Day - 16 Ketchikan

Character breakfast morning!  We got up a little early to go and have breakfast with some of the characters this morning.  It was in Parrot Cay where we just had our dinner the night before, but it was a little less crowded.  Parrot Cay is Caribbean style and I like it, but it tends to be very noisy.  And this morning even with a smaller crowd, but was still very loud in there.  But we were able to have Micky, Minnie, Pluto and Goofy all come over one at a time to take our pictures with them.  I even got a kiss from Minnie!  Oh, and everyone gets a napkin hat made for them.  Kate and Mackenzie got a Minnie bow and Jack was Peter Pan.  I got a Goofy hat and a pair of ears…

(L)Petra and (R)Emily

Our excursion today was a rain forest adventure.  We board a bus and head out of town towards our excursion, but it turns out that our bus driver took us to the wrong place and we ended up almost an hour late for our trip.  In the end it was fine and we did not miss out on anything.  Our server Petra and another cruise employee joined our group as tourist as well.  They were both super nice and fun to hang out with.  The trip started with a  boat ride out to an island over at the Tongus National forest.  Along the way we spotted Bald Eagles.  Once back on land, the trip turned out to be rather bland, but we did get smoked salmon and smores.  Our tour guide was a little less charismatic than what we were expected and the walk consisted of a short walk through the forest.  It was beautiful, but not much different than what we have back home.  We returned by the same boat and spotted a few more eagles, including a family of four on a very small little island.  The guy driving the boat was much more entertaining and should have been the one leading the group.  Once back in town we went to see Creek Street.  This is a small little boardwalk that goes along a creek that is full of salmon.  We saw quite a few fish, though there were many that had fulfilled their life’s mission (spawned) and had passed on.

I had the Elk at Triton’s for dinner tonight and enjoyed it.  It’s a little funny that Triton’s tends to be the fancier restaurant, but it is the kids favorite.  I don’t know if the food is any better or worse than the other places, but it is very nice inside.  The staff spent a little extra time with us tonight and showed us some their tricks.  All of them like to play around and Emily carries around a little squeaker that she teases everyone with.  Mehmet is the head guy at all the restaurants and also carries a squeaker.  He has taken Jack’s hat several times and plays around with him a bit before giving it back and Jack has finally started taking his hat off inside the restaurant.  He high fives Jack every time he sees him now.  Emily had brain teasers and the server from the next table was doing card tricks.  

The show tonight was a two man group called Buckets and Boards.  They were a musical comedy group and were very good.  Their schtick is that they use plastic buckets as drums, but their comedy was the main draw.  They also play on board Disney boats quite often, so their show was full of Disney and cruise ship humor.  Apparently they have their own theater in Branson Missouri.  Jack was the only one that missed out on it as he decided to hang out in the kids area and play with his buddy (also named Jack), but the rest of us laughed pretty hard for the entire show.  

The ship departed around 7:30 and we are headed back to Vancouver.  Tomorrow will be a day at sea, so we get to hang out on ship and have fun.  After all the trips ashore, I am looking forward to relaxing a bit.  The ship has all sorts of ways to keep us busy, but I might just hang out and walk around and eat everything I run across.  Kate has mentioned seeing a movie, so I might join her.  One thing is for sure, I will definitely be eating a lot today!