Chicken, Bear and I had a great time on our Alaskan cruise. (Ckick on pics to embiggen)

We boarded Royal Carribean’s Rhapsody of the Sea in Seattle on June 19th.  The boarding procedures went very smoothly and we found ourselves checked-in and ready for a drink at 11 am, the ship was scheduled to leave port at 4 pm, so we had a lot of time to  get organized 🙂    After signing up for “My time” dining, a galley tour,   buying the “soft drink” package and the “bottled water” package, we went to see Raymond,    who sold us our shore excursion packages.

Raymond was thrilled to have his picture taken with such big celebrity as Chicken!

We then made it to the buffet and watched people board the ship while we were sipping our drinks,   eating and relaxing.

Seattle skyline viewed from the ship

After a first day spent entirely at sea, trying to get our sea-legs  and holding our stomach down, we made it to Juneau AK.  We had a 3-part tour planned.  First we took a boat to an island where we went to a salmon-bake at the Orca Point Lodge.  The scenery was marvelous,   and the grilled salmon was deliciously prepared.  They explained to us that we were eating silver salmon, which is the best for grilling, since its flavor is mild and does not taste fishy at all when prepared this way.

Scenery at the Orca lodge

We then boarded the boat again and went on a 3 hours whale-watching cruise.

Thar she blows!!!

That was probably the highlight of the cruise, we saw quite a few humpback whales, including this mom and calf blowing.  Later on, we saw a baby whale showing off, jumping out of the water and twisting around, I was not fast enough to get a good picture though, all I got was a blur… sorry about that…

We also saw some postcard-worthy scenery.

Typical Alaska scenery

Including some wildlife like this eagle

Eagle

Then we boarded a bus which took us to the Mendenhall glacier

Chicken says I have to include this picture to prove that he was there

Chicken charmed another ranger into posing with him for a picture

I finally was able to sneak a picture of the glacier without chicken knowing about it

We then had to return to the ship for dinner and a show.  We left chicken in the room, his swollen ego and his desire to be the star of all the pictures were getting annoying.  After we came back from the show though, we discovered that he had a good time while we were away, he had made  new  friends!

Chicken and his friend

Chicken monkeying around with his other towel friend

The nest day, we were in Skagway, a very friendly little town.  We shopped for a while and then caught our tour with our gorgeous guide.  She lives in Skagway during the summer months and returns to Seattle for the worst of the winter months.  It seems like the majority of the population of Skagway leave for the winter.   Skagway experiences  violent hurricane force winds and deep cold during the winter months.

Our Skagway tour guide (with chicken of course... he was not going to miss that one!)

Skagway

Bear in front of the Red Onion Saloon and Brothel (anybody noticed that chicken still managed to be in the picture?)

The have a strange idea of what constitutes wall decoration in the Red Onion Saloon!

The most photographed building in Skagway.

This horse got really excited when he met Chicken

While we were taking our tour, we had the honor of being made honorary members of  the “Artic Brotherhood” Camp Skagway No.1 🙂

It was time to go back to the ship again, for a dinner and a show… pity.. 😉

The next day, we went up the Tracy arm and sailed in slushy water punctuated with iceberg all the way to the Dawes Glacier.  We were there early in the morning (we had to get up before 5 am in order to get good pictures).  Unfortunately,   Alaska only experiences 30 days of sunshine a year, and this was not one of them.  It was raining pretty hard which made picture taking quite difficult.

Dawes Glacier.... and Chicken.

Dawes glacier, early morning.

The ship then made a 360 degree turn, so everybody on it could get a good view, then turned around and we sailed away, in route for Victoria BC.

Sailing away from the Dawes glacier

That afternoon, we took a galley tour. That was very interesting.  It was surprising how small the galley was when you think of all the food that is prepared in it every day.  Patrick, the chef, explained to us the purpose of the different areas of the galley and details about how the food is prepared and plated when ordred, nothing is left under heating lamps and waiting.  This was the only galley for the ship, it served the main dining room and all the buffet and snack areas of the ship.

Cook working hard in the galley

It takes 7 of these 59 gallons steam soup pots to prepare enough soup for one day on the ship.

Chicken was very scared of ending up in one of the soup pot when we took this picture of him and Patrick, the Executive chef of the Rhapsody of the Seas.

That night, Chicken got in his mind that he wanted to audition for the show, so we took him to the theater.

Chicken auditioning in the theater

We’re sorry to say that he didn’t make the cut, but some of his fluorescent chicken friends did!

The show was called Fluorescence and it was a really neat puppet show.

Victoria is a very picturesque city, on the southern tip of the Island of Vancouver.  The weather here is moderate all year, averaging 45F in the winter and 75F in the summer, sounds good doesn’t it?

We shopped and took a horse carriage tour.

Victoria's famous Empress Hotel where tea is served every afternoon.

Government building in Victoria

Strangely enough, the winning design for the construction of the governement buildings had one big flaw, the architect had forgotten to include plumping, there was no bathroom in the original blueprints for the entire building….

Victoria's inner harbour

We had lunch in a wonderful restaurant with a view of the inner harbour.  While we were there, I just had to snap this picture:

His and hers silverware????

The ship sailed West towards the sunset that night, and when we woke up, we were back  in Seattle.

Cruising in the sunset