Welcome! This photo tour contains pictures from my family's cruise through Alaska on the Celebrity Infinity in August 2008.

The cruise was roundtrip out of Seattle, Washington and visited the ports of Sitka, Juneau, Ketchikan, the Hubbard Glacier and Victoria, British Columbia.

Our ship left from Seattle, Washington. While there, we had to chance to visit some extended family and also check out some of the sights!

Warning: low flying fish! This is Pike Place Fish. It's well known for throwing fish through the air before each order is wrapped up for the customer.

Lake in Mount Rainier National Park.

Here's the visitor center in the park.

From the center, a great view of the peak! Clouds kept on blowing through every few minutes...

... but finally got a clearer shot!

On the way out of the park, we saw this furry fellow. (After a while, I figured out it was a marmot.)

The next day we went out to Pier 66 to set sail.

Amazingly, embarkation went extremely smooth and there wasn't any lines or long waiting. The ship was pretty empty went we boarded.

Here's the pool deck. Alaska is COLD (even in August) so we didn't get much mileage from the outdoor pool.

With the hot tubs a'bubblin'...

And the dance party a'startin'... (I don't know what was going on with that bright blue hat... yikes.)

It was time to set asail! From the ship, some lovely views of the city. The Sears Tower in the background here.

And passing the Seattle skyline...

You could even see Mt. Rainier in the distance.

Evening entertainment was pretty decent. One night we had a Broadway-style show with song selections from various musicals.

Our first port of call was Sitka. The fourth largest city in Alaska, Sitka has a lot of Russian heritage that is still present in the modern day city.

It was a foggy, dreary day. (This will be a common theme throughout the cruise.)

It started to drizzle partway through the day.

Lots of fishing boats, and our ship in the background behind them all.

Even on a sun-less day, the coastline is still fairly pretty.

Downtown: Saint Michael's Cathedral.

Another picture of our ship in the distance.

A bald eagle in the wild. We actually ended up seeing quite a few of them throughout our cruise, perched high in the trees.

First stop here: Sitka National Historical Park!

The main attraction of the park is the totem poles...

This one appears to be masquerading as a tree.

After a hike through the forest...

... we crossed a river with salmon aplenty! Another common sight throughout our cruise: there are salmon everywhere.

Next we visited the Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center.

They had a number of birds undergoing rehabilitation. If any bird watchers want to ID this fellow for me, give me a shout. I believe this guy is a golden hawk, but not certain.

Including this beautiful bald eagle.

I thought this sign was amusing...

This statue is entitled The Prospector and sits in front of the Sitka Pioneer's Home.

The last thing we did in Sitka was watch some traditional Russian dances (performed by local Sitka residents).

Between ports of calls, we had several sea days. One of the highlights was listening to talks given by Brent Nixon, the ship naturalist. Extremely engaging speaker -- this guy knows his stuff about bears, seals, whales, you name it... and manages to make the information interesting to an audience!

A swanky lunch buffet, completely with ice sculptures!

And sushi.

And roast, custom cut.

But man, those desserts look simply amazing.

Gorgeous. +1 to Celebrity's pastry chef.

But the buffet was all a distraction, as we started passing icier and icier waters heading to the Hubbard Glacier.

The picture tells all: it looks cold, and it WAS cold. We had on our coats, mittens and hats. You can see a bit of the silt cover (where the water turns from blue to more yellowy). The glacier itself is the mass in the center which meets up with the ocean.

Here's a closer look at the glacier. That is layers and layers of compressed snow and ice, my friends. The entirely glacier is slowly advancing: our ship approached one of the points where the Hubbard meets the ocean.

We spent some time paused here. Our naturalist, Brent Nixon, gave some background on the glacier and calving, the process where chunks of the glacier break off into the ocean. Every once in a while, you could hear when a chunk of ice would crack and break off and then drop into the sea.

Left side (from ship) of the glacier.

Here's another close up: can really see the layers and striations.

Right side (from ship) of the glacier.

After some primetime glacier watching, we retreated inside to revive our fingers and toes and catch a meal. This is the Trellis Restaurant, the main dining room.

The dinner menu. Chef's recommendations for the day was: Gravlax of Salmon with Cucumber-Dill Salad; Cream of Broccoli Soup with Aged Cheddar Cheese; Tomato and Iceberg Salad with Roquefort Cheese and Chives; Roast Turkey with Traditional Stuffing, Giblet Gravy, Cranberry Relish and Candied Sweet Potatoes; Crepes Suzette.

There were always 4-5 choices of appetizers, a number of soups and salads and adequate vegetarian and meat entries.

Photo of the dining room and tables.

Prosciutto with melon.

This is... ahem, let me check the menu... Fresh Salmon Teriyaki with Fried Rice, Braised Bok Choy, and Soy Glaze.

The next day we were in Juneau!

This is entitled "The Founders of Juneau", sculpted by R.D. Robinson.

Did some tourist-y shopping downtown.

Rickity staircase!

Then we took a bus over to the Mendenhall Glacier.

As usual, it was an overcast, dreary and cold day.

And here's the Mendenhall Glacier (Hubbard's smaller and dirtier cousin.)

The coloring and texture of the ice is quite interesting.

Ack, all that debris.

But there were some pretty waterfalls nearby.

The glacier from afar.

Again, there seemed to be salmon present in every Alaskan river.

Docked by the Infinity were two other cruise ships. This is the Sapphire Princess (Princess Cruises).

And the Norwegian Pearl (Norwegian Cruise Lines).

Leaving Juneau... you couldn't really see these beautiful streams and inlets in the mountains unless you were offshore.

This ice-cream-cake looking dessert is called Baked Alaska. Ice cream on sponge cake, then topped with meringue. It needs to be quickly baked in order to harden the meringue (but not melt the ice cream!).

One night we had a jazzy Vegas-style show.

And we applauded the hard working team of chefs and waitstaff.

Our next stop was Ketchikan.

We saw more nesting bald eagles up in the trees.

We stopped at Saxman Village, which had a collection of original totem poles. Each totem pole tells a distinct story.

Hey, you. That's right, you.

Various poles.

Close up view.

I thought the grass "tail" was pretty cute.

Lincoln at the top of a totem pole. Tehe.

We got a glimpse of how these poles are made.

Creek Street is the former "Red Light District where both men and salmon swam upstream to spawn" (quoth the street's official website).

Now it's a charming set of shops, perched above the river.

This is salmon jackpot right here. It's hard to see, but all the lighter spots are ALL salmon making their way upstream. I'm not kidding: there were so many, it may have been possible to walk on water by stepping on a solid sheet of salmon.

Can you see all the salmon now?

We made a trip to the Deer Mountain Tribal Hatchery & Eagle Center. They had two bald eagles; permanent residents at the hatchery due to injuries that would make them unable to survive in the wild.

There are five types of Northwest Pacific salmon. The largest, king (chinook) can grow up to 40 inches long and weight nearly 22 pounds.

Salmon will return to the stream in which they were raised to spawn. After spawning, they die. The hatchery harvests returning fish, and also breed a new "generation" of baby salmon which are released in local streams.

When returning "home" to spawn, salmon show amazing strength travelling upstream. Many will "jump" up fish ladders (or small waterfalls, in the wild) to reach their final home streams.

Back on the ship: ventriloquest for nightly entertainment. Each major performance had two show times, one earlier show for the late dining seating, and one later show for the early seating.

Itza birthday!

Here's a picture of my (kind of messy) stateroom. The closets are on the left where the jackets are hanging. Across from it is the bathroom. What you don't see is the two single beds (where the photo is being taken).

Our final destination was Victoria, British Columbia. We were only here for a short half day (afternoon-night).

With so little time, my family decided to take it easy and we just walked along the pier and in to downtown to wander the streets.

Overall, Alaska was a fun trip but not my favorite: I'm more of a sunshine and colorful scenery person :) Cruising Alaska is advantageous because you get to access a lot of Inner Passage regions that you can't reach by land.

Thanks for making it through this photo tour. Hope you enjoyed the photos!