Your Camera Isn't Good Enough

First, an introduction, this was my wife, Joni and my sixth cruise and our fifth with Royal Caribbean. Our very first cruise was on the Radiance, so we were looking forward to returning to her, as we have been on her sister ships, The Serenade and The Jewel. We are in our 50's and reasonably active. I am all about fishing and food; I have wanted to go to Alaska salmon fishing for much longer than I have been cruising and have done much research on such a trip over the years. Fortunately, my lovely bride of 15 years shared my interest. We met our friends, Allie and Kim on a Hawaiian cruise a couple of years ago, and told them that were thinking about an Alaskan trip, and they told us about how much they loved the cruise-tour they had done previously with Royal Caribbean, and that they would love to go back. The seed was planted. After much continued planning and re-planning, our group grew to 14, including our neighbors, Jim and Shelly, and numerous friends of Allie and Kim. We booked the first day the cruise was available to book. In all my previous research on fishing, I decided that Silver Salmon was the species that I wanted to target, and they were best in August. I also had decided that I wanted to spend time in Alaska before the cruise then do the southbound cruise, which all that led us to the August 21 sailing date. Booking the first day allowed us to get 4 cabins across the center aft of deck 9 and 3 more cabins were booked later on the hump. I warn you now, as you can tell by the length of my introduction, this will be a very long review. I will divide it into the week before the cruise and the cruise itself.

Pre-cruise in Alaska: We are lucky living in the Dallas area to have a direct flight from DFW to Anchorage, while it is direct; it is a long one at 7 hours. Joni and I did try to use mileage to upgrade to first class, the flight was sold out, almost (this is important). We did however; try to beat the system, by booking the window seat for me and the aisle seat for Joni, hoping the middle seat would remain empty. Much to my dismay, when I printed out the boarding passes the morning of our trip of a lifetime, they had bumped me to the middle seat. Fortunately, my lovely bride, seeing my distress, told me she would switch and sit in the middle. Well it wasn't the window, but ok. So we get on the plane, and the horrid perpetrator who had so blatantly stolen my precious window seat was unwilling to switch to the aisle, being the magnanimous and benevolent person I am, I shrugged it off and took my aisle seat. OH NO! Things just got real ugly! My seat cushion, and I use the term very loosely, had long previously given up its life and any remnants of padding to some mammoth of a person who had sat there sometime in the past. I felt as if I was sitting on two steel bars in the most uncomfortable of places. I knew my back and other assets would be in agony after a 7 hour flight of this torture device. Once again, my lovely bride came to my rescue and talked to my new best friend the flight attendant shortly after take off. There was 1 empty seat on the plane a couple of rows back, and the saintly flight attendant switched my assault weapon of a seat "cushion" for the real cushion, all was right with the world and we were going to Alaska. Two movies later, time had passed and we landed without further incident in Anchorage. I could not resist paying Allie and Kim back for similar infractions that they had done to me, by pulling out my cell phone and calling them back in Chicago and simply saying, "I'm in Alaska, and you're not", feeling contented as they still had a few days of real world drudgery ahead before joining us. We booked our hotel that night and the following Wednesday night (when we returned from fishing) at the Captain Cook Hotel in downtown Anchorage. The hotel was very nice and comfortable. We had our first Alaskan fare at dinner in one of the hotel's restaurants, I had halibut and Joni had salmon, both good, and then went to bed to start getting use to the 3 hour time change. The next morning we saw it was still overcast as we looked out our window overlooking Cook Inlet. We had breakfast in the concierge lounge and went out to explore as our shuttle to the fishing lodge wasn't picking us up until 2:30. Downtown Anchorage is a very pedestrian friendly and attractive city. We went to an open air market that the bell captain recommended, many shops, the visitor's information center and finally Phyllis's Cafe for lunch. We both had the halibut fish and chips and the seafood chowder. I couldn't help eyeballing the bucket of huge king crab legs at the table next to us, knowing that was in my future...mmmmmmmm. We then headed back to our hotel to await our shuttle to the fishing lodge. In all the fishing research I had done, I narrowed it down to 4 possibilities, and then time and money help me to finally pick what I did. We were heading to the Kenai River Sportsfishing Lodge which was headquarters and one of four lodges owned by Alaska Wildland Adventures. We would be enjoying 3 nights there with 2 full days of fishing. Our shuttle arrives, which turns out to be a small, very new and comfortable bus, reminiscent of the nicer ones at ski resorts. We hop on and settle back for the 2 hour ride to Cooper Landing. The ride is very scenic, and the driver, who is very fun, pointed out the sights and, bless her, made a courtesy stop for beer, wine and a restroom break where we spotted our first bald eagle. A little later while later, the drive ventured further into the forest, someone behind me yelled "moose!" I turned quickly only to see a blur of brown not to be distinguished. We arrived at the lodge and were met by some of the staff. As our luggage was being delivered to our cabin, we were given a tour around the property. The property was beautiful and consisted of the main lodge building and several cabins right on the upper Kenai. We were given all the usual information, you know, like what to do if you go out on your porch and there is a bear there, do not try to pet the moose, the usual stuff. Afterwards Joni and I go to our cabin, open a bottle of wine and enjoy the sun that had just come out on our porch. Our cabin was a small, very attractive, log cabin with a queen and a single bed, a nice bathroom and our porch overlooked a small foot bridge to the nature trail. Oh, we were told to sing or make noise on the nature trail to let the bear and moose know you are coming. After our happy hour, we wandered over to the main lodge for dinner. At this point we began meeting some of the other guests, some who had rode in on the bus with us and others who had been there a while and were more than willing to share their adventures. Dinner was served family style at large tables, very conducive to chatting with new friends. The food? Oh my gosh, was it good, we had a crab appetizer and a duck entrEe that night, as well as wonderful sides and dessert. They had breakfast at 3 seating times and dinner at 2 seating times depending on your activity. We were booked for drift fishing for Rainbow Trout and Dolly Varden on the Upper Kenai the next morning. The staff found us and informed us that our guide would be Brian and we could sleep in as we were at the second seating of breakfast...at 5:30am, don't be late. The next morning, we got up bright eyed and bushy tailed and walked over to the lodge (keeping an eye out for bear) for breakfast. We met Brian, who was great, very knowledgeable, patient and generally an interesting person, and prepared for our first day of fishing on the Upper Kenai. It was a beautiful wilderness experience in a drift boat. It felt like we had the river to ourselves. We saw 2 bears on the shore in the first 10 minutes. We got to experience some moderate white water. We were fly-fishing which I had never done. I caught a nice rainbow trout within the first 5 minutes of fishing. I have no idea how many Rainbow Trout and Dolly Varden we caught but we rarely went more than a few minutes before catching the next, most were over 20 inches. Towards the end of the river portion Joni hooked a HUGE Rainbow that took out all her fly-line well into her backing and as I was trying to bring my line in I got a huge Dolly Varden, also taking the line into the backing and running all around the boat. Joni got hers pretty close to the boat and it jumped a couple of times completely out of the water, so we got a good look at it, the guide thought it was pushing 28-30 inches, but then it got off, I did get the Dolly in, it was in the 23-24 inch range. Shortly after that, Joni hooked another one that after a long fight, she landed a beautiful 24 inch Rainbow. It was starting to slow down a little for me and Joni was on a roll and we were just about to the lake. Then I hook a monster, the last fish of the day. After a long fight, I land a 26 1/2 inch 10 pound Rainbow as the sun comes out. After pictures we let it go and Brian the guide puts the little outboard down and we do about an hour long trip across a beautiful mountain lake in the sunshine to take the boat out. This trip turns out to be one of the top three highlights of the vacation. We headed back to the lodge for happy hour on the deck overlooking the Kenai, followed by some ping-pong on the same deck. At our beef tenderloin dinner, we were told that our guide the next day would be George for our Resurrection Bay Silver Salmon trip, and breakfast would be first seating at 4:30am...don't be late. We finished off the evening in the lodge's riverside wood burning sauna before heading to bed. The next morning was a little drearier and we were decked out in full cold weather rain gear. We met George and Howard, who would be joining us for the days fishing. After a quick breakfast, we hopped in the truck for the hour long drive to Seward and the weather was not promising. We got to Seward and made use of the facilities as George launched the boat. The boat was a 22 foot open boat with no cabin, cover or head. The weather was drizzly and Joni was concerned. George did say there was one beach we could get to and go into the woods if need be. It was needed later on. The rain stopped for some time, fortunately, and on the ride out to the first fishing spot, we saw sea lions and eagles. Fishing was slow, we moved to another spot where we saw mountain goats on the cliffs above us, fishing was slow. We moved to another spot, the one with the beach, which Joni and I made use of, I think to George's chagrin. Feeling relieved we began fishing again, and what's this, a bite, yes, I had a fish! It was a small rock fish, but a fish, things were looking up...but fishing was slow. So we returned to our first stop, and so did the rain. At this point, it would be a good time to sing the praises of the L.L. Bean 3 in 1 Weather Channel coat, Joni and I stay dry and reasonably warm. But fish start biting, I get another rock fish, and another, and then Joni gets a real bite! After dancing around the boat, and lets just say, not the best communication between Joni and George creating some "unique" angling skills, Joni lands a beautiful 11 pound Silver Salmon. Not too much later, I too hook one, not to be outdone, and using more "traditional" angling skills, I land an equally beautiful 12 pound Silver. Whew, we now will have some fillets to send home. Alas those were the last fish of the day and we make the cold wet ride back to the harbor in Seward. Although we did have one last highlight of the trip as we encountered one of the resident sea otters just outside the harbor, lounging on his back as otters do. Back at the lodge, it is pouring rain; George hangs our fish for a couple of photos, which we scramble in the rain to take, before George artfully fillets them for a tasty treat after we get home. We hurry back to our cabin to change, and by the time we have done so, the rain has quit and there are signs of sunshine. We walk the nature trail for the second time; I stay quiet in hopes of seeing a bear or a moose this time, but no luck. We did see an eagle, but that was getting fairly common by now. Then we headed to the lodge for happy hour and chatting with folks we met before and some of the newcomers of the day. Dinner that night was potato crusted halibut; did I mention how good the food was? The next morning breakfast wasn't till 8:30...oh the luxury! We walked around the property some more taking pictures and glad we still had lots of vacation to go, or it would be hard to leave this place. The next morning, it was a nice sunny day, one of a few to come, and after a leisurely breakfast, we were picked up by our van to take us back to Anchorage. Since Joni and I were the only ones going back that day, we were able to have a nice conversation with the driver on the very scenic drive. Read more