KETCHIKAN (WARD COVE), ALASKA

I reserved this day to eat a crab feast and shop. There were 5-6 ships in port and we had the farthest dock. Waited in rain to be bussed downtown. Where 20,000+ people were crowding the streets. After an hour of waiting for a table and a glass of water, I abandoned my chance at a crab lunch, and headed out to shop. The line for the shuttle was so long, I did not have time to shop. There were some good bargains I saw at a glance but the lines were massive so I went to the ship. NY is less hectic on a Monday. I wasn't up for it.

This port was a major disappointment. I get it is my responsibility to review port arrival times, but I did not realize that this ship would dock 25 mins outside of town & that there would be 4000 people waiting to get off this boat to catch one of maybe 5 shuttles into town on a rotation. Once you enter the Sitka warehouse with all the shopping then you find out how long the line is just to get onto one of the shuttles. Which took us 90 minutes!! Then you add the 30 minute drive!! We left the ship 30 minutes after the time we wanted to, but that wouldn’t of made any difference! Knowing we had only a few hours and that it would take a good 30 minutes to get back on the bus to get back to the ship. We simply walked maybe 15 minutes turned around and went back.

We took a trolley tour of the town. They took us to Saxman Native Village. The stories about the totem poles were neat to find out. After that we walked around the town.

We got up early and got on one of the first shuttles to Ketchikan and there was no line. It's a twenty minute shuttle to town, so do account for that. Since we arrived early to town it was a lot less crowded, which was great. There are multiple cruise ships docked at all ports, so the towns at all the ports can get very crowded.

Misty Fjords tour was great! This was the only time we saw whales on the trip.