Cruisin' 80's Style - just not the music style: an Alaska Inside Passage Cruise

I love 80's music.  That and 90's are "my music".  But this type of cruising-80's style is cruising with 80 year olds (well, almost 80 year olds) on the inside passage of Alaska.  It was a trip filled with spectacular scenery and some fun adventures.   The Norwegian Pearl had some great timing of stops and plenty of food as indicated by the extra weight I'm now carrying.  Aack!

My favorite adventure was taking a helicopter ride in Juneau and getting the chance to walk around on the Mendenhall Glacier.  Not only did we walk around and learn about glaciers but I got to both drink water straight from the glacier (now that is the definition of ice cold) and also get a glacial facial (using glacial silt).  That facial was certainly colder than my Dead Sea facial! 

We also took a tour up to the Yukon Territory in Canada from Skagway.  This drive had a ton of mountains, waterfalls, lakes and even a bear!  That was a fun surprise. 

I took advantage of having my cousin's son living in Skagway to go on a hike to Dewey Lake.  It was fun to see some family, meet his adorable new wife, and get some much needed exercise.

Glacier Bay was the highlight and with the sun breaking out the glacial covered mountains were spectacular.  Throw in some whales, sea lions, sea otters and bald eagles and it was certainly a majestic experience.  We even saw some caving on the glaciers and I happened to be lucky enough to have the camera pointed right at it when it happened. 

We hit Ketchikan which was actually my favorite little town we stopped in. It has more of a feeling of the native Pacific Northwest Indians and actual town than the other cities we stopped at.  Using a free local bus we hit the local Heritage Totem park which has the oldest totems of the region!  There was no need to go clear out to Saxman village and was definitely a cheaper option. Creek Street was a fun street to walk down and then finally we hit the lumberjack show.

For our last port, we stopped at Victoria Gardens.  My mom loves flowers (I do too) and especially roses.  It was a perfect evening with sun to cap off the tour of the gardens.

It was my first cruise and I'm going to say that I had a great time and would definitely cruise again - maybe even 80's style.

You can view additional pictures in my Public Gallery or by clicking on the Photo Gallery Tabs above. All pictures are available for purchase.