It is now 7:00a and I am sitting in the bathroom writing and eating fruit so as not to wake the sleeping beauties:) I got up at 5:30a and forced myself to go run my 6 laps on deck 4 and I'm so glad I did! I finally got to see a humpback whale! It was quite big and kept surfacing (just the middle of it ) and blowing water and air out its blowhole. It stayed with the ship for a while and then wandered off. Beautiful! I was actually able to see the sun come up this morning as it wasn't raining. Hopefully the weather holds up today but apparently Ketchikan is situated in the second largest rainforest in the world!
We don't dock until 1:00p today and are only there for six hours so unfortunately everyone will probably want to get on and off the ship at the same time. The people at our table have not got off the ship yet. I think Shaleena is about the same age as me and is a dentist at Metrotown. Her husband looks about 10 years older than her and is hard to understand. He said he's originally from India but grew up in Kenya. I'm not sure what he does but he's not working right now. They have a 6 year old daughter (Narissa) and an almost 2 year old daughter (Kalia) They live in Port Coquitlam and are ready to go home because they are cold and tired.
Carter and Evan went up to the buffet first while I wait for the "Princess" (to become less snarly). We left about 15 minutes later and she chose scrambled eggs and hash browns (just like the ones at McDonalds) and she ate it all. We met up with Evan and Carter and headed to the Promenade Lounge for the paper airplane contest (we didn't do so well). Then we took the kids to "The Lab" for the Jr Rangers Talk. The kids made Petraglyphs out of clay and quite enjoyed it. Afterwards we ventured to the Oceaneers Club where they played on the pirate ship and big slide and Carter made a bear mask. We then went up to the 9th deck and filled our water jugs. Callie decided she wanted to go for a swim so we went back to the room and picked up Evan (we had parted ways at the lab) and he took the kids in the Mickey pool while I took pictures. It was very chilly out there! Carter went under and got very scared so Evan bundled him up and took him back to the stateroom.
I grabbed lunch from Pluto's Dog House (right beside the pool) for the kids then grabbed Callie and we headed back to the room. There was only about a dozen kids in the pool. No one stayed on deck for very long. When I'm out in the morning I run into the same 1/2 dozen people everyday. I guess we're the only ones brave enough to be out there! We got off the ship at 1:45p in Ketchikan. The main street was the usual gaudy t-shirt stores and jewelry stores but we found our way to the South Alaskan Discovery Centre to continue the work the kids were doing with the Ranger program. They didn't have any activities running today so I asked about a nice walk/hike that we could do.
The Ranger sent us on a beautiful little tour called Married Men's Trail. It started at a very quaint little fishing village area called Creek Street. The shops were all on stilts with a boardwalk connecting everything. The stores sold merchandise that was almost solely made in Alaska. I got some jam, coffee and canned smoked salmon for Mom and Dad. Callie picked out some salmon treats for the dogs. The "village" was at the mouth of the river that runs through town. The salmon were crazily running. We saw two cute seals having lunch in the river. As we walked up the boardwalk the river was rushing really fast.
We walked past a salmon ladder on the way to the fish hatchery. Very few people were on the walk we went on so it was quite peaceful. It didn't start raining until we were almost at the ship so we got really lucky. The town was really old with lots of stairs and steep driveways leading up to the houses. Everything is made out of wood and a lot of buildings were rotting but it was a very lush and pretty place. Evan walked us to the ship and then I brought the kids back on board while he went into look around some more. There were stairs leading up to the top of the hill in the centre of town and a neat trolley elevator that was $2.00 to ride up that he was thinking of exploring.
Now to get ready for "Pirate Night!" Carter hasn't pooped in 48 hours so we are also awaiting a storm. Evan returned soaking wet but he found a geocache. Then we got ready for our last dinner in Animator's Palette. Carter was super cranky. He ended up falling asleep in my arms at the table right after my soup arrived. He slept for about 45 minutes then woke up as we tried to transfer him back to the room. He cried for a while then said that he was sick. Callie really wanted to see Gnomeo and Juliet in 3-D so I took her to the Buena Vista Theatre and left the boys in the room. Just after we got back from the movie it was time for the pirate deck party.
The weather wasn't good enough to have it outside so they had to hold it in the atrium. Callie and I checked it out for about 10 minutes but she thought it was too loud and there were no characters so we left. When we got back, Evan ventured out to see what the Pirate buffet was all about (the only late night buffet the whole week). He came back with an assortment of desserts, including crepes. I'm so sick of food, I couldn't even look at the tray. Tonight we need to set our clocks ahead an hour so it's technically midnight right now and everyone is still awake. It's really windy and the ship is rocking, so I thought as a responsible parent I should give everyone Gravol! Here's hoping we have a good night's sleep and a good final day tomorrow.
The dinner in Animator's Palette was very neat tonight. The night started out with everything in black and white; the pictures on the walls, the video screens and the server's vests. The walls and screens gradually started to turn coloured and at dessert time all the wait staff disappeared and paraded back in lead by Mickey in his Sorcerer's Apprentice cloak and hat and everyone's vests were now colourful cartoon drawings. Very cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment