Sunday, May 8th, in Ketchikan, Alaska

Well, Mother's Day found us in Ketchikan, Alaska.  The weather out our window was, as you can see in this picture, wonderful.  Score another point for Disney pixie dust because we got ANOTHER mild temperature, sunny day!  Honestly every port we landed in thanked us for bringing some magical Disney good weather.  We felt so fortunate to have been so lucky with the weather because, while we certainly would have made the best of whatever weather got thrown our way, it definitely made the vacation that much nicer that we had nice days with sun and not having to bundle up like we were in the frozen tundra!!

This was a unique day because it was a port day for us...but it was a late port day.  We're used to waking up and the ship is either already in the port or is pulling in shortly and you get off the boat first thing in the morning.  We weren't due to arrive in Ketchikan until around noon, however...so that gave everyone on the ship all morning to sleep in or find something to do.
We decided to start our morning with breakfast; and because the weather was so amazing, we were able to eat out on deck at the breakfast buffet.....aaaah, this is what vacation is all about!!

After breakfast, we had an appointment for our next spa experience.

You'll recall that we decided to make the theme of this leg of our vacation PAMPER YOURSELF!!! Well, part of that was the special meals like brunch at Palo----and a dinner there later this evening...but also to explore more and different spa experiences....like our manicures and pedicures.  We also booked a treatment for today and for the last sea day that were new to us. Today's treatment was called "Chocolate Indulgence."  I've included this picture from the internet of a similar spa treatment (with a model, obviously)...but you can probably get the idea.  The description of the treatment read as follows:  "Zero calories, but absolutely indulgent.  Chocolate is known for being a guilty pleasure, but this most tempting of treats is also known for being rich with anti-oxidants that offer amazing nutritional value for your skin and body.  During this decadent body therapy, we will first exfoliate your skin and then apply our rich chocolate mask, where you will be cocooned in chocolate heaven.  If that wasn't sweet enough, we will also treat your muscles to a soothing half or full body massage with warmed chocolate oil to ensure your experience is nothing short of delicious."  This experience was a real stretch for us since I'm not all that adventurous when it comes to spa treatments----I always get the same thing: the hot stone massage.  Jason thought it sounded interesting and exciting, however, so we did it....and it was cool.  They rubbed us down with a chocolate-smelling gritty-textured exfoliator then covered us in a chocolate masque (kind of creamy) and wrapped us in what amounted to large sheets of tin foil and covered us with warm towels.  After baking in the chocolate for a while, we showered off and got very nice massages with a chocolate-infused oil.  Very relaxing and sweet---pun intended! LOL----but it did make my stomach growl!!

After we were done with our spa experience, we headed back to our room to change, grabbed a quick lunch and then went down to meet our tour group.  Today's excursion was an experiential one.  As you already know from this blog, we love excursions with animals.  If we can't do that, we like to do active excursions (like the swinging bridge we did in Vancouver)------and in an ideal world an active excursion that involves animals like snorkeling or horseback riding!   Today's excursion was the "Bear Creek Zipline Adventure."  We had ziplined once before on a Caribbean cruise in Mexico with friends and enjoyed it and thought that doing it here in Alaska, in what we learned was the "largest temperate rainforest in the world" (I think I'm remembering that right) would be cool.

The trip to our zip-line adventure included some sight-seeing including more beautiful mountain ranges and another area of totem poles:

After our very educational drive to the forest (where the 3rd consecutive bus driver in as many days taught us how to remember the five main species of Salmon in Alaska using the finger on our hands----Chum (thumb), Sockeye (index finger), King (middle), Silver (ring) and Pink (pinky)!!!), we arrived at our destination:

After we met our guides for the afternoon, we suited up and headed to the course itself:

They did a brief overview and then we got to spend time doing the course itself.  This included several fun zip-lines as well as a suspension bridge between two tall trees, repelling down out of a tree onto a platform and then finishing up with a constructed slide they had made that you went down in a burlap sack!  Here are some photos to commemorate our adventure:

Then after a quick stop in the gift shop for magnets and cookies with hot cocoa (a nice little treat although the weather had been amazing....again no rain and we were even able to manage in just sweatshirts for the afternoon!), we headed back to the ship.

Again we decided to not do the evening show (a juggler I think) and instead chilled up on deck taking in the scenery before getting ready for dinner.  Tonight was a weird night for ties, too.  It turned out that we had brought too many ties with us on this trip.  We had tinkerbell ties that we really wanted to wear so we could get pictures in them...so we put them on and went down for photos.  Here are the tink ties:

We then immediately went up and changed into our ACTUAL ties for the evening.  We were dining in Palo and that requires a sport coat, so we wanted to wear our Lion King ties because they match better. We were able to get photos with Donald and Daisy all dressed to the nines as well:

Then another wardrobe change was necessary-----we happened to see in the personal navigator (the schedule put out daily by the ship so you know what's happening when and where) that Ariel would be out for pictures this evening.  We have many, many character photos from the ships....but in our vast collection, we have NONE with Ariel (because usually she's swimming UNDER the ship and not walking around ON it, of course! *wink*).  Well you may remember also that for semi-formal night the previous week we had worn our Ariel ties and vests....well, the opportunity for a pic with the princess from under the sea in our matching outfits could NOT be passed up....so we quick changed into our Ariel garb (which she LOVED...and even said she should get a dress with OUR pictures on it! LOL)...

...and then changed BACK into our Lion King ties and headed up to Palo!

Yes, I know we're nuts----total addicts....but I will remind you that there are way worse things to be addicted to than Disney Princesses! LOL

After an amazing meal in Palo, we headed back to our room for the night.  Tonight, however, we were met not only with our towel animal(s)....

....but with a gift from the cruise line in honor of sailing on the first Alaskan cruise.  The gift was a set of four cloth embroidered napkins.  Each had a character in an Alaskan-themed outfit (although not necessarily the same outfits we saw the characters wearing on the ship) on it with the itinerary and dates embroidered beneath; and each came with a faux wooden napkin ring with the cruise line and ship name on it.  Here are some pics of the set and some of the details:

These were a very cute gift....and while I don't necessarily think we'll have a use for them as a part of our dining table arrangement, I have already thought of a creative way to use them as a memento of this amazing vacation!!