Cruisin' Alaska - Part Five
The first part of today's post is a copy and paste. Before we left for the cruise, I wrote a post about travel anxiety. I believe it was in the comments of that post that Kathy from Second Half of My Life and I discovered that we were going on the same cruise. She and her husband were were going to be boarding the same day we got off. When we had a signal on the ship I sent her an email.
Hi Kathy,
It's 4:47am, not nearly time to get up but my body clock won't switch. Can't send this now but I thought I'd go ahead and draft it to send when we get to Skagway. Here's my tip for Juneau - I'm sure your tour is going to be lovely. I eyeballed that one. But we went the practically free route. We found a place in town that took us on a tour to the Alaskan beer brewery for $20 each and we got to sample seven beers. I drank all but one of mine. So needless to say I also went to bed on east coast time. But it was fun. We like beer. The place in town was called Alaskan brewery too I think. They sold the shirts etc and had a chalkboard sign out front advertising the ride to the brewery. Our friends don't like beer so we separated. They went on a Tram that had nice views and had a restaurant at the top. You'll see that. It goes up a steep mountain. You can ride it as many times as you want on your ticket price. As for your tour, the weather changed drastically from that morning. We had on jackets, hats and scarves and it drizzled. But by the afternoon I had on short sleeves and it was sunny. Our tour guy did say we had a perfect day and that sun hadn't been out for days. But anyway, layer for your excursion and have a backpack to put your stuff in. Anyway I hope you write about your excursion, I really wanted to do that one. Oh one more thing, we missed a crab legs dinner because we weren't back. Our dinner is at 5:30. So if they follow the same schedule, Juneau day is crab legs day! So be back if you love crabs.
I'll put a direct link here if Kathy writes about the Tracy Arm Fjord shore excursion. It's a 3-hour scenic cruise that leaves early in the morning, promising scenery such as wildlife, rainforests, waterfalls, and glaciers that then takes you into Juneau.
Juneau, Alaska
Time in port for Juneau if you didn't get off for the Tracey Arm Fjord tour was from 2:30 pm to 11:15 that night. I highly recommend an excursion for this port because there isn't anything to do for that long and not much to see just walking through town.
So as I wrote to Kathy, we were walking by the gear shop for Alaskan Brewery Company and saw the tour sign. So we went with that, while our friends went on the Tram.
I took a bunch of pictures on our ride to the brewery, but they all pretty much looked like this. I was hoping to catch sight of a bear, we did see an eagle on a light post.
I kept this picture and deleted the rest. If we had stayed in town off of the port, there was no view like this one.
I may be repeating myself, but what I wanted most out of the Alaskan Cruise vacation was breathtaking scenery and I was happy with this one we got from taking the beer tour in Juneau.
Alaskan Brewing Company
It was a nice tour. We basically had three 4-ounce samples while a man gave us the back story about the owners and the brewery. It was interesting enough learning about the different types of beer, but I kind of tuned him out after he said the farthest east that their beer is distributed in is Ohio.
So I just started looking at the menu trying to decide what my next four samples were going to be and make the best of this one time thing.
I made my mental notes and I was ready for the talk to be over with. There was a couple there from New Jersey who made their own beer and they asked a lot of know-it-all questions. So I think they cut into sample drinking time. By the time he wrapped it up, we had about 20 minutes to drink 16 more ounces of beer.
I'm not a raspberry fan but this was my favorite of the choices I made. Pineapple was mouth puckering bitter and I couldn't drink it. That really dark one was interesting. In a way it kind of reminded me of some kind of coffee.
This is one of my favorite pictures of us. The nice Alaskan stranger who I asked to take our picture said, "Okay ready? Now make yourselves look skinny." So I stood tall and held my stomach in. I'm going to try to remember that. It was very effective!
So, minus the pineapple beer, I drank 24-ounces of beer in less than an hour. That's a lot. I had a buzz greater than two back to back Key Lime Pie Martini's. I really don't remember much more about that day.
I know I had pizza when got back on the ship and I probably ate it with my eyes closed.
Didjuneau that Juneau was the capital of Alaska?
Tips
Plan a tour in Juneau
See "what to wear" notes to Kathy
Go to the brewery if you didn't book a tour
Don't get the pineapple beer
Eat pizza every day. It was delicious!