A summer a few years back, my family and I had one of our best and most adventurous adventures – a seven-day Alaskan cruise. After embarking on the Celebrity Millennium in Vancouver, we spent a day relaxing at sea sailing towards the Inside Passage. Ashar this much-needed day of rest, we were amped and ready to reach out first port, Ketchikan, AK.
It was guaranteed to rain in Ketchikan, so I happily broke out my new rain coat along with my boots. But, guess what? It didn’t rain at all and turned out to be sunny day. Since Ketchikan is known as the salmon capital of the world, we saw plenty of souvenir shops selling salmon-shaped trinkets. We arrived at 6am – our ship was the first one to port that day. The town was slowly coming to life as we left the ship, but we enjoyed our first peaceful moments among these tranquil views. The weather was quintessential Ketchikan that day – slightly cool with gentle mist in the air.
Juneau
We had a great time in Ketchikan, walking through the streets, that I thought it would be hard to top, but Juneau turned out to be extraordinary too. We trailed on a road for half a mile, and then we saw The Nugget Falls with the beautiful Mendenhall Glacier at the back. On our way back, we got to play with puppies. These newbies were only a few weeks old (I may have tried to place one in my backpack and carry it home). All in all, Juneau felt surreal. Later in the evening, we boarded our ship again to take on the next day’s adventure in Skagway.
Skagway
My final port on this trip was the beautiful Skagway. The weather was much cooler than that in Juneau. My family and I took a bus tour of the Yukon Territory, where we could see the astonishing snow-filled mountains alongside other lush, green mountains. After this we spent time discovering the town, which was tiny and felt like a toy house! (only a population of 1000 people)
On our last day, we got to witness the dumbfounding Hubbard Glacier, which truly made us breathless.
After seven amazing days at sea, it was time to disembark in Seward and make our way up to Anchorage for the last leg of our adventure. Rather than heading directly to anchorage, we arranged an all-day tour to do some additional sightseeing (we also spotted a bear and her 3 cubs!). everything was so pristine, quiet and magnificently beautiful when we landed that it felt like we were transported to another world.