Since Chris and I did an excursion a day at all three Ports of call on our Northbound trip, we decided to take it a easy and just do a little relaxing and some exploring of the Port towns on our Southbound trip.  I will be telling y’all about all three Ports here in this one post. 🙂

Haines Instead of Skagway!

First up was Haines, yes, I said Haines…haha. 🙂 I bet you were expecting Skagway huh? Well, if y’all remember, there had been a rock/land slide the day before we docked in Skagway while on the Northbound journey.  We were diverted over (which is just a trip down the Lynn Canal – a gorgeous fjord – from Skagway) so that they could have time to repair the damage to the dock over in Skagway.  Princess was awesome and provided all of us passengers with all of the necessary tools and paperwork with which to handle our day in Haines. They also provided extra Ferries so that all that wanted to head to Haines could and in addition covered the cost of said Ferry Ride.  Here is the Princess Patter for that day and also Excursion info and a map of Haines:

I was nursing a sore foot on this day, so I did not venture off of the ship, instead this is the day that I pulled together my Stateroom tour of our abode for the week, the Seychelles Suite D701. Here is a link to my YouTube video of that tour. 🙂

Here is my outfit for that day, I was comfy and cozy while hanging out on the ship:

Here are a few pictures of the Ferry activity of the day, it was a very busy day–those ferries ran all day long:

Haines is a beautiful port, soaring mountains and scenery was abounding!

Our dinner on this evening was at the Crab Shack.  They set up the Crab Shack on one side of the Buffet, they switch out the table cloths and even the wait staff wear different shirts…it is a lovely experience, one that I highly recommend. 🙂 AND the food is phenomenal; you do pay and upcharge for this experience…when we were here the charge was $29 per person (of course, moving forward in time Princess may raise the price, so please keep an eye on your Patter to make sure you know what is what while on your cruise).

Here is the Menu:

After we were finished eating, we took a stroll around the ship, here are some pictures that I clicked off:

I will have to admit that this day in Haines was one of the most relaxing days that I’d ever experienced on an Alaska cruise, my dumb foot aggravated me in that I couldn’t get out and explore, but, it also forced me to stay put and enjoy the quiet and serene port. I had no internet on that day, well I had 3g phone coverage which was super slow and I gave up trying to get anywhere online..haha. So I sat out on our balcony watching the ferries come and go, and I gazed down the Lynn Canal and at all of the beauty that was laid out in front of me…it was a party for my eyes on this day…no doubt about it!

As we pulled out of Haines, we caught this gorgeous sunset…so, so pretty!!

 

Juneau

 

Our next stop on our Southbound cruise was Juneau! My foot was still screaming at me a bit, but, I was determined not to allow it to hinder what I knew I wanted to do on this day! First off, here is my outfit of the day:

One sweet Suite perk…is that we were able to go and eat breakfast in Sabatini’s every morning, we chose to do so on this morning because we didn’t have anything special planned other than to just walk around town a bit and enjoy a nice relaxing day.

It was delicious!!

Here is the Princess Patter for this day:

I also did a Facebook Live video on this morning:

BTW, here is a closeup of what is costs to send out your laundry if you so choose–for Suite passengers it is complimentary:

A seal came to visit in the harbor that day…too cute for words!!

We decided to go off of the ship and do a little bit of shopping and exploring, here are some of the sights we encountered.  You will see that there are excursion vendors lined up on the dock, I am not in the know about them, but, I did want to let you know that they are there:

I was so excited to be able to find this little jewel of a shop…I’d heard about it many times in the Alaska Cruises on Princess group that I Admin on Facebook, so I was anxious to find it and to purchase some spiffy soap that was made from Glacial silt.  Here are a few pictures and a couple of videos of our time at the Juneau Silt Soap Shop. 🙂

And here I am trying out some of that wonderful soap!! I highly recommend you go and visit this little shop and try some of the soap out for yourself. They do have a website as well, here is a link – Silt Soap Shop.

Here are a few pictures of the Mt. Roberts tramway, we’ve yet to do it…although I would love to do so, but, it was super cloudy on this day not to mention that my foot was screaming at me by this point and we needed to get back to the ship:

And then we had some friends (Bald Eagles) gazing down on us from the trees, never forget to scan those trees for those “golf balls”. 😉

Here is a little video showing those beauties along with a few other things.

Of course, I stopped into a couple of shops on the way back and purchased a few things, and, of course, I had purchased some of that spiffy, wonderfully smelling silt soap too! 🙂 

We spent a little time out on our balcony that afternoon…there is always something to see..I love watching the ships come and go.  The rest of the day went off without a hitch, we just grabbed some dinner from the Horizon Court Buffet, hung out on our balcony, and just r-e-l-a-x-e-d! This lady laid her satisfied head on her pillow without a care in the word or negative thought in her head…it had been a wonderful day!

 

Ketchikan

I could not believe when I woke up on this morning that this would be our last Port of Call on our trip…the time had flown by, I’d made tons and tons of memories, and I had a little twang in my belly that our trip would soon be coming to an end. BUT, I didn’t allow that sad feeling to overtake me, instead, I zipped on up out of bed—*well* that may be a little fib…I hardly ever “zip” out of bed, truth be told, I am not too much of a morning person…haha.  I need to warm up to the day for a bit of time with my first cup of tea. 🙂 We were situated facing the water on this day, which was fine and dandy with me, I love watching the boats and floatplanes come and go, I could spend hours just doing that. 🙂 ANYway, this is the outfit that I chose to wear on this day, I knew that we’d be heading off of the ship to go and take a little walk back to Creek Street and over to the Outlet Store to meet a dear lady named Aimee that was so kind in our Alaska FB Group in that she actually took peoples addresses and sent out a fantastic coupon book before folks’ cruises…what a wonderful gesture…I knew I had to head over and give that lady a hug in person! ❤

And here I am out on the balcony with Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam and Princess’ Ruby Princess line up behind us. 🙂

We headed to Sabatini’s again on this morning, that breakfast was the one Suite perk that we enjoyed the most. 🙂  Here is the Princess Patter for this day:

We were ready to disembark the ship once we let our breakfasts settle a bit…it was quite crowded in Ketchikan on this day, but, pfft, it didn’t bother us too much.  We stepped on the dock and made a beeline over to The Outlet Store where Aimee works as a manager. 🙂

And here are Aimee and I meeting in person for the first time…hopefully it won’t be the last!!! She is a lovely, sweet, awesome lady! ❤

I am standing right outside of Aimee’s store here, you can see how close we were…I believe we were in Berth #2 on this day:

Now, I will hush up and allow the pictures to do the talking, they are pretty self explanatory, Ketchikan is a colorful, fantastic town and very easy to get around in…we really enjoyed sauntering back to Creek Street and doing a little bit of exploring.  Here we go with some pictures:

It was time for us to climb back aboard the Coral Princess. We’d had a lovely time exploring!! In all of the years that we’d been doing Alaska cruises, we’d never taken the time to just walk around this quirky little town, I loved it!! Once back on board, I noticed that I had great cell service, so I did a Facebook Live video…Here is that video–It includes a great look at the Promenade Deck–which btw you can walk on ALL the way around on on the ship–a little tour of the Atrium, and then an elevator ride up to the Dolphin deck and into our Suite and out onto our balcony. 🙂

 

As I mentioned in the video, I set up shop with my computer and camera on our balcony and that is where I spent the rest of that day…the sun was shining down on me and warming me to my very soul.  Trust me y’all, I do not take for granted one second of our time in Alaska, and it doesn’t matter if I’m out on some grand adventure or if I’m simply sitting and watching the people, ships, and planes…I love Alaska! Here are some shots that I caught that afternoon.

I did purchase a few things while traversing around Ketchikan btw, here are some pencils that I purchased for our daughter’s Kindergarten students…

And here are some earrings, one pair for me, and one pair for each of our daughters that ended up in their Christmas stockings. 🙂 

And I used a coupon out of Aimee’s coupon book to purchase these 3 spiffy magnets…that will of course be used to hold things on our future Stateroom walls. 😉 🙂 

I also took a nice little stroll around the ship, this sign hangs in all of the elevators. 🙂

Someone sent this picture to me of us leaving Port…There we go, off for a day at sea…Check out that gorgeous sunset!!!

I have to admit that I had little bit of sadness as we were pulling out of Ketchikan, the thought that our cruise was truly almost over made me very sad. My only saving grace was that I knew that we had another Alaska cruise in the queue for the next Season!! Now *that* made me very happy and satisfied!!

Next up, our day at sea, a little picture tour of the Coral Princess, & disembarkation day. 🙂

A little scripture:

**If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Until next time, y’all take good care!

~Arlynn

And here is a link to Episode #14!