GLACIERS

"The Glaciers"
The Main reason we chose this itinerary was that it had 2 days of glacier cruising, as well as time to do a local glacier cruise on embarkation day from Whittier through Prince William Sound - College Fjord. We have only visited glaciers from the decks of cruise ships in the past and looked forward to trying a smaller vessel. We had a terrific time and saw many birds and sea otters as well on this trip. We took the Klondike Express for this trip. In the planning stages I chose a rental car from Hertz since it allowed us to pick up at the airport, and drop off across from the Captain Cook hotel which was where we were to meet the Magic Bus for transportation to Whittier. We booked it with our glacier cruise. The Magic Bus took us to the Klondike Express in Whittier. Once the cruise was over, we only had a few blocks to walk to meet up with the Sun Princess for embarkation. Whittier is accessible only through a one-way tunnel, single lane. It shares the tunnel with the railway and traffic can only go through in one direction, changes every half hour or so. "Cruise the calm, protected waters of Prince William Sound and come face to face with tidewater glaciers plus an amazing array of wildlife on the 26 Glacier Cruise. Our vessel is the fastest, largest and most luxurious high-speed catamaran in Alaska. No seasickness guaranteed or the price of the cruise will be refunded." We had 3 glacier days on this trip. 1. Prince William Sound / College Fjord on the Klondike Express 2. College Fjord - on Sun Princess 3. Glacier Bay - on Sun Princess
Prince William Sound / College Fjord on the Klondike Express

We stopped near Portage Glacier on the way to Whittier and took a few photos from the shore of the ice.

There were some spots quite thick with ice, even though we were on a smaller boat than the cruise ship, we couldn't go in too far at spots.	We saw many glaciers and beautiful reflections in the still waters.
We hadn't checked in yet, but we could see the Sun Princess waiting at Whittier for our embarkation.

I think this will be a favourite picture for a long time of Stephen and me. We saw many Sea Otters but they were best for the video camera so Stephen taped them lazing on the ice.

College Fjord on Sun Princess
After our glacier cruise of Prince William Sound we walked a few blocks to the Sun Princess for embarkation of our week long cruise to Vancouver.	In the morning of our first day of the cruise, we picked up a blanket and set up on a couple of deck chairs on the promenade for a fun day of glacier viewing. This day had more cloud than the day before, it was a great day to spend a day :)

Not a lot of fun in the sun on the pool deck, but some great glacier views :)
There was a cart cruising by the deck periodically with hot chocolate and coffees with some fancy drinks to keep you warm watching the ice. Mine came in a nice take home cup.	Sometimes the wind off the glacier is a bit nippy so I stayed bundled up :)
GLACIER BAY
	Holland America also had a ship in Glacier Bay while we were there. I always like to take photos of other ships, never know when I may get a chance to sail on it :)

We had a lovely day in Glacier Bay - also this was the most active we have ever seen the glaciers here. I even was able to get some cool pictures of ice breaking off and tumbling to splash in the still water. Its hard to think of anything much more fun to do than to hear a sound like thunder and instead of looking for a flash you look for falling ice. We heard a lot of rumbles and saw pieces of ice cascade down the face of the glaciers.