Each port has several excursions to choose from. For Skagway, we chose Grizzly Falls Ziplining. Ziplining has been something D and I have wanted to do for a while now. Both of the kids had gone on one zipline through scouts. We boarded a bus and waited for our fellow zipliners.
It seems that there is beautiful scenery everywhere you go in Alaska!
At the base camp, there was a small gift shops and most importantly, clean restrooms.
We then waited for an all terrain vehicle (U-mog) to pick us up.
We got all geared up and were split into groups. Our group consisted of our family and a mother-son duo. We were led by Dusty and Makayla. It seemed that all of the employees were enthusiastic 20-something adventure-seekers.
The first couple of courses were trial runs. When I was doing research, n was not old enough or big enough for ziplining. This company takes kids six years and up and 50 pounds minimum. Well, n barely made the weight minimum, so on a couple of lines, they told him to do a cannonball so he would have the momentum to reach the other side. On the longest line, n had to go tandem with one of the instructors. k had to pull herself in a little bit on that one too. Other than that, it was pretty easy, as the instructors did most of the work in stopping and catching us at the end.
Once we mastered letting go of the rope, the next step was hanging upside down!
k was brave enough to try the flip.
I think that I was unsuccessfully trying to do the “ceiling fan” here.
Aside from the two test runs, we went on nine lines. It was kind of difficult for me to pull my phone out of my pocket while I had all of the gear on, so I do not have too many pictures.
At the end of the excursion, they gave us water from glacier run-off, which was a welcome refreshment.
Three people from our group realized that their Princess cruise ship was scheduled to leave before we were scheduled to return to the port. They hurried everyone back on the bus and the driver hightailed it back to port. Meanwhile, the late party was receiving phone calls from their cruise director and they were frantically pleading for the ship to wait. When we arrived, they ran off the bus, and were able to board their ship. Lesson learned: make sure your excursion ends with plenty of leeway of the all aboard time so that you are not left stranded.
Our ship was not scheduled to leave until 7:45, but I did notice that we started moving at 7:50!
When we returned to our ship, there was some washing going on. I appreciated how the crew did such a good job with the upkeep of everything on the ship, inside and out.
For dinner, the theme was “Frozen”, as in the movie. I had k wear her Frozen-ish dress and we wore light-up snowflake necklaces that were left in our stateroom. There was supposed to be a Freezing the Night Away party on the top deck, but it was cancelled due to inclement weather.
n did not really have any attire that was appropriate for the occasion!
It was nice that our Frozen dinner was scheduled in Animator’s Palate. The screens had scenes from Frozen, which added to the ambience.
For appetizers, D had the Oaken’s Red and Yellow Beetroot Salad and Elsa’s Coronation Scallops (Princess scallops baked in a shrimp cognac tarragon cream sauce, topped with flaky pastry).
I had Sven’s Carrot Soup.
All four of us ordered and enjoyed Anna’s Honey Mustard Marinated Salmon.
D continued his adventurous eating and also ordered Hans’s Juniper Wild Boar Filet.
My sister requested extra vegetables and they brought them for our whole table every night.
There were too many desserts that we wanted to try. They were all delicious! (clockwise): Elsa’s Chocolate and Raspberry Tart; kids’ Frozen Sundae; Oaken Warm Apple Pudding Cake; Olaf’s White Chocolate Floro Dome.
We returned to a towel elephant.
We were still passing beautiful waterfalls.
The evening show was the newly released Cars 3 movie. However, we had just seen the movie the week before through D’s work, so we skipped it. Instead, we took showers, changed into our pajamas and continued to enjoy the scenery. The kids watched Mulan on television and we called it a night. We were on our way to Juneau!