August 22, ,2026
We got up just after 4:00am and finished our packing of toiletries and getting the pets ready to be looked after. We left the house around 5:00 for our 7:00 flight to Seattle. We made it through security with TSA pre check quickly and made it to the gate around 6:30 as they were starting to board. The flight was about 4 and a half hours. We had just enough time to disembark and for Nikki to grab a coffee before we boarded our next flight. We then taxied to the runway and were pulled out of line and sat for 30 minutes. When we landed in Vancouver we waited for our luggage and only 2 of the 3 bags arrived. Had to spend about 45 minutes reporting our lost baggage before we could take a Lyft from the airport to Hotel Belmont. There was an adorable baby boy with natural pompadour hair, absolutely adorable. The room was small but very nice and very expensive. We were so tired from leaving early and the flights, we needed a nap to recharge a bit for the coming hikes, along with the 3 hour time change. Got up and took a Lyft to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. We left Vancouver and crossed the bridge into North Vancouver. Drove through absolutely gorgeous Stanley Park. So many amazing and absolutely massive Douglass Fir trees, many covered in moss. If we had more time, Stanley Park would definitely be a destination. Would have been wonderful to bike through its trails. On this drive, we went from Skyscrapers to 200 foot tall Douglas fir trees almost immediately. We would like to wander through there if we ever make it back. The scenic views were amazing at Capilano. The large suspension bridge does sway a lot and anyone afraid of heights or gets motion sickness may not like this adventure. There were people of all nationalities, but the family hiking in front of us were Italian. Listening to their kids exclaiming in wonder in Italiano was fun. After the park we ran to Walmart to get me a pair of long pants as my luggage updates said they still couldn’t find my bag and all my pants were in that suitcase.
August 23, 2026 – Embarkation
We were still on east coast time as we were both awake at 3:00 local time. They still can’t seem to find our lost luggage. We’ve started setting up our cruise itinerary for when we are on the ship. We took showers and inventory of what we had and what we were going to have to do without. Luckily the bags with essentials made it and the one that didn’t make it was mostly camera, binoculars, rain gear and jeans. We had the buffet breakfast next door at Shamrocks that was included with our room. The breakfast was good and the lady attending, who was Irish, sang to the music playing in the background. Reminded us of last years trip to Ireland and people singing on the streets after the bar. Except she was actually good and not drunk. We went to the cruise terminal around 10:30 and were on the ship by 11:00. We went to the customer relations desk to see if we could get a cheap upgrade, but the ship was fully booked. We then went to our room to drop off our luggage in the room and met our cabin steward, Bhutra, then headed to our mister station for the mandatory emergency training. We then explored the Celebrity Solstice for a bit and had lunch at the buffet. About 1:30 we got a text that our missing luggage was found and just arrived in Vancouver. The plank dropped at 3:00 so we weren’t sure if our luggage was going to make it on board. We checked just before 3:00 at customer relations but they didn’t know if our luggage made it on board. They called several people and never got an answer if it made it on the ship. We went to the upper decks and got an alcoholic drink and wanted to watch the embarkation when we sailed under the bridge. It was fun watching the sea planes take off from the sea base terminal next door. We sailed away about 30 minutes late and were surprised how close the ship got to the underside of the bridge. We went back to our cabin and were surprised to find our large luggage ourside our door. So, it had made it on the ship afterall and we did have all our camera gear with us. We explored the ship a bit and ended up taking a nap before having dinner and watching our evening entertainment in the celebrity theater with comedian Sam Fedele before heading to bed.
Monday August 24 – Day at Sea
We were up before 4:00 and slowly got around and headed to find Nikki some coffee around 5:00 in the Oceanside Cafe. We headed back to the room and Nikki drank her coffee and then we headed for breakfast at 6:30 when they opened. We watched an informative. Presentation on our ports of call and then headed back to the room before heading out to lunch. The fog had rolled in and we couldn’t see much for a better part of the afternoon and evening. We took a nap and it clear up when we woke up in time to get ready for dinner. We ate in the main dining room and dinner was excellent. We the. Headed straight to the show Smoke and Ivories which was probably the best show we have seen on any cruise ship. We stopped up picked up diet cokes for me in the morning for my caffeine and then headed back to the room to go to bed in preparation for our fjord cruise tomorrow morning and day at Icy Straight Point.
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 – Icy Straight point
We woke up early again around 4:15 and the ship was just heading into the fjord to take us to Icy Straight Point. As it got more light and between the intermittent fog the views were spectacular. We got breakfast at 6:30 and walked around watching the fjords. We saw some whales from a far distance through binoculars and setup our day backpack. We watched an excursion enrichment talk by Natalie Tan on the Hubbard Glacier that we are going to see tomorrow. We had lunch as they were docking the ship and we got Goff the ship and took the red gondola up to the top of the mountain. The views were spectacular. At that point I figured out I left my phone on the bed on the ship on the charger. We then took a hike to the hidden lake at the top of the mountain and then hiked back to the gondola to ride it down and head back to the ship before our next excursion. We only stayed on the ship for about 15 minutes and then headed back out to catch our 3:45 bear watching excirsion. We drove about an hour to the spankes river and then walked about an hour and saw lots of spawning salmon, but no grizzly bears. We got back to the ship around 7:30 and ate and then went and saw Alexa Jayne who sang a number of famous pop songs. She had a great voice and was high energy. We then caught the adult Sam Fedele show before heading to bed.
Wednesday August 26, 2026 – Cruising Hubbard glacier.
We were up early again and got breakfast and then watched from our veranda as we cruised up Yukatat bay(?) and then disenchantment bay towards Hubbard Glacier. We went up to the helipad they opened for guests as we sailed up towards the glacier. It was very cold and windy up there and we didn’t stay up there long. The glacier was very inpressive and the great weather allowed us to get much closer than expected. We saw and heard the glacier calving into the bay and the weather was perfect and allowed our ship to get right up close to the glacier. We then went to another enrichment talk with Natalie Tan about humpback whales then went to lunch. We watched us sail back out of the bay into the North Pacific and then took a nap before watching a show called A Night of Broadway. Another great show by Celebrity. We went to get dinner and then some downtime before our late night game show Love and Marriage starting at 10:15 (2:30am our time!). We ended up falling asleep just before 10 because we are old and tired!
Thursday – August 27, 2026 – Juneau
We woke up at 4:45 and took our time enjoying the scenery as we were back in the fjords and getting ready for the 6:30 breakfast. We went and had breakfast and then had to finish getting our daypacks ready for our excursion today of whale watching at 7:30. We took a bus for about a 30 minute drive and to the harbor where our boat, Seeker, and captain Scott were waiting for us. Our guide was Corbin who was studying biology at the local university. We saw lots of humpback whales and were able to identify a couple of them including Flame, Barnacle and Kelp. Corbin was doing a research project for the university and we ended up checking one of crap pots looking for an invasive species of crab, the European Green Crab. Instead we found a pacific staghorn sculpin, a sea urchin, an oyster and a sunflower star. After the tour we were bussed back to Juneau and did some window shopping before heading back to the Celebrity Solestice for lunch and a nap. We took showers and headed to our nightly show, Jeremy Tan, who was able to read minds and didn’t miss a single thing. The most amazing part was when he had the audience mix a rubix cube and studied it for 1 minute and was able to solve it in 30 seconds with one hand and blindfolded. We then went to dinner and then walked around a bit and then headed to bed.
Friday – April 28,2026 Ketchikan
We got up late about 5:30am and went out on the veranda and saw some more whales from a distance. We setup the go pro and headed to breakfast but stopped on deck to view more whales from deck 14. We then had breakfast and got ready to head out and catch the talk Know Before You Go on Ketchikan. It was helpful and gave us a game plan in Ketchikan since we did not book an excursion. We then attended the Naturalist Nat’s talk on How I survived a bear Encounter. We got lunch and then headed to the room to pack a backpack to take with us on shore. We docked and headed off the ship to begin exploring. We hiked the streets and paths around Ketchikan and saw Creek Street and the salmon running the creek. The number of salmon and the difficulty of some of the rapids surprised us the further we got up how many fish were able to make it that far. We did a little shopping and got Nikki a native carved whale tail pendent out of wooly mammoth ivory. We also picked up native painted postcards. Our goal was to help the Alaska economy and indigenous people, but both things we purchased were gorgeous. We then headed back to the ship after our two hour walk and had lobster dinner in the main dining room. We set our alarms to check out the northern lights. We could barely see them on the horizon and that was all the better they got.
Saturday – August 29, 2026 – Day at Sea
Today is our day at sea heading back to Vancouver. We started by wishing Shane a happy birthday! We had breakfast and then showered and watched a Nat Talk on photographing wildlife. We then watched the matinee show of Jeremy Tan and he showed a number of tricks and even explained what he was doing and had a camera on him projected to the big screen and we could never make out what he was doing real time. His card stacking skills are absolutely amazing. We then had a late lunch and then a nap. We watched the scenery for our balcony during the inside passage. We saw more whales again and ended up seeing whales 5 of the 7 days. We then went to diner in the dining room and had steak and shrimp. Then we made it to the 7:00 show called Rockumentory and it was amazing as all the shows have been. We got back to our room and packed the large suitcase and prepped it for the crew to have waiting off ship for us. We filled out the required custom forms and went to bed.
Sunday – August 30, 2026 – Disembarkation
We got up and started packing and went to breakfast. After breakfast we finished packing and had to leave the room. We waited about 20 minutes before our number was called to disembark. We picked yp our luggage and then made it through customs. We took a Lyft to the airport and found out we vould not check our luggage for another 6 hours. So we paid to have our luggage stored securely at the airport and took a Lyft back to downtown Vancouver and rented electric bikes. We rode around Stanley Park and then rode to Granville Island before returning the bikes after our 20 mile two hour trip. We took a Lyft back to the airport and got Wendys to eat as that was the best option at the airport. We then picked up our luggage and had to wait 90 minutes before we could even check in. Our flight was 45 minutes late and we only had a 50 minute layover in Seattle. The pilots put the throttle to the firewall and made up some time, but we had to leave the C concourse, take a train to the N concourse and race to our plane that was almost fully boarded by the time we reached the gate. We did make our connection and surprisingly our checked luggage made it as well. We landed in Columbus Monday morning at 4:50am. And made it home just before 7:00am. Nikki tried to get an hour of sleep before heading to work for the day, but the attention deprived animals had other plans.
Things we learned
- Take a whale watching excursion from Vancouver. You are more likely to see Orcas down in Vancouver, at least in August. Check out their migration status.
- Check the salmon run status Late August was a great time to be in Ketchikan
- Prior to cruising see if you can find out who the naturalist is going to be on t he cruise. Follow them on Social Media to get hints and tips. Schedule Enrichment series talks as soon as you board.
- Check for upgrades as soon as you get on the ship at Guest Relations. You can potentially get a cheaper upgrade. Be sure to board early.
- We need wifi on at least one phone for checking things and researching. Try Gig Sky e-sim next time.
- Go pro with tri-pod was great
- Leave the spotting scope at home. Ship movement made it impossible to use.
- Take the following day off. Time zone changes coming home are rough.
- Investigate land package with train to Denali.