Kenai Fjord dinner cruise

Some friends of ours came to visit from Northern California and we all took a dinner cruise out of Seward.  We picked them up at the airport and drove down the night before.  We stayed in the Old Seward Hotel, it was great.  I am a huge fan of old and antiques so I loved that this is the oldest hotel in the town and that it is all decorated in authentic antiques.  I did spring for a room in the "newer" wing though since I preferred to have our own bathroom and in the old section you still share one with other guests.

 We boarded our boat in the morning, I was worried it would be cold since we were going out onto the Gulf of Alaska, but really it was just light jacket weather on any of the decks and inside where our table was stayed very warm. We had a window seat and a great view from inside but still spent a great deal of time on deck. 
The cruise was 7 hours and they fed us an all you can eat prime rib and Alaskan salmon lunch.

 We saw several glaciers but this one was most impressive, we stopped an watched it for about 20 minutes and were able to hear and see it calving, it really sounds like thunder and then pieces will fall off, it was great to watch.  Big pieces of glacier ice were floating in the ocean and it made me think of how awful it would  have been for those on the Titanic to be floating in that freezing water.

We saw Orca Whales, they were fun one swam right next to the boat but he was to fast and we did not get a picture.  It was really neat to watch them in the wild, we saw a mom and baby and several other pairs. 

We also  have porpoises come right up and swim next to us, they are playful things for sure.  Puffins are cute little birds like mini toucan's there was lots of them, Eagles, Sea Lions, and hump back whales and harbor seals.  No big horn sheep or bears this trip, but we did get to hear the orcas talking to each other, that was an amazing sound.

 Pictures of the glacier ice floating, on some of the bigger pieces there were sea lions just lounging around.  There was also several families of sea otters, they are cute little things.  On board they had a skin of one, it was so soft I did not realize they were so furry.

This is one of the Beluga or humpback whales we saw.

 The scenery was gorgeous, so many areas that are only accessible by boat or plane.

The water color in the coves was so pretty.  We were very lucky the water was calm, and our crew was terrific, stopping in many spots, explaining everything, keeping a watch out for wildlife to let everyone know etc.

I would recommend the cruise to anyone coming to visit and we will return for another one at some point as well.