Viking Invades Alaska!

[Pushka]

 

[Pushka]

 

[SuePa]

Were you driving or riding? What fun!

 

[Pushka]

Were you driving or riding? What fun!

Both. We each rotated. Sat in front, middle and on the slides. This was taken from the front seat. On the slides you have to hang on tight and move left or right. The dogs love it!

 

[SuePa]

Both. We each rotated. Sat in front, middle and on the slides. This was taken from the front seat. On the slides you have to hang on tight and move left or right. The dogs love it!

I did the same in Canada. I loved it too.

 

[Denali]

Love the photos and video!

 

[ellen10]

One of the highlights of my trip to Alaska. And I agree those dogs love to run!

 

[Pushka]

One of the highlights of my trip to Alaska. And I agree those dogs love to run!

Champing at the bit as they say.

 

[love_the_life]

And is MrP having a wonderful time? I seem to remember him being a bit meh about Alaska.

 

[bPeteb]

I did take a seat. In my Viking red jacket.
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Off to do some shopping for a baby. Figured US might have a better range. Still nothing grabbed me. I did end up buying the cutest little dog toy in a presentation box with My first dog and birth date name and weight as a birth gift and that when I came back to Hotel is a jellycat style that I love but haven’t seen this in Australia.

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Then went through all the big player stores and loved this atrium that had curved escalators.

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I remember the curved Nordstrom escalators from my first trip to SFO waaaaaaaay back in 92

 

[bPeteb]

Just caught up. Great photos Pushka. That car a few pages back - a Lamborghini Aventador (I think). Got some hints for SFO in four and a bit weeks.

 

[drross]

With just on a week to go I feel brave enough to say we are off to Alaska. Not to rehash but we, well, I, planned an intricate itinerary 3 years ago for Alaska to celebrate my Zero birthday but which had to be canned a couple of months out due to a health issue. I had already complied my travel folder which actually was useful in the sense I could go through each hotel, flight, cruise, excursion etc in order as I cancelled each one of them. Insurance on the credit card paid any non cancellable items. Enuf.

This trip fulfils the lengthiest bucket list trip I can remember. I have always wanted to go to Alaska. Now, *one* of us hates the cold so I had to mollify the *one* which I’ve done by adding in a trip staying on the rim of the Grand Canyon, then a week on Waikiki for the *one* to thaw. We did go to the Grand Canyon in 1995 with the kids in December. At a petrol station on the way I saw some white stuff falling onto our shoulders. God, we’ve all come down with dandruff! Nup. It was starting to snow. By the time we reached the Canyon proper it was a white out. The boys and I loved it. The *one* - not so much and somehow sitting in an IMAX theatre as a consolation had quite a contrary effect on the temper.

So, the plan.

Depart Adelaide through to Sydney next Monday then only a short stay in F lounge then on to San Francisco. Booked on an Award flight in J. Travelling in the Jumbo and not being a fan of the top section as we find it claustrophobic, we nabbed seats in row 5. We don’t need to sit together and these are the prize seats for solo travellers, like us!

Staying in SFO for four nights then winging on AA into Flagstaff via Phoenix from Oakland airport. And here I shall stop as the IPad battery is about to go flat. I really need to plan better than this.

Did our first ever cruise last year. Viking Athens to Mumbai. Wonderful boat and crew

 

[Pushka]

And is MrP having a wonderful time? I seem to remember him being a bit meh about Alaska.

Loving it!

 

[love_the_life]

Loving it!

I thought he would especially as there is a fair bit of physical activity involved (on top of the spectacular scenery).

 

[Pushka]

I thought he would especially as there is a fair bit of physical activity involved (on top of the spectacular scenery).

We’ve been doing a lot of walking. Tomorrow is Hubbard Glacier. Today we did another whale tour but less successful. Apparently Hubbard Glacier was stunning a couple of days ago according to the crew. Starts at 8am. I need to get some sleep tonight.,..

 

[Pushka]

Sunset ish tonight. Sets so late. This is 9pm.

 

[Pushka]

MrP has just informed me we need to go to Iceland in winter.

 

[Deno]

Heading to Alaska in August. Thanks for the great info Pushka

 

[Pushka]

Heading to Alaska in August. Thanks for the great info Pushka

It’s beyond beautiful.

 

[Pushka]

Hubbard Glacier. A true Wow moment. Our Cruise Daily said it we would see it around 8 am and knowing their comms reliability, a group of us, of mainly Brits we’d made friends with, last night decided that meant we should get up at 6.30am. So we did. Sure enough around 7.30 came the announcement that we’d entered Hubbard Bay Area earlier and the commentary had already started. Can they get any comms right?

It was amazing. Freezing on deck and the closer you came the colder it got. We didn’t get too far in originally but as they circled around for about an hour we realised we had moved in quite close. We couldn’t really see what we were photographing as we just kept snapping. We could hear ‘thunder’ the whole time which was the sound of the Glacier moving. It towers over the cruise ships. Stunning Blue. We both managed to capture a couple of calvings.

We seem to have had a pilot who has just departed.