Good morning! We are still on our way to Skagway. I was supposed to have three tours today but my salmon bake was moved to the same time as my scenic drive so I canceled it. We’ll be doing the street car tour in the morning and the scenic drive in the afternoon. 

We are approaching Skagway.

After docking I headed down to the dining room for breakfast.

These are my favorite cruise ship pancakes.

I also got eggs benedict.

The gangway opened at 7am. Our cruise director made an announcement to check your tickets to see if a passport is required.  My scenic drive is one of those.

Each cruise line that docks here gets to paint a rock their first time. I found the NCL one on my way to the shuttle bus.

You have a bit of an incline here.

That’s not my shuttle bus. I still have to walk over by the NCL Sun up ahead.

Both of my tours have the same meeting spot.

That’s my ride.

For full coverage of the tour please visit Skagway’s Original Street Car. I’m going to skip ahead to after the tour.

I was just dropped off by the visitor center. I have time to kill so I’m going to walk around downtown.

Our tour driver lives in Florida. Her and her boyfriend drive street cars here in the summer. Her second job is at this brewery.

She recommended the spruce tip beer but it doesn’t open till noon so I may not get to try it.

This is their school. It has Pre-K-12. They have 120 kids and 10 teachers. The graduating class is anywhere from 1 to 11 students. They had six last year. They are among the highest scores in Alaska. Instead of a prom, a cruise ship (usually HAL), lets the kids onboard, feeds them, and lets them use the night club.

Harding peak blocks the sun during the winter. They get 23 minutes of sunlight a day that time of year.

Pyramid peak. You can hike up there and rent a cabin for the night.

Jeff Smith’s Parlor. Jefferson “Soapy” Smith ran this as a bar. This is where he stumbled out drunk and around the corner is where he got shot.

Their laundromat has a bubble machine.

These are mountain ash trees. The black birds like the berries.

I found a chipmunk on an old White Pass Railway train.

I was looking but I couldn’t find the chimney. 

I heard this fry bread is one of the things to try here. 

The lady in the maroon shirt serving up the bread is from New Iberia, Louisiana.

This ice cream place seems popular. Their line has been out the door all day 

I need a poker chip from here for my collection.

These bottles were found in the floorboards of the Mascot Saloon. This saloon is open as a free museum. For full coverage of it please visit The Mascot Saloon in Skagway.

This is something that I’ll do another time. I didn’t know I wanted to do it until after the 10:30 show. The other two were during my second excursion.

It’s the longest running show in Alaska. Soapy Smith has been getting shot here three times a day for 100 years.

This is the first house built in Skagway. Capt. William Moore is considered the founding father of the town. He believed in the gold rush. He came here, built a dock, built this house, and waited. And they came. At its peak Skagway had 20,000 residents. Today it’s 900.

I finally got that beer my tour guide recommended this morning. It’s actually called the whipsaw.

A few weeks ago there was a rock slide and 160 people got stuck. They had to go to Haines which is a 10 hour drive. The ship picked them up the next morning.

There was a rock slide here in 2022 which is why we can’t walk to the ships on this side. I think that may be why my itinerary was changed from Skagway to Icy Strait in 2022.

Each cruise line gets to paint a rock their first time here. Some of them are around 100 years old.

For full coverage of the tour please visit Summit Scenic Drive in Skagway. I’m going to skip ahead to after the tour.

I got some sail away drinks at O’Sheehans.

I haven’t been to the martini bar here yet. I wanted to go now but it’s full. I’m starting out at the whiskey bar next to it.

I’m drinking dirty martinis.

These are the bar snacks at the whiskey bar.

Remember when I said they refunded me the full $80 on that excursion when I only paid $30? They fixed it by charging me $50. But it looks like they gave me a partial internet refund so it’s a wash.

For those Carnival folks wondering about the $20 service charges, they charge gratuity daily here instead of all at once like Carnival does.

I moved to the martini bar when I got a chance. They have different snacks over here.

I need to work on this menu. Here’s one thing about the free drink package. The chocolate martini is $18 so I can’t get one. A guy just tried to do that. Everything else on this menu though is fair game.

This is the rum cake. It’s really good.

French Raspberry. It’s good but not as good as rum cake.

I also tried the apple one but forgot to take a picture of it. 

If you follow me you know how I feel about public access food. I’ll include all bar snacks that aren’t coming from a factory sealed package in that category.

This is an interesting design. I see what they’re doing here. You can’t stick your hand in there. But there’s nothing stopping anyone from returning the “bad fish.” I’ll pass.

Last year on this ship this was a full production show called Velvet. Now it’s just four people sitting on barstools singing. 

After the show I headed to the dining room for dinner.

Tostadas

Bisque

Dirty martini

Chinese BBQ Pork

Black Forest cake

I was coming back inside that door. The door opened and I saw that strap. I started to limbo. Then a passerby undid the strap

I went up to lido. I was talking to a group of guys at the bar were drinking a Polish beer called Brok and said I should try one so I did. It seemed similar to Heineken.

They’re really pushing it on this ship. Most of the bottle displays only have Brok in them. You have to ask what other kind of beer they have.

I’m off to bed. Good night!