Sunday, August 18, 2013

A last minute trip to.....Alaska!


I had heard that sometimes you can get some really good deals on cruises by booking them at the last minute.  Since we were very near Seattle where a lot of Alaskan cruises depart, I decided to check it out.  After doing a little research, I found out that we could go on an Alaskan cruise for about 60% off of what it would cost normally.

Also, since we were planning on staying out west for awhile, we thought that now would be a good time to fly back home to visit family for a few days.  After finding a place north of Seattle where we could store the motorhome in a covered area while we were gone, we decided to take the cruise to Alaska and then fly back home the same day we got back from the cruise.

Booking the cruise, the plane tickets, and reserving the RV storage took less than 2 hours.  Finding a campground in the Seattle area for the next few days until Sunday took all afternoon.  I finally found a KOA near Seattle and made reservations for us there.

We left Mt. Hood on Thursday and drove to the KOA near Seattle.  What should have taken about 4 hours took 6 hours to drive because of traffic both in Portland and in Seattle.  When we arrived at the KOA, I went inside the office to get our campsite while Chuck disconnected the car.  When I came back out and started the car, the battery was dead.  By now, there were 2 or 3 other motorhomes behind us waiting to check in.  Fortunately, they were patient with us while Chuck turned the generator on and got the car started after charging it with a battery charger for a few minutes.

This KOA is extremely tight making it very difficult for large motorhomes or fifth wheels to get into their sites.  I led Chuck in the motorhome into what I thought was our site and we got all set up.  However, the next day, we realized that I had put us on the wrong site when someone else needed to get into our site.  That was a first for me.  I guess I was so concerned about how tight the sites were that I just looked at the number incorrectly.

We backed out of the incorrect site and moved one site over to the correct site.  Since we were only going to be here for one more night, we just left the slides in.  Not only were the sites close together side by side, they were not long enough to be able to park your tow vehicle (or truck in the case of a trailer or fifth wheel) on the site without sticking out in the road some.



On Friday, we got a new battery for the Honda and decided to drive to the cruise terminal and the airport to see where everything was.  One thing we learned about Seattle in our driving around is that Seattle's streets make no sense whatsoever.  It's almost like there was no planning for where the streets would be constructed.  And their street signs made even less sense.   Look at the sign in the picture below. 


Does this mean racing is permitted between 5 am and 10 pm????

After getting the new battery for the car, we drove downtown to the cruise terminal.  Seattle was nearly covered up in fog today.


Once we were in downtown Seattle, we were surprised to see that the city is built on a very steep hill.  The streets seemed to be even steeper than San Francisco.


We parked the car at the cruise terminal and walked around along the pier for a little while.

 

We found out from a dock worker at the cruise terminal that this weekend (when we would be leaving on the cruise), was Seattle's annual Hempfest (marijuana festival).    While we were at the dock, we saw this older motorhome going up those steep Seattle streets that reminded us of Cousin Eddie's RV from Christmas Vacation.  Some of the people inside the motorhome looked like they were already celebrating Hempfest.


Maybe they were looking for where the Hempfest festivities were going to take place.  :)


After doing a little more research, we decided to park the car at a parking lot near the airport and hire a transfer service to take us to the cruise terminal and then back to the airport for our flight to Nashville after the cruise.  Not only would we save a little money but a lot of stress letting someone else negotiate Seattle's crazy roads, Hempfest and traffic for us.

On Saturday, we drove the motorhome to an RV park north of Seattle near the covered storage I had found and stayed there Saturday night before moving it to storage on Sunday.

Sunday morning, we parked the motorhome in storage, drove to the airport in Seattle, and the transfer service picked us up and took us to the cruise terminal where we said "Bon Voyage" to Seattle...


...and headed for Alaska.




The first day we had a very nice dinner of steak and lobster and enjoyed a beautiful sunset as we sailed north to our first stop:  Juneau, Alaska.
On Monday, we were at sea the entire day.  Because we were sailing the "inside passage" to Alaska, we occasionally passed by some islands.


During the day, we explored the ship and tried to learn where everything was located; but we also enjoyed just watching the ocean out our balcony hoping to maybe see a whale or dolphin.

 
That evening, we saw this beautiful sunset from our cabin...






...and later enjoyed a very entertaining show highlighting the hit songs of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  When we got back to our room, this towel penguin reminded us of the time change before reaching Juneau.  :)


We got a good night's rest as the ship rocked us to sleep cruising on towards ALASKA!!!

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