Well hey everyone – welcome to Day 6 of our Alaskan adventure!
And what a day Day 6 was, man.
Day 6 was probably our most jam-packed port day of the trip. So many activities.
But hey, look today isn’t just all laughs and rainbows and puppies and what not. We deal with some real adversity today, y’all. Both geniculately and technologically.
Yeah man – geniculately. It means “relating to the knee.”
Dang. I’ve said too much.
Just read the post!
Our “It’s my birthday” 2026 Alaskan Trip – Day 6
This picture right here.
Yeah, it’s pretty and what not. Obvs squad.
But also? Also, this picture above there was taken at 5AM Alaska time.
And what does this mean, boys and girls?
It means once again, we were up…say it with me.
EARRRRRRRLY.
Yah it was early. But whatevz. Day 6 was another port day. And this port day was chock full o’ fun so we didn’t wanna miss a minute of it.
Today was Juneau Day. Which meant we would be IN PORT at like 6AM. And like, we weren’t the ONLY ones up early. Larissa was also up and she got took a walk down to the 24/7 International Café to grab us some – again – Salted Caramel Swirls and donuts.
Which we enjoyed as we watched the scenery pass and we rolled into port. Look. LOOK AT THE SCENERY.
I know. That was a lot of pictures of scenery. But whatever you guys. Shizz was pretty. And regardless? It’s my blog.
And right, today was gonna be a BUSY day. Donuts would only get us so far. So we needed to prepare. And in that spirit, we did put a pretty big order in alllllll the breakfast on our little door hanger thing the night before.
Like, literally.
I ate so many of those breakfast sandwiches this trip. And they were good.
ish
They were good enough.
They were fine.
But look, it wasn’t JUST for us. I mean, we had the Falzones next door AND we told all the kids to come to our room to meet up for breakfast before we headed out for the day.
Mia for example. Mia was there.
See? Not just us. Mia was there.
But I swear. There are more people coming.
I swear.
I have friends.
Annnyway – hey look. Juneau what this is?
You: No, what is it?
Me: Juneau.
You: I don’t actually. What is it.
Me: It’s…Juneau.
You: Come on. What is it?
Me: JUNEAU.
You: OK…let’s try a different tact. In what state is it?
Me: Alaska.
You: You’ll ask who?
Me: (punches you)
Also, as we were pulling in, this totally not-an-omen landed right next to us.
Right though? Totally not an omen. I am sure everything today will go perfectly and no unexpected incidents will occur today at all.
…
…
Ahem.
Look. It’s me and Nickie ready for Juneau.
You: I don’t know. Ready for what?
Sigh.
Ooh boy though. I just can’t stop with today. It was kind of magnificent.
And hey look you guys. I told you I had friends.
Like look, Myles and Hannah showed up.
Oh and look here – it’s Mia again. And Myles and Hannah again. But this time? Also Liam and Owen.
Liam.
Oh hey, btw? Today was Liam’s birthday you guys. Like his legit actual birthday. And we had tons o’ fun crap planned. So like, get excited Liam.
There you go.
Happy birthday buddy.
Also today was M&M Day.
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Oh you don’t know what M&M Day is? It’s a day where Myles, Owen, and Liam wear the M&M shirts they bought in New York but wear them in Alaska.
Those M&M’s sure do have personalities. Poor Orange. Always so nervous. And I mean Red is so full of himself, right? And Blue? Pfft…he’s also so full of himself?
I love how fleshed out and real these characters have become.
And those weren’t all the friends either. Look here. It’s Tony and Larissa. AND MIA AGAIN.
She’s like friends with everyone.
That was taken just before we got off the ship. Oh and btw – that picture? It’s totally illegal. The ship DID NOT want me to take it on account of they would rather charge us for memories. Well jokes on you Princess because my package already includes your pictures. But I’m stilllll using my iPhone.
I know. Bad ass.
We had all kinds of activities planned for today but we had a little bit of time to kill before our bus picked us up out in the main thoroughfare there in Juneau so we walked across the street to the Alaska Shirt Company to check out some nifty gifties.
I may have picked up a little something for Liam there too. On account of what today was.
Yeah. M&M Day.
Oh no wait. Sorry. Liam’s birthday. Right. And yes, I did pick something up but y’all will have to wait for a bit to see it.
Our bus arrived a little after 9:00AM. And I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about what we had planned for today. We had booked a combination Whale Watch / Mendenhall Glacier / Nugget Falls through Viatour which like, exciting right?
So right – we were on the bus a little after 9AM and on our way.
Look at us. On our way.
It was a nice ride, as I assume most of the rides in Juneau are.
Fun fact? One can reach Juneau only by boat or plane. Or like by bear maybe?
But the city has no connecting roads leading in or out so you can’t reach it by car. Is what I am saying.
And since we are still on the bus, I do have to mention our bus driver – Jerry. Jerry was, without any hyperbole, one of the most interesting and awesome humans I have ever met. Right away, when we were getting on the bus, I asked him, “oh whats the meal on the flight today” or some stupid Dad nonsense like that because I am terrible at jokes.
And he said he had some candy in his pocket if I wanted some.
It only got better from there. Dude told us about how he was going to the J. Cole concert and how he was buying a tent from Costco but returning it after and how hard it was to meet girls and what it was like living in Juneau and how he crashed a car on his first day of work.
ALL that. Seriously, best bus driver I think of all time.
But let’s get back to the excursion. So for us today, the first part was going to be the whale watch. It varies from tour to tour whether you do the whale watch or Mendenhall first but for us, we were going right out on the water.
And right away, you kind of knew this wasn’t like no Cape Ann whale watch situation.
North Shore MA – where you at?
While other whale watches I have been on have largely been on big ol’ boats with a lot of people, this situation was pretty intimate. Maybe like 20-30 people on here?
Oh look. It’s Mia again.
And Mia and Owen.
And Mia and Tony and Larissa.
So much Mia.
So much You-ah.
So much Us-ah.
And it was a beautiful day out there. The sun was coming out and it was actually like getting warm out on the water.
Pretty quickly we saw our first glimpse of a whale. A humpback was spouting off in the distance there.
And then? We saw the actual whale pop up out of the water.
Which I mean, amazing right? Like could anything be cooler than tha…HOLY CRUD.
From this point on it was like “here a whale, there a whale, everywhere a whale whale.”
Seriously, get ready for a LOT of whale pictures. Because wow. Let’s just do a whale watch dump eh?
I mean this one. Look at this one. It’s legit opening up its mouth.
Unreal. And like they just kept coming.
It was kind of a surreal feeling. Surrounded not only by the incredible Alaskan landscape but these just huge creatures all around us. This was a serious moment of gratitude for me. Like, how lucky are we to be able to experience something like this?
I should also mention our ship and crew were awesome too. Not only did they keep finding whales for us, but they also offered up little facts and tidbits along the way. And look. Here’s Mia (AGAIN) holding a baleen plate they passed around.
The captain took us to another spot next – sort of like a little sheltered lagoon where like I swear – there must have been like 15 humpbacks there.
Our boat also had hot coffee and hot chocolate on board and gave out little snack bags for us filled with things like goldfish crackers and granola bars and applesauce packets and candy. Today was pretty awesome.
At this point.
But things did take a turn at one point.
The guide announced that we were coming up on a buoy where sea lions often liked to hang out and that maybe we would wanna head out on deck to get a better look.
“Eh, let’s stay inside and just look out from the windows,” Nickie said.
To which I replied, “But I mean. Sea lions are so cute though. We should go see them.”
And being the awesome wife she is, she did join me in heading out to the deck. She was in front of me, I was walking behind. And as she stepped up to head out on the deck, her foot caught on the bottom of the door and she took a tumble out onto the metal deck.
She went down pretty hard and banged up her knee something awful. I asked her if I should show you guys the picture and she said you all didn’t knee-d to see that.
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Too soon?
But yeah, she fell pretty hard and hurt her knee.
And her knee wasn’t the only casualty. As she was falling, her arms kind flew out and her phone (the iPhone 17 we had just upgraded to a little over a month ago) flew out into the open ocean.
…
Yeah. Hurt her knee. Dropped her phone.
But I mean. The sea lions were cute.
I can joke about it now, but it was scary actually. And there were tears and what not. I mean, she handled it really well and the ship reacted to it quickly, which helped. They gave her some ice packs and bandages and at least this was kind of at the end of the tour so we were already heading in at that point.
Also, speaking of joking about it – I mean a fall at Mendenhall would have been the better situation. Not only would this have probably resulted in her phone falling on the ground but also I could have thrown in a “Mendenhall? More like Menden-fall” joke.
As we headed back to shore, we talked about what she’d want to do. Find Urgent Care? Figure out her phone situation? Just kind of forget it and move on?
She didn’t want to go to Urgent Care so I Googled “Verizon Store Juneau Alaska” and found one pretty close to Mendenhall Glacier. It was actually on Mendenhall Mall Rd. So yeah, close. And Nickie wanted to get her phone figured out since she had a lot of stuff we needed on there – like stuff for the rest of the trip, the excursions, etc. plus her email and what not.
So when we got off the boat, the plan was to grab an Uber, head to the Verizon store, and get things settled.
But, when we got off, the girl who met us told us the bus driver (JERRY!!!) could drop us off there. Which was super nice.
Though we kind of expected they would take us there after they took the rest of the tour to Mendenhall. When Jerry announced, “looks like y’all are gonna get a look at one of our lovely strip malls” over the speaker, it was a tad uncomfortable.
The rest of our group would continue on to Mendenhall and we could just meet them after. Larissa and Tony promised to take pictures for us of the glacier and they definitely did. Like, look. Look how nice Mendenhall was.
They arrived at Mendenhall and took the 1.5 mile walk out to Nugget Falls too!
But hey, I mean. We had this.
A carpeted strip mall? We don’t have these in Massachusetts. Amirite?
I’ll spare you the details, but just know we got a new phone. Buying out Nickie’s old contract was very expensive but as of right now, she still has the same phone we got in Juneau, like 3 months later. So things are looking up.
I will say the people working at the Verizon store were VERY nice and helpful and we did get a lot of pity looks so that was nice.
Oh. AND we saw an orca!! And a lion actually.
So not a total loss.
After we settled all her phone stuff up, we ordered up an Uber to get us over to Mendenhall to meet back up with the rest of our tour group. Oh lol and on the way there? The driver asked me if I was going to “the barbecue” later. To which I responded, “I don’t think so but also what is that?” And he said he thought I looked like a local so was assuming I would be going to their local barbecue situation.
At the time, I thought maybe it was because of my beard or because I look really cool. But now, I am kind of thinking he must have thought this on account of we were being picked up at a strip mall and like…that’s not on the list of must-do’s for tourists in Juneau.
But wait look. We did get to see Mendenhall Glacier. So get ready for more pictures that look like the pictures you already saw.
But you know – this time with me and Nickie.
The rest of the crew were off on their walk so we took a short little walk down to the beach to get a better look at the glacier and Nugget Falls off in the distance.
And then we walked on up to the Visitor’s Center to wait for everyone else. And up in the Visitor’s Center, there were these ginormo windows that gave us some really breathtaking views.
And eventually, everyone came back and we were all back together again. Yay. For friends.
Mendenhall? More like Mendenh-all-of-us-are-back-together-again.
Yeah eh. I like that one the best.
And this also meant we could get back on the bus and get a free ride back to port.
Oh. And it meant more Jerry. He kind of re-told his whole story about getting a tent from Costco again. But dude was a great storyteller. I mean, Liam was still enthralled for sure.
Overall, though – what an incredible excursion. The whale watch was insane. Growing up in the Northeast and taking whale watches out of Gloucester, MA or Cape Cod, we had no idea what we were in for. On the whale watches around here, you are lucky to see like 5 whales and like – even when you do, you’re fighting for a view with like 100 people.
This boat was so much more intimate and we saw SO MANY whales. Awesome stuff.
And everyone loved the Mendenhall Glacier/Nugget Falls part too. The walk out to the falls was something the boys said was one of their favorite parts of the trip. I know Nickie and I didn’t get to experience as much of Mendenhall as we wanted to, but even what we did see was beautiful.
And the staff was awesome – from (obvs) Jerry to our on-board crew to everyone that helped us get to a Verizon store. I highly HIGHLY recommend this excursion. I mean, Nickie hurt her knee AND lost her phone and she still said this was her favorite day. That’s gotta mean something.
Anyway – back to the trip.
Mamma mia. We’re back at the ship!
Just to sort of ground things a little bit, I should mention at this point it was like 3PM? And we hadn’t actually had any lunch so once we were on the ship, a bunch of us headed straight up to Deck 16 (the Lido deck) to grab some food.
I couldn’t decide between a hot dog at the Salty Dog Grill or a pizza at Slice.
Pizza. Hot dog.
Hot dog. Pizza.
I was in a pickle.
Good call, Jason Segel.
First, I put my order in for a Reuben Dog (topped with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing) with Chili Cheese Fries.
And then I walked next door and grabbed a slice of Pepperoni.
And both was deffo the right call because they were both real good. It’s wild how good the food was up on the pool deck. Gun to my head, I think I’d go with the Reuben Dog but that pizza from Slice was nothing to sneeze at.
Unless like you put a lot of pepper on it or something.
…
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Because pepper makes you sneeze.
After I finished my two lunches, we also walked over to Swirls Ice Cream on the same deck to try and cram more food down my throat. Spoiler alert – it wasn’t an issue.
I got a soft-serve Chocolate/Vanilla twist with sprinkles.
And all that – the hot dog, the fries, the pizza, the ice cream – all that was included with our cruise fare.
What a time to be alive.
Like I said, this was at like 3 PM. I say this because I want to be very clear on the time here. Why? Oh well so my next set of pictures kind of begin at 5PM. And like – these are all chronicling basically our next meal.
But you know. It had been like two hours you guys.
And our next meal? It was off the ship.
Yeah, we were heading back into Juneau. Which is good. Because I don’t think I could bear it if I didn’t get this pic.
And our dinner wasn’t just like, “oh hey we are normal people and just going to a restaurant now to eat.” No no. This thing was special. Tonight, we were going to the Gold Creek Salmon Bake!
This thing was sort of like an excursion unto itself. It required a whole other bus. And like, this was sort of a crazy ordeal situation. So ok – a few of us, because of our package, had an excursion credit that covered this Salmon Bake. Which meant we were basically booking this through Princess. However, some others did not have that credit so we had to book through the excursion provider itself. We were worried this would make things a little complicated but Nickie did call ahead and say we were all together to try and mitigate the whole thing.
Mitigated it was not.
We essentially walked back to the spot where we picked up our bus for our whale watch/Mendenhall excursion earlier (right outside the Alaska Shirt Co.). And when we checked in with the provider and showed him our tickets, he said those that booked directly through the excursion were being picked up here but those that booked through Princess were being picked up back basically where you got off the ship.
Sooooo…not only were we all not going to be on the same bus over, but a few of us (myself included) had to volunteer to run back to the other bus to catch it before it left because this bus? It was full.
So yeah pro tip – if you book through Princess you know…don’t walk to the Alaska Shirt Co. Cuz you’ll be shirt out of luck if you do.
But whatevz…we were all going to the same place and we could all hop on the same bus coming back since those weren’t really designated.
To the Salmon Bake!!
The ride itself took about 10 minutes or so since the site is about 4 miles away from the cruise ship dock.
So by like 5:10? We were here!
And check this spot out, man. It’s like in the middle of this wooded area, situated right next to a stream. Picturesque AF.
Speaking of picturesque AF.
I think the fish is my favorite because it looks like Owen is actually bursting out of the fishes body like in Alien rather than being its face. Memories.
As you enter the grounds, you right away are offered food things. Over to your left is a Clam Chowder stand.
Where they just like hand you these little cups of clam chowder just for walking over there. I mean, love it.
And now I know what we are doing for the kids coming to our door this Halloween.
Just past that is the bar. Er sorry. The Gold Strike Saloon.
Alcohol wasn’t included in the excursion price. But that’s never stopped us before.
And to the right, directly across from the bar, is where they cook all the salmon.
Salmon, roasting on an open fire
Fish bones tearing up your throat.
Well not really. My throat was fine. But some people did notice some tiny bones in their fish so like…be careful kids. Cuz fish have bones. So.
I also don’t know if you saw beyond that salmon there but the rest of the food is laid out buffet style – ribs, beans, cheesy potatoes, a bunch of salads, rice pilaf, and desserts like wild blueberry cake.
And beyond that, next to the gift shop was a beverage station with Lemonade, Coffee, Hot Cocoa, Tea. And all that was included in your excursion price.
We grabbed a table right by the stream and went up to fill our plates. Here’s what mine looked like post-fill.
I got some Salmon up in there, some Ribs, Cornbread, Salad for some reason, Rice Pilaf, and those Cheesy Potatoes they had going on.
And yeah, I kind of liked everything here. The cheesy potatoes were a standout but both the ribs and salmon were really good. Even though they did have it covered in a sweet glaze, the salmon was still lacking a little flavor. But thankfully, they had some of this situation at the table.
But yeah, really good food. And the setting was like, oh hey I am Alaska.
I mean, not only were we in the middle of the woods by a cold stream eating salmon like some sort of bear-folk, but look at what perched in the tree right near our table.
Ha. Whoops. Sorry. Wrong eagle.
This one.
Cool, right? And right next to THAT eagle was this dude.
Which Google Gemini told us is an immature bald eagle. And I mean, Gemini was 100% right. This troublemaker kept like spitting spitballs at us and calling us poopheads.
Pfft. So immature.
So neat to see though – and who knows, maybe that was a parent and its offspring hanging out together. Like us. I was a parent hanging out with MY offspring. And? My offspring? Very immature.
After we finished eating, I pulled Liam’s birthday surprise I picked up earlier today out of my backpack, lit it, and slid it over to him while he wasn’t looking.
Pfft, of course we sang “Happy Birthday.” But look you guys, it was a birthday Rice Krispie treat. Thing even came with the candle.
Aw. Happy birthday buddy.
The experience wasn’t quite over just yet, even though the meal was. On account of there was this path leading into the woods.
Into the woods to grandmother’s house!
Into the woods to grandmother’s house!
Right guys. Into the Woods? Good reference, right?
Whatever. Here’s the path.
And like, as far as paths go, this was a pretty cool path.
Not only was it all along the aforementioned stream.
Or is this a creek?
Brook?
This thing.
Oh you don’t see it? It’s right behind Mia.
But right, not just the Streak/brook/creek. Look at this situation. You could pan for gold.
Which I did. And came up empty-handed. But I have people that love me. So that makes me the richest person in the world.
Well. I guess people with BOTH money and people that love them are probably better off than me. But still. It’s not too bad.
And there were MORE EAGLES.
Or I dunno. Maybe it was the same eagle. I can never tell them apart. I’m not very eagle-eyed.
And at the end of the path were two things!
TWO!
One was off to the right. And it was mine.
Sorry. No. A mine. It was a closed down mine. Spookytown.
And off to the left was a waterfall!
TLC was wrong, man. Chasing this thing turned out alright.
And I mean, if you guys haven’t realized yet, we love pictures of ourselves in front of waterfalls.
You don’t even know what it’s taking for me to post a picture of me smiling with teeth up there.
I’m legit evolving.
The whole experience tonight was a really nice way to end our day in Juneau. The meal was good overall. I mean, look, it wasn’t like French Laundry or whatever, but it was all really tasty and there was definitely a lot of it. Plus, you could not beat that setting. It was pretty awesome stuff, Juneau what I mean?
We left at around 6:30PM.
And hopped on our school bus back.
BTW – our school bus driver? A little bit of a disappointment. I mean, oh don’t get me wrong. She was super nice and I liked her a lot. But she didn’t drink or smoke or even tell dirty jokes.
Needless to say, I didn’t even give one cheer.
When we got back into the center of town, we had one more Juneau stop before getting back on the ship – The Red Dog Saloon.
We all had one drink in mind but when we got there, the wait looked SUPER long to get in. Thankfully, they had an outdoor shot bar for occasions such as these.
The drink we came here for was the famous Duck Fart shot. Made with equal parts Kahlua, Bailey’s, and Crown Royal Whiskey, it brings A TON o’folks to the Red Dog. We made our way up to the bar and ordered 6 total.
I swear that picture doesn’t do that dude justice. He was happier than he looks here.
But yeah, we all grabbed our shots, did our three quacks (as is tradition) and threw em back. And they were real tasty. Tastier than a lot of other farts I’ve had.
Speaking of tasty, I was just on the Red Dog saloon and I dunno – while I think being rated #1 for nightlife in Juneau is def a great thing, I’m not 100% these unfiltered reviews are doing you guys a ton of good.
That person is so excited about their food poisoning.
Wait. Did I say one more stop before the ship? Well pfft. Obviously I didn’t realize they had fudge.
Of course we stopped in at The Alaskan Fudge Co.. We aren’t made of stone you know. I don’t have any pictures of the actual fudge here but I will say – if you find yourself there and you’re trying to decide between the Peanut Butter and the Chocolate Peanut Butter, both are good. But if you had to choose, go with the Chocolate Peanut Butter on account of its chocolate fudge with actual peanut butter instead of peanut butter flavored fudge.
Game-changer.
Fudge in hand, we headed back to the ship and were back on board by around 7:30. And oddly, when we got on, they were handing these out.
That there is a straight-up cup of chicken broth.
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Of course I took it. It was free.
But it was uh…well…I didn’t finish it. Is what I am saying to you now.
Also? That’s the last picture I have from Juneau day. And like, I know that isn’t the end of the night for us. I am almost positive we went to karaoke and I sang “Purple Rain” tonight. It’s so weird I have no pictures of it.
It’s less weird I don’t have videos of it.
But yeah, I am pretty sure me, Myles, Liam, Owen, Tony, and Mia went to karaoke tonight while everyone else got settled in and went to bed a little early (since it was a lonnnng day). I just don’t have any pictures of it for some reason. But it was a lot like this…
Anyway – yah, that was Day 6 you guys. Pretty epic right? I mean, kind of a roller coaster of a day but it’s def one I won’t ever forget.
I guess I’ll see you guys on Day 7!
Last post – Day 5!
