sitting on?

 

The right hand side is the view side when going southbound.

[jaycruising]

June 26, 2019 - Glacier Bay Scenic Cruising

 

I was so excited for this day, we set the alarm this morning for 6:30am.  When we woke up the Rangers had already boarded the ship and we were already in the bay.  It didn't take long to get us moving this morning.

 

I quickly ran up to the buffet and grabbed us some yogurt and a croissant for breakfast.  We turned the tv to the bridge camera and then we could hear the rangers.  They would provide random information about Glacier Bay and then they would also point out animals they would see.  Starboard had a few whales, we didn't on the port side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day was absolutely amazing and the water was unbelievably calm.

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

This is the only otter that I saw the whole trip, but he was absolutely my favourite animal the whole trip.  He is just floating by, totally chilling and his tail was just wagging... loved him!  I almost missed the picture cause I was just staring at him.

 

 

This is how it really looked behind us, I didn't really edit this picture at all.

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

Sometimes I like to get artistic.

 

 

As we were getting deeper into the bay it was getting colder, luckily we didn't have any wind.  But the moving ship, getting closer to the glaciers and our side of the ship didn't have the sun.  So I decided to run down to the International Cafe to get us a couple of hot chocolates.  Note, on Glacier Bay day there are stricter rules and they will not provide paper cups.

 

As I was waiting for the elevator I get a text from mom telling me to get back out here, so I rushed back to the room just as we were coming to Margerie Glacier.

 

A few facts about the Glacier before I go on.

 

* it is 21 miles long and begins on the slopes of Mount Root, which is on the Alaska - Canada border.

* Margerie Glacier has become stable and it is neither growing or receding like most glaciers.

* The width of the glacier is about 1 mile.

* The total height at its terminus is 350 feet, including 100 feet that is underwater.

* Nearest road is 65 miles away, so the only way to see it is by ship or boat.

 

Once we arrived at Margerie the Ranger went silent for the entire hour that we were there.  The port side had the first views of the glacier which was nice for us so we just stayed on our balcony.

 

 

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

 

Looking back from our balcony.

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

Spoiler alert... this was the coldest I was on the whole trip, and messing around while taking pictures again.

 

 

 

 

 

The deeper you get into the inlet the more beautiful it becomes.

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

 

 

 

Checking out the view behind us.

 

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

I did manage to catch the glacier calving on video.  They do say it is an experience for the eyes and the ears and they were not kidding.

 

 

Photobombed!

 

 

I ran down to deck 7 to get a few pictures down lower.

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

When I take a lot of photos of the same thing then I will mess around with them in editing.

 

 

 

Time to start turning away from the glacier.

 

Just a few people on top of the bridge 🙂

 

 

This dark area is actually the Grand Pacific Glacier.  It is like this due to rock debris from landslides. In some areas the debris is more than 3 feet thick.

 

 

 

I am going to leave it here for tonight and I will be back as soon as I can with more from Glacier Bay.

[jaycruising]

Back to finish our day in Glacier Bay.

 

The ship had been granted permission to lower a tender boat into the bay and allow a couple of the photographers to take pictures of the ship.  I really wanted to get some of the pictures, but they included them on the reflections DVD, and I have no way to play them, so I had to pass.

 

 

Looking back and at the side we didn't see on our way in.

 

Here comes the Nieuw Amsterdam.

 

 

 

 

There are only 2 ships per day allowed in Glacier Bay National Park, so if you want to visit be sure when booking your cruise it states you will be visiting.

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

 

Our next viewpoint in the Lamlugh Glacier.

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

Next we headed to the mouth of Johns Hopkins Inlet.  During certain months in the spring / early summer the inlet is closed off to protect the unweaned Harbour Seal pups.  The view is still beautiful and we spent some time here then then the ship did another turn.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by jaycruising
spacing

[jaycruising]

Johns Hopkins Glacier

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

 

 

Making our way out of Glacier Bay.

 

 

Down to my favourite aft stop for one more look.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by jaycruising
wrong photos

[jaycruising]

Around 1:00pm we decided to lay down and have a little nap since we had been up so early this morning.  A lot of napping on this trip!

 

We got up just before 3:00pm to head up for tea, we were sat at just a table for us this time.

 

 

We were super boring and spent quite a bit of time relaxing whenever we could.  My job is pretty stressful sometimes and I work a lot of hours, so I do enjoy anytime I can relax.  So that is what we did for most of this evening.

 

We headed down around 7:00pm for dinner and it was Italian night.  We were seated at a table for 8 tonight and we ended up with a great group of people, and as usual when I am with a group I never take pictures and I can't remember what I had.

 

After dinner I headed back to the aft of the ship to get a few more photos.

 

 

 

Back to the room pretty early tonight as I wanted to get my shore bag ready and we decided to order room service for breakfast so I got the order filled out and hung on the door so it could be ready for us tomorrow for our early port day.

[jaycruising]

June 27, 2019 - Ketchikan

 

We had an early day this morning and a short day in port.  We were scheduled to arrive at 7:00am and our all aboard was 12:30pm.

 

I really wanted to make the most of our day, so we opted for room service breakfast and set our alarm for 6:15am.  Luckily that is when we got up as room service was knocking on the door a few minutes later.  So we enjoyed our breakfast on the balcony and watched our arrival into Ketchikan.

 

After enjoying our breakfast I went down to the 5th floor to drop off our future cruise documents and then joined the long line to get off of the ship.  Mom was still in the room and I would be going off on this first adventure on my own.

 

I had wanted to go and explore Creek Street before our excursion, so I took off pretty quickly and walked as fast as I could and I actually managed to be one of the first people there, even thought the Holland America ship beat us into port this morning.

 

Again we had a beautiful, calm morning, not many of the shops were open so I just wandered around a bit and took some pictures.

 

 

I would love to visit when the salmon are spawning.