Alaska, Check!

I'm back again! Did y'all miss me? (haha, I never really liked the word y'all, but I felt like using that today).

So we went on a 7 day cruise to Alaska, departing from Vancouver with Princess, on the Diamond Princess. My mom really likes to travel so we tend to take a trip to a different place every year, and this year was Alaska. We got hooked on the cruise thing last summer, when we went to the West Caribbeans, departing from Miami (The day of the MMVA's; we were on tv! woot woot) with Royal Caribbean on the Explorer of the Seas.

We headed over to Vancouver a day early, and here is where I would like to share with all of you my victory of the vacation: I did NOT throw up on the plane! Woohoo! (Sorry, Sam, I know you're throwing up right now). The weird thing is, I've been fine on planes all my life until 3 summers ago when we went to the East Coast. On every plane ride since then, I've been barfing at least once, with last years flight to Miami being the worst. I threw up like a zillion times in the airport and then once on the plane- but this trip, it miraculously stopped, even without the aid of Gravol! -Ok Sam, you can start reading again-

Anyways, Vancouver? Lots of hot guys. Alaska? Surprisingly, still lots of hot guys. Seattle airport? You guessed it- lots of hot guys. The ship? I will tell you what the ship had lots of, and it was not hot guys. No, it was old people. Not that the crusie wasn't fun, it totally was, just in a very different way than last year, especially as last year we had gone with my three best friends and their families. Last year was more on the go, things to do, places to be, whereas this year was more relax in your stateroom, catch a movie in the theatre sort of thing. Both are very nice though, and I'd definitely recommend both for a good vacation time. (Disclaimer: Not that I base a vacation's worth on quantity of guys, but when I was bored on the plane I was thinking of ways to write my blog post, and that seemed like a good segue. Wow, I'm a loser!)

The ports were cool- we had two days of sailing, and then we hit Ketchikan, then Juneau, then Skagway (where we took a tour back into Canada-we went to Yukon!), then the next two days were "scenic cruising" through Glacier Bay, where we saw..umm.....glaciers..and College Fjord, where we also saw glaciers. (And harbour seals and two brown bears).

Honestly, Alaska has some of the most stunning scenery I have ever seen, what with all the mountains, and open sea and glaciers. One of my favourite things that we did in port was in Juneau, where we hiked up Mt. Roberts nearly 2000 ft. Hiking is one of my favourite things to do, and it was so much fun- almost like an obstacle course, and the view was fantastic. At the top, we had a snack, and took a look at a bald eagle this organization had rescued named Spirit, that was blind in one eye, had some brain trauma and wasn't able to fly. Poor thing....but her keeper was really nice and it really did seem like she was getting the best care possible. We took the tram back down, and headed to the Juneau Public Library so us kids could catch up on our Internet for 15 minutes. I tried to make a quick blog post, but was being too slow, so I caught up on some blogs instead.

The two things I enjoy most about cruises are the food (how typical!) and the shows. Most of you probably know I eat basically 24/7 (Shut up Amy and Crystal!), so the buffet being open 24/7, plus all the free pizza and grills were actually pretty close to heaven for me. I would like to believe that I controlled myself better on this cruise than the last one, but still- way more than in a normal day. Though, in a way, it balances itself out, cause on a normal day I'd be sitting around, just laying with Petey, while on the ship, we're constantly moving, navigating the 14 decks, walking around....so it kinda balances out....right? But still, even the tour guides and the performers at shows would make fun of the fact- something like "Well, We better get to lunch soon, cause I know you guys are cruise passengers, and if you don't get some food in you every twenty minutes, you get angry". My second favourite part was the shows, my two favourites being the ventriloquist Dan Horn and the juggler Jeff Civillico...I know it sounds kinda boring written down, but they were actually two of the funniest people ever. I got a pic with Jeff after his show, but it was kinda awkward looking, plus he's a foot taller than me...literally. Sometimes, just "sometimes", I REALLY hate being short!!!!

Moving on....my definite, hands down favourite activity of the entire vacation was when we went dogsledding on a glacier. We went up via helicopter (my first time in one!!) and when it wasn't your turn you could either hang out in the tent with the heaters, or play with the dogs that weren't working. Hmmmm, let's see if you guys can guess which one I chose. To the point of nearly getting hypothermic fingers.

Well it's getting late, so I will hopefully post pictures from our trip and a post about the dogsledding on its own tomorrow. See ya later! =D