Ali- I’ve been on 3 cruises in my life and each time I remember friends and family asking me the same thing. “Why would you choose to spend 7 days in a floating hotel with a bunch of senior citizens?” Now if you are in an older age group, then I apologize for the narrow-mindedness of the young and uninitiated. What they don’t know and we have figured out is that a cruise is the 99 percent’s best way to experience the luxury living of the 1%ers. There’s no cleaning and no cooking. Polite foreigners serve you with a huge smile (I had a lovely Filipino woman retuck my shirt into my skirt after I got out of the bathroom stall like my own personal ladies’ maid). Non-stop activities are organized for you every minute of every day. And attractive young pool boys bring you martinis in the whirlpool. What is not to like here???
Hence why we found ourselves on a 7 day cruise to Alaska with our good friends, the Pohls. Mary Pohl is the mother of one of Maya’s school chums and she is an unparalleled organizer of vacations. That apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Her father, Gil, began planning this cruise over a year ago. My wedding was planned in far less time with far less effort and way fewer informational emails. We were fortunate enough or insightful enough to say HELL YES! when Mary asked us in August of 2018 if we wanted to join 40 of her family and friends on this Pohl extravaganza in August of 2019. We even had matching shirts!!!
So we arrived in Vancouver on Tuesday the 13th of August and set about experiencing all the city had to offer, getting a jump start on our cruise fun-binging. Vancouver is a fairly awesome town with a giant park – Stanley Park – next to downtown, amazing Asian food and lots of water and outdoor adventures.
As soon as we arrived, we took the delightful public transportation from the airport (a feature ALL major cities should have), we checked into our stupidly cheap airBnB downtown and then headed for the seaplane port. By 7 pm PST we were on a seaplane flying over the Pacific Ocean and the mountains around Vancouver. 
It was my first seaplane experience and I have to say it was awesome. In fact apparently one can take a seaplane between major port cities like Seattle and Vancouver for a fairly reasonable price instead of driving, busing or training like the Plebes.
The next day I forced Maya and Joe to do the Grouse Grind with me. This hike is billed as a stair master on steroids. It’s over 2800 steps that ascend to the top of Grouse mountain. There is a free shuttle from Canada Place in downtown Vancouver and when/if you reach the top, there are restaurants, wildlife shows, lumberjack shows, bears in captivity, zip lines, etc. The first picture below is Joe and Maya reaching the top only 30 minutes after I did (I’m only judging a little bit). 
We also enjoyed the Brewery and Gelato scene in Vancouver along with the biking culture.
Fast forward to Friday, we arrived at 10:30 am to board our Millennium Celebrity Cruise ship. The process is a bit like boarding an airplane. One checks in, deposits luggage at the bag check, passes through security and then finally you are allowed on the boat and handed champagne. Wait. You mean you don’t normally get champagne when you board an airplane??…. Yea. See? That’s what I’m saying about a cruise.
So when you first get on you can’t get into your cabin because the very hardworking non-American crew is working super hard to clean the rooms after the last batch of dirty probably mostly American guests departed. So we spent several hours getting to know the Pohls, who were all conveniently wearing matching cruise shirts. We also broke the seal on our cruise drink packages, which are a must on any cruise. Trust me on this.
The first day out of port was a cruising day, which is an excellent opportunity to get an overpriced massage (which I did), hit the gym to get a jump on burning off all the overeating you are about to do (which I did) and start honing your ping pong game (which I did). The next day, however, we reached Ketchikan. At every port there are copious opportunities for excursions off the boat. These cost extra money and there is an active debate among cruise attendees as to whether to book these things through the cruise or not. In my experience booking through the cruise line isn’t that much more expensive and guarantees that they won’t leave your butt when you return late.
Despite being told repeatedly that we were insane, Maya, Joe and I went snorkeling! I had never been snorkeling in Alaska and I am a bit of a water loving adventure seeker so it is probably not surprising that I would choose this event over eating caviar on a heated boat while watching for whales. But Maya was also into it and so Joe was outvoted. 
It was very cool. Errr cold. At least I was cold. Joe and Maya were fine. The water temperature was a balmy 64 degrees F, which is quite reasonable and we had 7 mm wetsuits so this should actually be a pretty tame experience. However I have an unusually small head and the hood didn’t really prevent 64 degree water from sloshing over my skull. So after an hour I was the color of glacier ice. Luckily we were
introduced to the Alaskan hot tub, which is when you poor hot water into your 7mm wetsuit and it pools inside, feeling a bit like you and all your friends peed in your pants. It was all worth it for the giant sea cucumbers, huge sea urchins, rockfish and sea stars. Plus on the way back we got dropped off in the Ketchikan red light district, by creek street where the salmon swim upstream to spawn. Which all prompted this very entertaining sign and brothel. 
The other thing to do in Ketchikan – the salmon capital – is order Salmon to be shipped to your door. Which I did. 10 pounds of it.
The next day we arrived in Icy Point Straight, which isn’t a town so much as an adventure center with the worlds largest zip line. It used to be the highest but someone else stole that honor apparently. It’s still a 6 lane mile long 90 second ride. But first!!!!
Our planned excursion in Icy Straight Point was heli-biking. This is where you and a mountain bike are hauled up to the top of a mountain in a helicopter and you bike down. Possibly one of the coolest things one can do in Alaska. Because helicopters are always awesome. Mountain biking in the Alaskan wilderness is also awesome. And not having to peddle uphill is the most awesome (also consistent with the lifestyle of an over-pampered cruiser) . 
Joe also thought this was an insane thing to do but his reasoning this time was because it was obscenely expensive. I decided my credit card would eventually forgive me and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like bankruptcy and financial ruin keep me from experiencing life like the filthy rich. Of course as soon as the shuttle dropped us back off at the adventure center, Joe marched over to the giant zip-line counter and shelled out another $300 for us all to go zip lining. Soooo who’s the family financial genius now??? While this was approximately $1 per person per second of fun given the 90 second ride time, I can honestly say it was worth every overpriced minute. We got off that thing all giggling like school girls and probably would have shelled out another $300 if the bus ride up to the launch pad wasn’t 45 minutes long and vomit inducing.
The next day we arrived early in Juneau. Mary had booked us on an all day private glacier hiking tour. There were 7 of us that met with out guides Whisper (real given name, not a trail name believe it or not) and Daniel (who the tour manager kept calling Danielle to his everlasting embarrassment). The hike was about 4 miles on a trail to the foot of the Mendenhall Glacier, passing along the way the markers for where the glacier used to reach at various points in the past. The first marker in fact was for 1910, and had we set out on this hike then, we would have reached the glacier at the same time we reached the trail head bathrooms in the parking lot. 
Along the trail we learned a lot about the local fauna and our guides. Daniel is a professional hiking guide, traveling all over the US leading hikes and occasionally snowboard instructing. Whisper is a semi-professional ice climber and botanist. Both of them get to hike to and climb on a glacier daily. Which made me re-evaluate my life choices. I am paying Whisper and Daniel a large sum of money to hike to the glacier. Whisper and Daniel are getting paid to hike to the glacier. You see the difference here, right? Now granted, Whisper currently lives in an SUV and all of her worldly possessions fit into an egg crate. But there are some days at work where I think that is far from a deal breaker.
After the hike, Mary, Brian, Joe and I hit one of the Juneau breweries while the others headed to shower on board (which clearly expresses our differences in priorities). Joe and I topped off our beer with fish tacos from Deck-hand Dave’s, a local fish taco stand. The salmon fish tacos were amazing and made me even more excited for my delivery of 10 pounds of Alaskan salmon to my door in Baltimore.
The next day we reached Scagway, a town of something like 800 people that regularly hosts up to 3 cruise ships that pour 8000 tourists into the town. I had not 1, not 2 but 3 grants due before the end of the month so I stayed on board sipping cappuccinos at the ship coffee bar and working. So I have nothing to report about the town. But I heard the breweries were good and there is a wickedly cool multi-day hike that can be done around to the local peaks.
The last stop on the cruise was Glacier bay and the famous Hubbard glacier. Only 2 cruise ships are allowed in the bay per day so you really want to make sure this is on your itinerary should you get your snobby nose out of the air and decide to go on an Alaskan cruise with us old folk. It came into view around 7:30 am as I hopped on the treadmill at the front of the ship. So I literally got to run towards a glacier. Very inspiring I must say. My pictures can’t possibly do justice to the sight of an immense wall of ice and the thunderous crack of the glacier calving into the sea. Sorry. 
After Hubbard we hauled ass for the rest of the day to our final port- Seward, Alaska. This was really the only time during the whole trip where we had large waves and a good amount of boat rocking. At dinner there were a couple folk who had to abandon their dinner table and head to their cabins before they vomited on the beef Wellington.
Friday August 23, we woke up early to the smell of smoke. I was wondering what jackass was smoking near the air intake when the word was passed around that there were some 600 fires burning around Seward and Anchorage. We packed up and left our luxurious ship after over-eating one last time at the breakfast buffet, and headed into a very hazy Seward. 
A nice lady from Seward helicopter tours and Turning Heads Kennel picked us up from the cruise terminal and took us to our final ridiculously expensive tour. We hopped into another helicopter and flew up to a Iditarod dog sledding training camp on top of the Godwin glacier. The Iditarod race is a 1000 mile dog sledding race from Anchorage to Nome. And the dogs who run this thing want only one thing in life. To run. One dog named Banf (after the ski resort) couldn’t contain himself, leaping up and around, whining and sounding like hot pokers were being applied to his nether regions until the sled brakes were released and he could finally pull a bunch of lazy-ass tourists in a sled.
I cant express how much fun this was. We each got to mush the sled and pet the dogs and watch them poop while running, which is an amazing skill. Then we got to hold puppies… puppies! We all smelled like a kennel afterwards to the delight of first, our helicopter pilot who is used to it and second, our fellow passengers on our 4 hour bus ride to Anchorage. But did we care? No! We were so full of dog sled love that we even filled out a form to adopt a retired sled dog. So you might be seeing us mush to and from the grocery in Baltimore. Who knows?? Ready Alright! (Which means move your ass in dog sledese)
