Alaska cruise day 2 Ketchikan

We sailed all day and night and woke to find that we had smoothly docked in Ketchikan, Alaska where we had booked a tour of the mistry fiourds and the following pictures are all that was worth showing. Ketchikan is a very small village and apparently has exceedingly high rainfall - not my ideal place to visit.

The only bear we have seen.

There was to much low cloud and mist to take any significant photos.

Cruise To Alaska day 1 boarding the ship

Well we set off for our cruise to Alaska, something we have been looking forward to for a long time as we have heard so much about it from many people.

The image below shows the route and the ports to be visited over the next seven days.

A view of Mount Rainer in the distance, it appears to be floating majestically on its own and is super impressive.

The view of Seattle when approaching downtown, fortunately for us it was a weekend and the road was empty. I have found the traffic in Seattle to be dreadful.

Our first glimpse of the cruise ship taken from the parking garage.

The Norwegian Star is 965 feet long and carries 2348 passengers with 1058 crew.

The main atrium which is five stories high and very impressive.

Our stateroom for the next week on deck five, we paid extra to have the large window and an unobstructed view and it proved to be worth the extra.

We even got a complimentary bottle of red wine.

The forward play area full of swimming pools and hot tubs.

This is a view from the pool deck so it gives you an idea of how high up we are.

Betty was happy to find the library well stocked with books.

The entry to the Stardust Theatre.

Another view of downtown Seattle.



Click the picture to enlarge.



Departing Seattle and on our way to Alaska.

Let the fun begin.

Visit to the Seattle Museum of Flight

Today we took a drive to the Seattle Museum of Flight http://www.museumofflight.org/ which is highly rated and I must say that it is worth the visit, it is a remarkably clean place with a good collection of aviation and space equipment. I was also surprised to see that it includes the original Boeing Aircraft factory timber building with some of the original woodworking equipment that was used to manufacture wooden structured aircraft. Here is a sample of the photos that we took today sorry if aircraft mean nothing to you.

AV-8 Harrier

F-14 Tomcat

Part of the main hall exhibit.




Betty in front of a Ford Tri-motor

 



The original Boeing Aircraft Co. building where wooden aircraft were built.

Concord

Concord cockpit showing it's vintage.

The new Boeing 747-8 returning from a test flight.

The first Air Force One jet aircraft - a Boeing 707.

Tomorrow we board our ship Norwegian Star for our seven day Alaskan cruise which we have really been looking forward to.

Visit to Boeing

Today we visited the Boeing Aircraft Co Future of Flight Aviation Centre, at Everett, WA which is about a 25 mile drive north of Seattle. http://www.boeing.com/commercial/tours/index.html Unfortunatly they do not allow cameras on the tour so we could not take many photos however it was a very interesting tour during which we were shown the largest single building (by volume) in the world which houses the final assembly of the 747, 767, 777 and the new 787. The 787 is a completly new design of aircraft using carbon fibre in about 80% of its construction.

This aircraft is a modified Boeing 747 that is used to carry large aircraft assemblies from other parts of the world to Boeing for assembly. 

An assortment of new Boeing aircraft awaiting delivery.

The Boeing future of flight hall.

Betty in front of the new Rolls Royce Trent engine for the Boeing 787.

The Beech Starship which was a commercial failure - I do not know why it is in the Boeing collectiom.

Betty beside the new General Electric GE-90 engine which powers the new Boeing 787 airliner.