As soon as we got onboard the ship, Jim and I felt like we have been here before. The ship is the Coral Princess and we had no trouble finding our stateroom or any of the other places on the ship we wanted to go. Because we are old, we can’t remember the name of the ship we were on going through the Panama Canal but it was either the same ship or a sister ship built very similarly. Usually, you spend the first few days on a cruise studying the maps and getting lost, but we didn’t have that problem. I knew I was going to like it on board the ship.
We sailed directly to Yakutat Bay and reached the Hubbard Glacier by about 5 p.m. How massive! We actually got to see it calf, sending chucks of ice into the bay.
Entering Yakutat Bay
Water was filled with ice from glacier as we got closer to Hubbard Glacier
Hubbard Glacier
The next day, we were in Glacier Bay where we had good views of the Margerie Glacier and the Lamplugh Glacier. Of course, it was overcast and cold.
Entering Glacier Bay which is a National Park
Margerie Glacier
Margerie Glacier up close, it goes up the mountain
Lamplugh Glacier
On the third day at sea, we arrived in Skagway, Alaska – the picture of a small Alaskan mining town. 
Red Onion Saloon a very popular place in the late 1800’s
Building in Skagway built out of driftwood
It was still overcast, but the temperature had warmed up to about 65 degrees. There were quite a few jewelry stores and souvenir shops and only 1 or 2 restaurants but we also found a local theatre giving a performance of the Soapy Smith saga which was fun. 
It seems Soapy Smith was a first class swindler who made Skagway his home. If there was a way to cheat the residents and visitors, he found it. After years of this, the townspeople had had enough and there was a gunfight. Soapy was no more. According to local sources, the Soapy Smith story is absolutely true and he is buried outside of town in a lone grave.
Back to our hotel on the water and on to Juneau.
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