Day 7:
We arrived in Juneau at 8:00am. We had some time before our 9:30 departure for our whale watching excursion so we stoped by a few shops. The Juneau T-Shirt store was blowing everything out at 50% off and they had pretty much every cheap sovenier you would want. I bought a few t-shirts for the folks back home and we headed to the Orca Enterprises office. The office was located right across the street from where the Infinity docked so it was easy to find. After checking in we were loaded into a bus. The driver was very friendly and talked us through our surroundings and gave us a glimpse of what it was like to live in Juneau since he was born and raised in there. We passed the Mendenhall glacier on our way and then our driver stopped in the middle of the road (Across from the Safeway). We could all tell he was really nervous when he told us the bus broke down and he called the main office to get someone to pick us up. It was more funny than anything else becauase our driver was so embarassed. At least the bus didn’t stall because someone forgot to get gas. We waited for 10-15 minutes for another bus to come and then we made our way to the boat. The boat was purple and had an observation area on the top for up to 6 people. Unfortunately, the boat was full so there wasn’t much room to move around. The view from the inside of the boat was nice (windows all around) but the windows got in the way if you were trying to take pictures. I tried to stay in the back of the boat so my view would be unobstructed. We probably spent half an hour driving around looking for whales. We were told they saw Orcas the previous day so it was unlikely that we would see them again. I was quite disappointed when I heard that . I began to get a little worried when Captain Larry would stop to show us seals sun bathing on the buoys, but eventually we saw some humpbacks. The humbacks were not as active as they were when we saw them in Hawaii. We only were able to see their backs come out of the water and the tails when they dived. In Hawaii, we saw them jump out of the water which was incredible. One of the whales swam within 15 feet of our boat. I have never been that close to an animal that size. I was able to get a picture of it but I missed getting its tail. We also saw a few bald eagles and even saw an eagle swoop down and grap a fish out of the water. It was exciting to see it happen right before your eyes rather than on a national geographic special. The lanscapes were fantastic and I took seveal photographs of the scenery when I was up on the observation area. They served us some snacks. They had grapes, cheese, crackers, capri suns and it wouldn’t be Alaska if they didn’t serve smoked salmon. This was a nice excursion but I think I enjoyed kayaking more. The bus ride back to the main office was thankfully uneventful and we spent the rest of our time walking around town. We stopped by the Red Dog Saloon, but didn’t venture in as my wife’s sister was underage. None of the towns in Alaska are very big so we finished our shopping in about two hours. Also, be prepared to see a lot of the same stores from port to port. There are many jewlery stores at all the ports and you’ll see a lot of Northern Lights Topaz and Tanzanite so do your research before going if you are planning on buying jewlery. One interesting tidbit I learned from our bus driver was that the cruise ship companies own many of the stores in the ports. Many of the stores are only open during the cruise season and we talked to many store workers who were only there for the summer. Now I know why Celebrity was “recommending” certain stores and providing selective maps of each port. I wanted to visit Mendenhall but my wife was getting tired so we headed back to our boat early to relax and get ready for dinner. Our ship didn’t leave until 10:00pm so we could have stayed in Juneau much longer if we had wanted to. I liked that our port times gave us that flexibility. I couldn’t believe that my vacation was almost over.