Juneau, Alaska was our first port of call and the northernmost point we would travel to on the In Touch Cruise.  The Westerdam docked at one o’clock in the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to enjoy the morning activities, have lunch and head to the gangway.  We stayed in Juneau until 10 PM, so there was plenty of time to have our own Alaskan adventure.

The morning began with breakfast in the dining room seated with a couple who, believe it or not, actually lived in Juneau in the 1980’s!  He was stationed there in the Coast Guard and regaled us with tales from the years they lived there.  My personal favorite was their story about the very first McDonald’s opening in Juneau – it was such a big deal for the town that they ran out of food within the first four hours of opening!  LOL!

The day before, I noticed an entrée on the menu called Japanese Breakfast.  On cruises, I like to be a little adventurous with food choices so I decided to try it!  It consisted of salmon, rice, dipping sauce and what I think was slices of tofu.

At 10:30 AM the service with Andy Stanley began where he continued to speak on “The N Commandments.”  This second message was on the subject JUDGE NOT.  Babbie Mason was the featured artist that morning and sang two songs:  He Is Here and Love Like That.  Andy went through a series of reasons why Believers, who are supposed to be showing the love of God, are so judgmental instead.  He said that most Believers are in one, or even all of these three categories…

1 – You size people up and write them off.  It is most likely that if the sin of others doesn’t break your heart, it is probably because you heart has never been broken over your own sin.

2 – You size people up and walk away.  You can clearly see what is wrong in other’s lives but don’t do anything to help them.  Oftentimes, this insight into other’s lives isn’t just for you to know, it’s a responsibility that Christ gave the church to help one another overcome their problems.

3 – You’ve been sized up and refuse to listen.  Unfortunately, a defensive spirit has ensured that your past will continue to come up in the future.

But love forbids any of these things to happen.  When people genuinely show the love of Christ to both the saved and lost, people don’t feel judged…they feel loved.

Water sloshed off the port side of the ship, but off the starboard side laid the cozy town of Juneau – cut off from the world by towering mountains of green ridges, waterfalls and glaciers.  From the window in the Lido deck, I had a bird’s eye view of the port town.  After a quick lunch, we made our way to the gangway and onto Alaska soil.  Now, when you’re on a cruise ship, there is always someone dressed up in an outfit to get your photo with at the bottom of the gangway.  They, along with one of the ships photographers, like to get your picture with the mascot as your “welcome” to whatever port you’re in.  Juneau’s mascot was someone dressed up as a bear.  So here we are, just getting off the boat – it’s beginning to rain and I had no intention of buying a photo of me and a fake bear – so I really had no intention of stopping to take one.  As the crew from the ship exclaimed, “Picture!  Picture!” I kept walking, then, the “bear” took me by the arm and began walking with me!  LOL!

Poor eagle was soaked from the rain but I’m glad he made an appearance!

Juneau reminded me a lot of Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Maybe it was the single road that cut through town with shops lined up on either side or that the mountains were so close…  Either way, the town was a place that felt like home; cozy and inviting.  The first half of the day we walked around the shops and purchased a few souvenirs.  It rained pretty steady while we were in town and I was really grateful for my rain jacket.  Around three o’clock, we met our group by the ship to go to the Salmon Bake.  This is an excursion that takes you just outside of town by bus to an outdoor picnic area where you can eat all the salmon, coleslaw and fixin’s you can fit on your plate!  Picnic tables are covered so you can’t get wet.  Well, you can’t have a meal without dessert, so a fire pit sits off to the side complete with pointed sticks, a small shelter housing marshmallows and paper towels.  It had been years since I’ve roasted marshmallows – needless to say, it was quite enjoyable to do so again.  As the afternoon wore on, a native Alaskan guest decided to join the marshmallow party too – a big ole brown bear!  I’m not joking when I tell you that bear was not interested in the salmon, it went straight to the fire pit and marshmallows!  No matter how hard the staff tried to shew it away (…and the people away from it, I might add) it had no intention of leaving until it had its fill of the sticky white treats.

After the excursion at the Salmon Bake we all rode a shuttle back to the ship where we changed out of wet clothes into something dry.  Not to stay aboard, though.  We were launching out to Adventure #2!  One of the most popular attractions in Juneau is the Mendenhall Glacier – just outside of town, a short taxi ride away.  Our group of seven called a taxi, jumped in and rode out to see this two mile wide mountain of ice.  We asked the taxi driver if he would come back in an hour to pick us up and he assured us he would.  Originally, we thought we would walk out to the lookout point, take some photos and be done.  Then we saw the trail…

The Mendenhall Glacier just outside of Juneau, Alaska.

A two mile hike on a paved path would deliver us to a sandbar right next to Nugget Falls (a ginormous waterfall that puts out enough water to fill an Olympic size swimming pool every second.)  We couldn’t resist!  The walk was fairly flat and easy – the view up close to both the falls and the glacier was amazing!

We didn’t get back to the ship until after nine o’clock at night.  In the moment, it was hard to believe that back home it would have been midnight!  But we didn’t care; we were having too much fun.  At that time of night, we missed eating in the dining room and the concerts, so we headed up to the Lido deck, found some pizza and chatted with some folks who we met coming back on board.

You could pan for gold at the Salmon Bake

Conclusion:  Juneau was wonderful!  Even with the drizzling rain, we had a blast.  I’m probably going to say this about every port – but I loved Juneau!  You felt like you were in Alaska.  The experience was everything I expected it to be.  If you wanted to shop, you didn’t have to go far from the ship to do so.  If you wanted to get outside of town and be outdoors, again, you didn’t have to go far to get in touch with nature.  The day was a great way to start the “land” part of the cruise!

Have you read all my posts about the Alaska Cruise?  You can by clicking the links below…

Where we departed from – A Day in Seattle

Saturday – Alaska Bound

Sunday – The Tale of the Whale