Day 7 (5/20/22): Cruise Day 5 - Juneau continued
We touched down at the dog sled camp and were met with quite the assault to all of our senses (except taste, don't worry) upon exiting the helicopter. Sight: rows upon rows of small adorable dog houses which were the homes of at least 150 large dogs of several different breeds and large tents for the dozen or so humans living up there for the season. Sound: those dogs had quite a lot of exciting things to tell us as we approached. Smell: Not terrible, but definitely distinct. Touch: the snow up on the glacier was undergoing a constant cycle of freeze and thaw and as a result was attempting to swallow our legs up to the knee. It became a fun (for me, not so much my wife) minefield trying to pick what were the best spots to step. This was definitely a theme of the afternoon.
We met our musher for the day. Her name was Josie and she was fantastic. She introduced us to the sled we would be using as well as our dog team of 10. Most of their names elude me at this time, but the two lead dogs were Lollipop and Cha Cha, which were the most experienced. Our sled had seating for 3 and a standing position at the back just in front of the musher. I wanted to get the most intense version of the experience, so I opted to start with the standing position to start, while my wife and the other 2 women opted for seats. We all switched spots after various stops along the way. We took off and this was a very interesting and entertaining experience. I have never seen such excited dogs and they were raring to go. We sped around for about 10 minutes at varying speeds depending on the terrain. At this point Josie gave the dogs a break and we were free to socialize with the dogs. The mushers encourage this to make socialization normalized for the younger dogs but also let us know that the dogs would let us know if they were interested in attention or not. Some of the younger dogs at the back of the line seemed tolerant but indifferent, looking forward to more running. The closer to the front we got however, the dogs became much more friendly. Cha Cha (pictured below) and Lollipop were very insistent upon showing us how much they loved us, practically burrowing into us when we got close enough and begging for pets. All of the dogs were very sweet, just some were a little more high strung than others. It turned out that Lollipop was actually pregnant and we missed her litter of puppies (adorably named the Lollipups my wife found out as she followed Josie on Instagram) by 5 weeks. Bummer!
After approximately a half hour total of sledding, we sadly returned to our starting spot. We said our final goodbyes to Josie and the dogs (after giving her an earned and well deserved tip) and made our approximately 200 ft walk back to the helicopters. This walk ordinarily would take no longer than 2 minutes, but the snow had other plans. It took about 20 minutes total because we were repeatedly being swallowed. I was able to pull out my legs each time without a problem, but due to her previous somewhat extensive back issues, it was a much taller order for her. After almost losing her temper with it, we made it back to helicopters just in time for her sanity. I would say that this was the only detractor from the experience and how much it affects you would fully depend on your tolerance for repeated sinking into the snow. I would still wholeheartedly recommend this experience to everyone, even with the cost associated with it.
We then split up with the two women who went on to a second part of the trip in their own helicopter while were gently returned to the airport with equally stunning views as before. I started to get just a little bit sad as the part of trip I had been looking forward to the most was coming to an end and it did not disappoint. I bucked up however as there was still a fair amount of trip left and refused to spend it sulking.
We returned to our terminal and had the same guy take us back to town in his van. Before dropping us off, he very graciously stopped at a grocery store for me. My family collects Coca Cola memorabilia, but mostly look for glass bottles from everywhere we travel. My parents actually converted one of the bedrooms in their house with shelving and professional grade lighting to display the upwards of 1500 bottles we have amassed. All of our friends and family know to look for cokes for us when traveling (my personal favorite bottle is a cherry coke from Russia just as an example). It was our honeymoon, yes, but I had to check for cokes at least one time and this was my best shot. I came up empty however, but still bought some local snacks for our cabin.
After being dropped off at the same place we were picked up, we now realized why the Wonder docked where it did. 3 massive ships (1 Viking, 1 Royal Caribbean, and 1 Norwegian I believe) were taking up the 3 berths in the downtown area and thousands of people were pouring into town as they had very recently docked. We took one look at the crowds and realized our mistake from earlier. We decided to take a trip to the public library located at the top of the parking structure in town. This was a great stop as it was naturally quiet, afforded great views, and had blazing fast WiFi. I wouldn't say we missed staying connected, but we had struggles with cellular data due to the remoteness of some locations coupled with the massive amounts of people trying to use it at once when the ports were full of cruise passengers. We uploaded the (no joke) upwards of a thousand pictures my wife had taken thus far to the google album we shared with our friends/family so they could keep up and see pictures without the dreaded slide show when we came home.
It was about 2:30 in the afternoon at this point and we decided to go ahead and grab the things from the gift shop we had picked up from before and return to the ship. This is when our decision from earlier truly came back to haunt us. The placed was MOBBED. We picked out our items fairly quickly but the line to check out took at least an hour. My wife stayed in line while I went off to make a few phone calls. I had three full, somewhat lengthy in my opinion, calls with people back home and my wife still was not done! Thankfully she made friends in the line to keep her sane. We FINALLY paid and made it out of there (please learn from our mistake and do your shopping early if the Disney ship gets in before everyone else, you will not regret even with having to lug your stuff around all day) and caught the shuttle back to the ship.
When we got back to the ship we decided to take it easy for a little bit on our Verandah. We even managed to spot a harbor seal bobbing around near the ship. The show that night was Frozen. This isn't my favorite Disney IP as I am both not the target demo and had been thoroughly inundated by it in the parks and just in life in general. I must say though that I greatly enjoyed the show. The cast was of course phenomenal and it was very well staged. We went off to dinner in Animator's Palette where the theme that night was the animation magic show. This is always a great time and should not be missed. I believe that was it for this night and we turned in, ready for another great port day in Ketchikan.
