Ketchikan, AK and Shipboard Life

We were up at 7:00 am ready for a day in Ketchikan, Alaska. After a stop at the Visitors Bureau to pick up a Walking Tour map we headed off to see the sights. The salmon were “running” upstream to spawn – what a sight!



We walked up Ketchikan Creek past the salmon ladder to the Totem Heritage Center. Ketchikan has the largest number of totems in the world. It was fun to see them and to read about what the different figures mean. We walked down Creek Street – the area became a red-light district in 1903, when the City Council ordered bordellos to relocate across the creek from the town site. More than 30 bawdy houses, most with one or two “working girls”, lined the creek over the years.




Otters were sunning in the creek and bald eagles were sitting in the trees overhead. What a sight! We headed up “Married Men’s Trail” to the Lodge for a great view of the harbor.




Ketchikan has a tunnel where you can either go thru the tunnel, around the tunnel or on top of the tunnel! We chose to walk around it on the water side to visit the famous Burger Queen. Much to our disappointment, it wasn’t open on Sundays! So we took some pictures and headed back thru the tunnel and back to the ship.

I guess I should share some of the life on the ship with you. We are on the Holland American Ryndam. Our cabin is on Deck 6 with 2 decks below us of cabins. The dining room and theater are on Deck 7 & 8. More cabins on Decks 9 & 10 with the Lido Deck 11. Here is a photo of our cabin. It is much larger than any we have previously been in. It might look like we have a window to the outside, but we don’t! We are in one of the inside cabins. We have decided that we don’t spend much time in our cabin so why pay the extra for a window? We get up around 7 am. Most days we are already at the pier. We head up to Lido for breakfast. Lido has the buffet where you can have anything from cold cereal to eggs made your way! Also available: fresh fruit, fresh squeezed orange juice (and about 5 other kinds of juice not fresh squeezed!), eggs, toast, French toast, pancakes, omelets, sausage, bacon, hash browns, oatmeal, cream of wheat, do you need to hear more?? After breakfast, if we are in port, we head off the ship to explore for the day. If we are walking around the port we come back on ship around noon or early afternoon for lunch. Yes, more food! We also eat lunch up on Lido where you have Asian, Chinese, pizza, hamburgers, taco bar, salad bar, and many, many more options! I try to have a chicken or turkey wrap. There is a dessert bar with waffle ice cream cones! So far I have had watermelon sorbet, raspberry sherbet, butter pecan and vanilla with fudge! Afternoons are spent exploring towns or relaxing on the ship. Around 6:00 pm we head to the dining room for supper. We have open seating which means we can eat from 5:15 to 9:00 and sit with different people each night. We usually head to the theater entertainment which starts at 10:00 pm. It ranges from the dancers and singers, a juggler/piano player (he was great!), and comedians. One night at 11 pm the Filipino crew members did a show! Several sang and they had their native dances. We are headed for bed around 11:00 without heading to the midnight buffet which has included any kind of chocolate you can imagine!

Our cabin - 364