Slightly Controlled Chaos: July 2007

Our trip got off to a bit of a rough start thanks to those "wonderful" people at Delta. The airport where we live is small and while I've never had any security related issues, I still think that it's prudent to be early and not take any chances....especially for a trip that I have so eagerly awaited. So we arrived at 12:15pm for our 2:05pm flight to find that there were absolutley no Delta agents at the Delta counter. There were other people waiting and a nice sign advising us that they were having a station briefing, would be back shortly and sorry for any inconvenience. As time dragged on, one of the people in line behind us called their toll free Customer Service line. It was almost funny when we heard her say, "How am I supposed to tell a Delta agent that there are no Delta agents." They emerged to a long line of unhappy people at 1:15pm...did I mention that there were already people waiting? One man was angrily complaining to which the reply was, "We should have checked, but we didn't think that there would be this many people waiting." Uh...its 50 minutes before the flight.....so you weren't thinking. From there our flight was delayed and we barely made our connection. We arrived in Seattle on time at 6:45pm (PT) but our luggage didn't...not a single piece. This was followed by assurances that our luggage would be delivered that very night as it was on the next flight. Uh huh. That's why me and my sister were back at the airport at 12:15am to see if the luggage was even there (after several unhappy phone calls) and dug it out of the sea of all the other misdirected & delayed luggage in front of the Delta Baggage Claim (the only airline with a sea of luggage). But we eventually made our way to the ship and then the fun really did begin.

The ship was incredible (Sapphire Princess). It was beautiful, well maintained and the service was awesome from the beginning (the Homeland Security guy who was cranky about us not having passports doesn't count because he didn't work for the cruise line). Our luggage was being delivered when we got to the stateroom so we were able to unpack immediately and then collapse and relax. Our stateroom was well worth the extra $$ for the additional space. We had a nice balcony to relax on, a sitting area with a couch, chair and table and a decent sized bathroom with a bathtub. The first nice we were so tired we didn't feel like going down to dinner so we ordered some room service and didn't have to sit cross-legged on the bed to eat it. Then we settled in and watched the coastline drift by from our balcony.

Sunday was a day at sea so we bummed around the ship, did a little shopping and then hit the Casino before getting ready for dinner.

Every where we went along the trip was just gorgeous....the pictures just don't do it justice. Sunset was about 10pm each night and sunrise was before 4am. With the 4 hour time difference I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning and would grab my camera, go out on the balcony and curl up in chair. The temperature was actually comfortable even early in the morning.

Our first stop on the trip was Ketchikan where we got extrememly lucky on the weather. It only sprinkled a little bit while we were at the lumberjack show which apparently was incredible for a town that measures its rainfall in feet instead of inches. The town was a blend of the old and the new. Modern buildings here and there in a town that honored it's heritage and had rennovated a number of original buildings. The lumberjack show was a lot of fun. While the competition was a show, all the guys actually participate in real lumberjack competitions and I think that they are all crazy...someone should have told them you're not supposed to point sharp objects at yourself!

Our second stop was Juneau. I didn't realize before that Juneau is completely landlocked with access only via plane and ship. One of the guides on this day advised us that you can take the ferry to Skagway....it only takes three days and costs $800! We went to a Salmon bake and a Whale Quest while in Juneau. It took not even 10 minutes to get to the Salmon bake location and we were on the edge of the wilderness.

From there we were off to Skagway, which was golf day for the husband. The drive to the course was incredible although the guide/driver took years off my life with his 70+ mph up the winding mountains. It kind of made getting great pictures of the landscape a little tough--my camera doesn't have a setting for warp speed. We were paired up with a very nice couple from Wales on the golf course.