We had an obstructed view outside cabin on Emerald deck room E323.  The cabin was a little smaller than the other cruise lines we had been on before.  Every other line had a sofa, even if it was an outside room but with the smaller room we just found ourselves out and about more often.  People like to talk about the beds, but we didn’t find that this one was anything special.  While this was an obstructed view, we were right between a life boat and the small rescue boat with really only some pipes and cables obstructing our view out the window.  Our cabin steward, Jonathan, was great; this was his last cruise before heading home for 5 months but still did a great job.

In Juneau I did the Whale Watching & Mendenhall Glacier Photo Safari it was an excellent tour.  Would recommend it for anyone that likes to take pictures.  The guide, Kasey, was excellent she gave us plenty of time to take photos on the hike up to the glacier, didn’t rush us like on most tours.  The whale watching was on smaller boat held the 15 of us on the tour quite comfortably.  We saw a plenty of whales, and some were actually quite close.  We were watching two whales that were probably 200 yards from the boat when one came up from under the boat probably 15 feet away, caused a couple of to scream like little girls!

In Skagway we took the Takshanuk Mountain Trail by 4x4, it too was a great time.  It has rained a lot the previous few days so the trail was quite muddy and made the drive up the mountain really fun.  There were enough 4X4’s, called mule’s, so every family got their own.   We were in the first mule behind the guide on the way up the mountain and the trail was in decent shape, not too many mud bogs to get stuck in.  However, on the way back down after 20 or so mule’s had traversed the way up the mountain we had mud pits to have fun with on the way down.  There were a couple spots where you had to keep the gas pedal to the floor so you didn’t stop and get stuck, well a few didn’t and had to be pulled out.  There was a stop at a lodge on the way up to rest and on the way down for food.  The food was quite good and would recommend this tour!

Of course, I have to mention Glacier Bay that too was great, but very cold.  We were the only ship that day so that made it really special, we were able to get very close to the Margerie Glacier and the Grand Pacific Glacier.  The Margerie was giving us quite a show and calved quite often during the hour or so we were there.  I spent most of the time on the bow of the ship on desk 8, it was under cover and there were very few people up there.  You get there by going outside on deck 7, then walk up the stairs at the front of the ship.  It was great for taking pictures, but again it was very cold as there is no wind break.

Glacier Bay

Was cancelled due to weather, not their fault.  But, I did try to cancel with enough time to take something else, but they would not make a decision to cancel timely.  Ended up not getting to take a tour that day.

So we got off the ship walked around a little, and at about 11:15 we found the shore representative from the tour and she said that we were going to do the Crab Feast first and hopefully the weather would clear so we could do the flight back.The tour was led by Yessy from the cruise staff, she was great, I did feel a little rushed but we did have a lot of ground to cover in just a couple of hours.

Emerald Princess Review

Great Cruise to Alaska!

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Oceanview (obstructed view)

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Glacier Bay

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