our alaskan adventure!

it was a fantastic vacation, and i'm a little sad to be home. our 7-day alaskan cruise with gabe and my parents was perfect (save for the short bout of seasickness the 3 of us suffered in the open ocean on friday morning). i actually had 3 worries in anticipation of the trip:

#1 was sleeping in the cabin with gabe next to us, but after settling in the first night, gabe figured it out and he was a dream. chris and i even managed to sneak out for the dessert buffet on wednesday night while my parents sat in our dark room :-) we've now been home for 2 nights and gabe's refused to go to bed!

#2 was gabe's napping...i've never had much luck with gabe's naps in his peg stroller (30 minutes max), and now we've switched to a maclaren (with no nap practice pre-trip), so we were venturing into unchartered territory. fortunately we managed to nap him in my parents room a few times and we had success in the stroller as well.

#3 was potty-training...i didn't want him to poop in his diaper for 7 days, but i wasn't sure how he would do on the travel potty. again, turns out i worried for nothing...he did his business faster on the travel potty than at home! i guess he knew there were better things to do like check out the glaciers and eat yummy food :-)

our ship, ms zuiderdam (holland america)
inside stateroom
our inside stateroom on deck 6 was more spacious than i expected, but still only about the size of our condo bedroom/bathroom combined. my parents had a deluxe suite with a verandah, so we hung out in their room a lot, checking out the views and playing with gabe. our cabin stewards, lou & joe, were fantastic. it's sad to hear about their life...lou has a 5 month old son (named gabriel!) who he's never met because he's been working on the ship so he's only seen him via webcam. at least he only has 3 more weeks on the alaska-run and then he's going home for a while.

the food
delicious! we boarded our ship on saturday as early as possible so we could enjoy lunch before we departed. right then i knew it would be a great week for food! one meal down and i had already overeaten :P throughout the week we mostly had sit-down meals in the dining room consisting of 3, 4 or 5 course meals (that would be breakfast, lunch AND dinner). of course no cruise would be complete without a trip or two to the buffet! yup, i gained at least 5 pounds this week.

chris, sandra, mike and i treated ourselves to a baby-free meal in the pinnacle grill for fine dining. i have to say that was the best evening we had: our window seat afforded us a view of our departure from ketchikan (after waiting for a tardy passenger to be let on board), we saw whales (we think they might have been orcas), and we saw our american pilot get picked up from our ship and taken back to shore, and i even got a little drunk from my authentic baked alaska...complete with fire!

the activities

in between all the meals and snacks, we managed to check out some of the onboard activities: the indonesian tea ceremony (basically it was high tea with indonesian tea selections...all the food was pretty standard...finger sandwiches and sweets), the vegetable and fruit art display, behind the scenes kitchen tour, free slot tournaments (chris and i won t-shirts!), evening shows, whale-watching, etc.

tracy arm fjord & juneau
our first icebergs were seen in tracy arm! they weren't quite the titanic-size that i had imagined...more like small to medium-sized boulders (of course, only 10% of the iceberg is actually visible). since chris, sandra and i booked an excursion we didn't actually get to visit juneau at all. instead we took a helicopter ride (a first for the 3 of us) to mendenhall glacier. i was really nervous about being in a 6-passenger helicopter but it was actually quite fun...i just wish the ride was a bit longer! the glacier was gorgeous and we got to drink water straight from the source. refreshing!

skagway
this time we actually got to do some sightseeing and shopping in town. our shore excursion (for the entire family) in skagway was a train ride on the White Pass & Yukon Route (the Klondike Gold Rush).

glacier bay
this was where we saw all the glaciers: margerie, grand pacific, johns hopkins, and lamplugh. the best part of all the glaciers was seeing the calving (when the ice falls from the glacier into the ocean, creating icebergs). the sound as the glacier is cracking is unbelievable...dead silence in the inlet then a loud thunder-like roar before chunks of ice break off crashing down. it felt a bit like watching paint dry...standing around waiting for something exciting to happen, but when it does...WOW! at least we had seals nearby to occupy our attention :-)

ketchikan

more shopping! actually, i didn't spend a single dime on anything. it was great travelling w/my parents cuz for once i didn't have to buy souvenirs :-) i can't explain it, but chris and i were so tired that we didn't venture out very long...instead we opted to nap with gabe for 2 hours. in hindsight it was a waste, since we missed out on half of the town.

all about gabe!

gabe was definitely a star attraction on the cruise! he won everyone over with his infectious smiles and 2-handed waves. it's funny, all the staff and crew onboard are very pleasant and friendly, but as soon as they saw gabe, it's like a light switched and they became all mushy and uber-friendly. just like lou, they all miss their families back home and they probably don't get young babies on board very often. and really, who doesn't love a baby when they smile and clap at anything?!

overall, it was a great vacation! we spent time together as a family yet chris and i were able to get away for a few hours here-and-there. it does benefit everyone when you travel with the grandparents :-)