What’s that you say? Our back to back Voyage of the Glaciers cruise adventure was coming to an end?! To say that I was sad about that little tid-bit of information was an understatement. I always tell folks that are wishing time would pass faster so that the time for their upcoming cruise would arrive, that time will continue to pass even when they are on their cruise. Such was the the realization of this day when I opened my eyes and packing instead of basking in the glory of Alaska was ahead of me.  Sigh, I was sad, BUT, I will not be a “Debbie Downer” in this my last post in this Series of blogs. 🙂 Instead, let me show you my outfit for the day and then the Princess Patter of which was full of wonderful things to do as we sailed ever so gently toward our disembarkation cruiseport at Canada Place in Vancouver.

Here is some of our disembarkation paperwork that we had to make ready and peruse through for our disembarkation:

Okay so yeah, there was all of that…haha…Never makes me happy to see that stuff show up in our little mailbox. BUT, next up, I am going to share a few of the Main Dining Rooms menus with y’all. When in a Suite, and as you know, we were lucky enough to be staying in a suite on this our second leg of our back to back cruise, you can request a menu from the MDR (main dining room), and if so desired, you can order from said menu and have it delivered to your Stateroom. Unfortunately, we never did end up ordering and having it delivered, but, I did keep the menus so that I could share them.  Here we go, I honestly do not remember for which night each menu corresponded, but, you’ll get a good idea of the kinds of delicious food they offer. NOTE: These menus are in no particular order…my computer gave me fits loading them into my post here, so please forgive my discombobulation in posting. 🙂

Next up here I’m going to add a smattering of pictures that we clicked off of the beautiful Coral Princess. She still is our very favorite Princess ship. 🙂

Sigh, the beautiful Coral Princess, I miss her so very much!!!

There was one more Wildlife viewing opportunity on this day…Here are a few pictures that we captured…I NEVER can get enough of this type of thing. 🙂

We spent our last dinner on board in the Buffet at a window seat, the Horizon Buffet is on the front of the ship on the Coral and the Island Princess’ and it is so pretty to sit at the very front and watch where you are heading next.  You can see the front of the ship in this picture, straight ahead with the slightly slanted windows…that’s where I was heading. 🙂

This was delicious!

Here are some pictures of their self-service drink station:

After dinner, we came back to our Stateroom and packed up our belongings in preparation for our trip home the next day…nope, I didn’t take one picture of that action..haha…BUT, after we were finished, we headed out onto our balcony to take in the last moments of our cruise before the sun went down on this our last night:

We had both moved out onto the balcony and were sitting in those two lounge chairs…We were quietly chatting about our trip and were hopeful that we would once again be able to come back to our “happy place”.  It was calm, quiet, serene, and to this day, I remember the feeling that I had while we were sitting there. Then, I heard a strange sound…a pretty loud, strange sound…it was then that I realized exactly what it was!!! It was the very distinctive sound of a humpback whale BLOW!!!!  I smacked Chris on the arm and said, did you hear *that*?!! He had not heard it…but, trusted my ear and jumped up out of his lounger and grabbed a camera from right inside the balcony door (where we kept them just in case we came across a moment just like this). He caught this big, beautiful, majestic humpback as it was oh so gently gliding down the side of the Coral, RIGHT below our balcony…I was blown away!!!!!! Completely blown away, I remember feeling the butterflies in my belly and I remember taking a quick gasp of air in as I saw this beautiful creature ***right*** there…MUCH closer than they were while we were on our whale watching excursion—One just NEVER knows what may happen at any moment in time on an Alaska cruise y’all…honestly.  Here are a couple of pictures that Chris managed to click off right at that moment in time:

What an end to our very last day aboard the Coral Princess…a-m-a-z-I-n-g!!

Disembarkation Day

 

Oh my gracious, when my peepers opened on this morning, a wave of sadness came over me, for just a moment, just a tinge of emotion to remind me that we’d be traveling back to our beautiful home in Virginia today. Yes, I was sad to see my “bucket list” vacation come to an end, but, I was ready to head back to my kids and pups…I missed everyone terribly.  Chris caught these beautiful pictures, taken at dawn, as we were approaching Vancouver, then gliding under The Lion’s Gate Bridge, and then snugging up beside Canada Place.

And a little video of us moving ever closer to Canada Place:

 

And that was it…do y’all believe that I do not have one more picture from this trip…haha…I will usually try and capture some shots as we move through Vancouver on the way to the airport…not this time…I will admit that I was quite sad. Out of all of the trips that we’ve ever done to Alaska, this was one of the very best.  I saw all of my remembered sights and added more sights to my categorized Alaska photos repertoire.  I heard all of my remembered sounds and added more sounds to my categorized Alaska memories. I felt all of the ‘feels’, ‘feels’ of which are the things that make me yearn to go back again and again and again. I cannot get enough of Alaska, there is something magical, mystical, and marvelous about that place. ❤

I will close this blog series out by saying that if you have never been to Alaska, try to go via a cruise ship just once, you will get to see so much of the pristine, untouched, unsurpassed beauty that is abounding EVERYwhere you look when you are on a cruise. Right now, Chris and I have one more Alaska cruise in the queue, and we are thinking about booking my friend Scott Singer’s Group cruise which is an Alaska cruise and is taking place the 2019.  Btw, check out Scott on YouTube here: Scott Singer Cruises .  OH how I hope we can book that one. When I think about my future, I love to have an Alaska cruise to look forward to no matter what the “Cruise Countdown” says, because the time ticking away as I anticipate what I might see and do on that future cruise fills my belly with more of those butterflies and causes my heart to race with excitement. To me, there is NO place on the planet like Alaska and I will continue to return as long as I am able!

 

***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, good care!! ❤

~Arlynn ❤