Today’s the day I’ve been waiting for…

When I saw the itinerary for the trip, I started searching for excursions, and the ZipRider caught my eye! It’s a single zipline over a mile long and taller than the Empire State Building.

In other words…I WILL ABSOLUTELY DO IT!

Ask anyone in our party: one of the first things we did is visit the excursion desk and purchase this excursion. It was one of the few that could not be purchased beforehand, and I wanted to make sure we could take the plunge. Since we had timed tickets, we had a quick breakfast and headed ashore…but didn’t get very far before seeing more astonishing views!

As you cross the bridge, you enter the first camp with a few walking paths a smokehouse/brewery, the zipline landing area, and a gondola to the second station. We boarded the gondola and caught some of the zipline riders coming in!

Once we got to the second station, we checked in for our ride, put our stuff in a locker, and headed up using the second gondola. Bear in mind that the first gondola was never more than 15-20 feet off of the ground—but the second gondola at one point was nearly going STRAIGHT UP! We snapped some spectacular views while not trying to shake the cab very much…

One we made it to the summit, regrouped and waited for our turn. We had a small safety course on wildlife and a short hike to the launch area. They split us off into groups (they can launch 6 at a time), and the first group saddled up to ride down…it was finally “go time”

It. Was. A. Rush!

It took me a minute to recover after coming down. I remember not feeling like I was falling, but more like I’m on a roller coaster. The ride down took about 90 seconds. Our group got split into two, so we went down to the viewing area to see the other two come in for their landing, and then went to get the official photos! (Will be posted later)

We explored Icy Strait Point for awhile longer, including getting a tour at the cannery. We had also thought about making our way to Hoonah, AK (1.5 miles away) but decided to make today a “rest day” because we still had a lot of vacation left. But there was one other thing we had to do today…

Mini golf! ⛳️ (or Putt Putt Golf depending on where you’re from) Our ship as an onboard 9-hole course, and it turned out to be a great way to unwind. We got a little competitive, but had more fun commentating the others’ shots. Owen walked away with the win in 1st place 🥇 with 22 strokes.

I had also been wondering about the dessert for tonight. Last night was a good effort but just wasn’t for me. So for tonight they had asked me which desserts I liked if I could eat them and they were going to go from there. So when dessert came out I was pleasantly surprised to find crème brûlée that WAS dairy free! The consistency itself was a little off but I honestly thought it tasted better than dairy-included crème brûlée.