Alaskan Cruise: Hubbard Glacier [Part 6]

Our final day on the Radiance of the Seas included a stop at the Hubbard Glacier.

We woke up that morning and had breakfast with several family members, then we waited for our approach to the glacier. On our last Alaskan Cruise (where we visited Glacier Bay), I remember being very close to the glacier on the cruise ship itself, so we didn't feel the need to book an extra excursion that would take us closer to this glacier (because I assumed we would be just as close this time around).

As we approached the Hubbard Glacier - I am going to be completely honest here - I was very disappointed, especially considering how close we were able to get to the glacier last time. Don't get me wrong - it was gorgeous and all, but we were quite far from it and unable to see/hear the ice cracking like we did over in Glacier Bay. Despite that, it still made for a fun morning with our family all together in one stateroom and we still had some amazing views!

A naturalist was on board and oddly enough, he was the Canadian Mountie we listened to on our first day! From our stateroom, we were able to hear him on one of the channels on the TV, so we hung out on the balcony with the volume up on our TV and enjoyed the view!

My brother in law said it best when describing our cruise - he said it felt like we were floating in a post card! That's 100% accurate.

One benefit to this glacier day vs our previous cruise was the weather. The sun was shining and it really was a perfect day weather-wise!

At lunch, a cake was out on display for dessert (and it was yummy, too). I still never figured out how they made those mountains!

An Elvis impersonator was also present at lunch for entertainment! :)

While scanning over the daily schedule, we saw Disney trivia listed at 1 p.m. I already knew I wanted to play, but I wasn't sure I could rope anyone else into playing with me. To my surprise, I asked the question out loud and almost our entire group was in! Yay!

We arrived at the Schooner Lounge to play and the room was PACKED. We were instructed to break into teams of 6 and the guy running the trivia even had to have more copies run because there were so many groups!

I wasn't sure what to expect, but this was by far the easiest trivia I've ever done. They handed us a sheet of paper (face down of course) and told us when to begin. Our trivia basically consisted of partial views of different characters faces (about 20 of them) and we had to write who they were. My team was done in seriously 0.2 seconds and were among the first to turn in our form. Three teams finished all right at the same time and after a little deliberation, he decided that our team was the winner because we were the only team out of the three to have all of the characters names spelled correctly!

Winner winner chicken dinner! We were so excited! What did we win? Royal Caribbean key chains! Yay!

We expected to be in trivia about 45 minutes and when I asked Jason the time, he said it was only 1:08 p.m. Trivia seriously lasted about 5 minutes! Hah!

Our dinner that evening was delicious as always and we had a great time with our wait staff on our final evening of the cruise.

The final show and goodbye was great as well!

Even though the cruise itself was over, we still had two days of fun remaining - stay tuned for more from Alaska!  

---------------------------------------------------------

For recaps from our 7 night Alaskan cruise on board the Radiance of the Seas, check out these links below:
Alaskan Cruise: Travel Day & Boarding the Ship [Part 1] & VLOG
Alaskan Cruise: At Sea Day & Ketchikan [Part 2] & VLOG
Alaskan Cruise: Icy Straight Point [Part 3] & VLOG (Icy Straight Point & Juneau)
Alaskan Cruise: Juneau & Whale Watching [Part 4]
Alaskan Cruise: Skagway & A Musher's Camp [Part 5] & VLOG
Alaskan Cruise: Hubbard Glacier [Part 6] & VLOG
Alaskan Cruise: Seward and Anchorage [Part 7] & VLOG

Vacation Recap – Day #3 Juneau, Alaska!

Incase you’ve missed it, here’s the previous recaps:

Day before the cruise – Seattle, WA
Day #1 onboard the Norwegian Pearl
Day #2 “At Sea” day
Day #3 – Juneau, Alaska
Day #4 – Skagyway, Alaska
Day #5 – Glacier Bay
Day #6 – Ketchikan, Alaska
Day #7 – Victoria, BCDay #8 - Back in Seattle

As usual, my day began with a run out on the JOGGERS deck…yeah, more on that later…. :0)

After cleaning up, we all went to the buffet for breakfast. I realized that I haven’t posted many food pictures, so here’s you go!

 

Egg white omelet!  Yummy!

As mentioned before, there wasn’t much entertainment onboard the ship for us…..  Once again, where’s that movie theater?  Oh yeah…wrong ship….

So, much to my husband and father’s delight, we attended the diamond seminar!



Can’t you see how thrilled they are?  We mainly attended just to have our names entered for the door prize, and guess what?



My mom won!!!!



How random, right?

After the show, we walked up the stairs to the “always open” sit down restaurant.  Seriously, this place is open ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT LONG!  Who wants a hamburger at 4 a.m.?!  Not me, thank you!



I had spinach dip and a hamburger.



This was probably the grossest hamburger ever. Needless to say, I didn’t eat much!

 

I did enjoy the blueberry cheesecake, though!

We chose this restaurant for lunch because of it’s wall of windows!



Our view!!! Beautiful, isn’t it? :0)

My parents are dorks.

 

We were excited to land in Juneau and couldn’t wait to get off the ship!

We finally docked and were free to leave the boat!  Our time in port was from 2:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.



We got off the boat way early and ended up waiting on our tour bus for a while. We were going to see the Mendenhall Glacier!



We passed the time by taking a few pictures!



I made a huge mistake with the way I dressed for the weather.  It had been raining ALL day and the ground was very wet.  My jeans have a tendency to get soaked pretty high up my calf which makes me cold.  It was already cold outside and when I get cold and wet, I get grouchy!!!



We made it!



I could not get enough of the gorgeous scenery!



We saw salmon in the lake!

  

Bears!  WHERE?



OH!  There!  Well hello Mr. Black Bear!

A large crowd was gathered around this little guy and he was soaking up all the attention!
I snapped a few pictures, then we walked over to the visitors center to watch the little 5 minute video about the glacier.



The glacier was incredible and the color was amazing. Like nothing I’d ever seen before!



This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip!




The visitors center.

  

It was gorgeous but VERY cold (obviously)!  I will admit, I was cold and wet and miserable and even though I enjoyed the scenery, I was quite grouchy.



The bus drove us back to the city and we walked around the shops and bought a few souvenirs. I had the bright idea that we could walk to the Capitol (not a long walk) for pictures. Well, we got to the end of the tourist road and suddenly, we were in the ghetto. Oh my gosh I was SO SCARED! We decided to nix my bright idea and head back to the safe land!



This shirt cracked me up!



Flowers were everywhere!  It was beautiful!

 

 

There is NO WAY that I could ever go on one of these trams. I don’t like heights and the thought of being on a cable that could snap and send me plunging to my death scares the daylights out of me!  Hah!



The Red Dog Saloon!



As an Oncology Nurse, I was super excited to see the stand that Alaska was taking on cigarette butts and 2nd hand smoke!!!  So excited for them!!!!



This shirt cracked me up!

Our time in port was over before we knew it so we headed back to the boat and what did we do?  We went straight to the buffet, of course!



Yummy dinner (at 10 p.m…..which I never do…)!  We ate dinner and went straight to bed! Early morning coming up in Skagway!

Up next: White Pass Railway and my first time in Canada!!!  Exciting yet scary moment for me – A suspension bridge high above a raging river!  Did I cross it? Stay tuned to find out!! :0)