Day 3: Juneau, Alaska!

As my friend Taryn has already written, we woke up raring to go explore Juneau, Alaska. We were excited to begin that scavenger hunt we'd planned to do. So, we frantically dressed in some of the cute outfits Marsali's mama had made and headed off for breakfast on the lido deck.

As we were heading to breakfast, we noted that it was, in fact, raining. Again. This obviously put a damper on our sightseeing in Juneau, but we tried not to let the rain get our spirits down, too. Instead, we enjoyed our breakfast and then went off to the pool area. There was a dogsled on display, and we wanted to play on it:

We got some nice shots of the wet day from our place on the lido deck:

We went downstairs to another room where we could watch our ship as it eased into the Juneau port. There were five other ships in port with us, so between the rain and the crowds, we decided to give up the scavenger hunt idea. Marsali and I went off the ship with Marsali's mama to do some shopping, but that was the extent of our visit.

By the end of the day, I couldn't help feeling a little sad that our Juneau visit had been rained out. However, it's not like one can control the weather...

To see the full album, click HERE.

~Sophie

Day 2: Seasickness!

That's right - our first full day out at sea was not exactly fun. As Taryn talked about on the Bolton Girls' blog, we encountered a bad storm. This meant that we had to take a different route than we would've had we had clear skies, but different route or not, we still experienced hurricane-force winds and 33 foot waves!

It was a nightmare! Lots of people were seasick, and Marsali and I were no exception. We woke up with queasy stomachs and told Taryn to go off to breakfast without us. There was no way I would've managed to keep breakfast down, even if it was delicious French toast!

Taryn did manage to get us out of bed. We were passing our first glacier, and Taryn didn't want either of us to miss it. I was ultimately glad that I had gotten out of bed to see it because it was the only one I really got to see. Seeing Hubbard Glacier was now out of the question, given our bad weather.

But isn't the glacier gorgeous?

The sky did clear up in time to view this gorgeous sunset. I'm not sure I've seen anything like it before!

Oh - and take a look at this! The pool had to be drained! Taryn told Marsali and I that pool water had been splashing all over the floor, so the cruise staff made the decision to drain the pool. There would be no swimming on this cruise, but hey, I can go swimming anywhere. I came on the cruise to see Alaska, not to swim!

By evening, Marsali and I were feeling better, so we went down to Maggie and Kimmy's room to prepare for the next day's activity. We were to be visiting Juneau, so we'd decided to play a Photo Scavenger Hunt game. Each of us would draw an item out of a hat to find while we were in Juneau. Like, if you drew "moose sweatshirt," you would have to go find a moose sweatshirt and have someone take a photo of you with it. So, that's what we were doing that evening - drawing items out of the hat to search for while in Juneau.

When we came back to our room, Marsali, Novya, and I found a lobster on our bed! That is, a lobster made out of a towel. It's always a tradition for the stewards to make towel animals for people onboard. They even offer classes where you can learn to make your own towel animals!

Marsali and I stayed up talking for a while, but we eventually went to sleep, hoping for clearer weather for our Juneau visit!

To see the full album, click HERE.

~Sophie