Alaska Cruise - Day 5: Glacier Bay

Day 5 was another sea day. What we didn't realize was that we were going to get to sail into part of Glacier Bay National Park. The park is pretty strict when it comes to cruise ships, they only give a contract to a few cruise lines and then they only let one ship come in a day. When we booked our cruise, we had no idea how lucky we were because our ship had a day to sail into Glacier Bay.

Since it was a sea day, I decided to start my day off in the spa. So I had a gorgeous view as we pulled up to the first glacier.

As we got closer, I decided to go back to the room and get ready for the day. Then all my work was undone when we went to the top deck for a picture. I think that was the coldest I was the entire trip.

After that, we stayed on the lower decks that seemed to have slightly better wind break. And after a while, the wind even calmed down.

We went up two different inlets and saw three glaciers total. This first one is hard to see because it has so much silt and dirt on it. Its the only one I heard the measurements on and can still remember. Its a mile and  half across and 26 miles deep. Like would be like me leaving my house and driving to work! I think they also said it is 200 feet above the see and another 300 feet below, but that part I can't remember for sure.

The glacier starts at the left of the picture and runs almost all the way over. Towards the middle, a mountain started behind the glacier.

We did see a few smaller chuncks break off and fall into the water, but I wasn't able to get a picture of that.

Looking straight off our ship as we sail through the chuncks of ice.

We saw a harbor seal! It was so fun to watch him swim up the side of the ship.

I had decided before the trip that I wouldn't buy all the professional pictures. I wanted to, but there was also other things I wanted to spend my money on. This was one of the days I decided a professional picture would be fun. Josh had been wearing his baseball cap because the wind was so bad, so I made him go change into his cowboy hat so we could get a nice picture. Then we also took off our coats for the picture. The photographer joked that no one would believe we were in Alaska. What he didn't know is we are used to cold winters in Utah, so to go without our jackets for a few minutes was no big deal to us. After taking the picture, Josh told the photographer "one more" and he leaned in for a kiss. So of course I had to buy both of them.

For lunch that day, we decided to try the restaurant that was just outside our room, the Blue Lagoon. It ended up being our favorite place. A few days later, we were there again. As I sat down, I looked out and saw a whale that had breached a little as it rolled. I freaked! Our waiter ran over to see if I was okay and I finally managed to exclaim "whale!" Then our table was surrounded by every one else in the restaurant. We ended up seeing six different whales. The last one even had a fin break through the water like he was waving good bye to everyone. It was the highlight of my trip. Seeing them in Juneau was cool, but seeing them one night while eating dinner and having one wave at us was the frosting on the cake.

Eating lunch in the Blue Lagoon.