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Well Ketchikan is definitely the the largest port of call that we have been to on this voyage and it is also the last in Alaska as its now a day at sea tomorrow followed by crossing the border into Canada and our final port of Vancouver where we disembark.

The bad news on the ship is that a number of passengers have come down with the NOVO virus so a bad feverish stomach bug type things that has got the ship in a clean down everything state of emergency, When we went to lunch up in the windjammer today you were not allowed to handle any of the serving spoons for selecting your own meal or pick up your own plate or cutlery. They cleaners are even out cleaning the inside of all the sewer pipes. Personally we have seen no sign of anyone being ill but then they are probably holed up inside their cabins.
Heres hoping that neither of us succumb to it!

Anyway back to Ketchikan, well as we said above it is easily the biggest town that we have stopped in and in fact it is a town split in half by a mountain that comes down to the shoreline. They have excavated a single tunnel that joins the two sides of this town and one side of the tunnel is called the old town and the other new town.
Now you would expect with a descriptive name like that the new town would be the far more modern or better kept but in fact it is the complete opposite. The old-town has been fully restored to its all wooden building glory, its just a shame that all the shops are more of the same that we have seen all along the way on this cruise, jewellers shops by the dozen and more Alaskan t-shirts and tat!

The town does however have a significant history and like yesterdays enclave the town is an ancient Tlingit (native american indians)settlement that then became part of the route to the Yukon trail. A large part of the old town is actually built on stilts like boat pontoons as the land itself is so steep and there is little flat land around here. These still rows of buildings are then connected by wooden platforms that cross the steep ground below or the Ketchikan Creek that also flows through the town.

As an important stop of point in the gold rush era the town also has a raunchy history with the area called Creek Street being the place to head for if you fancied a lady for a night or two. There is one famously named raised walkway that took you straight into the heart of Creek Street called Married Mans Trail, a narrow raised pathway that cuts through the trees straight to the red light district and the home of seemingly everyones favourite prostitute, a lady called Molly.

We walked the whole area of the city from the docks up to the city park and the totem museum. Being an ancient Indian area totems are very prevalent here. The totem was actually a mark of respect for an elder that died or someone with high standing within a tribe. They are a gravestone for want of a better explanation. The totem is then made up out of symbols that acknowledge the family that they have left behind so like a son or daughter would be symbolized in some form depending on their spiritual name. If you remember form all those cowboy and indian films you may have watched growing up Indians always seemed to have glamourous adventurous sounding names such as Eagle Eye or Little Horse, well these would be your totem symbol so an eagle or a horse etc etc.

Crossing through the tunnel into the area known as Newtown you really got the feeling that this town has got its new and old the wrong way round. This was a really run down area with the shoreline underneath the stilt houses being littered with rubbish and resembling junk yards. Old outboard engines would lay flat in the tidal muds and old car parts would be stacked high, you would really thin that with all the cruise ship visitors that came here to Ketchikan they would do something about it to make the town more attractive. Today there were four ships in (two from Royal Caribbean, one from Princess Cruises and one from Holland America) bringing at least 12,000 tourists in for the day.

With the city explored we headed back to the boat and the deep clean programme taking place on board.

With a whole afternoon to kill we both settled down in the cabin to read and play scrabble and solitaire. This unfortunately did not hold our attention for too long so we ventured off out into the ship for another tour around so see if we had missed anything. The weather in Ketchikan had not been what it had all week, it was now actually getting cold and there was a breeze that cut through you so when we went out onto deck thirteen to look at the rock climbing wall and the pitch and putt course it was no surprise that there was nobody out there.

We did not stay outside for long and it was just too blowy so back inside we headed for the crown and anchor club (Royal Caribbean's frequent cruisers club room) where you can look through all their latest brochures and plan where you might want to cruise next with them. What we did not know is that Royal Caribbean actually have three grades of boat. We knew that they have two as in Royal Caribbean and Celebrity but we were not aware of thee luxury brand Azamara, you can cruise with them for just under a year!!!

We had decided yesterday that we were going to try one of the speciality restaurants on board and tonight we were going to Ritas Cantina, a casual mexican menu. Unfortunately as the weather was actually quite cold it was a little nippy out on the half closed in deck where we ate but the food and the service was great so worth the $20 that we paid for food. We had nachos and the the yummiest guacamole and shrimp tacos and were actually totally full after what they called two smaller plates (we did stuff ourself with the free nachos that arrived before our plates though). After dinner we went down to the Schooner Bar to listen to the Rosario Strings over a beer. Trevor was desperate to hear them play On My Own from Les Miserables but alas they played a few Andrew Lloyd Numbers but not On My Own.

The Rosario Strings are a musical duo made of an extremely talented classical guitar player and one violin and they do sound great and a nice escape from some of the retro 70's music being played nearly everywhere else on board.

The ships clocks go forward an hour tonight as we cross into Canadian waters so at just before midnight we retired to our cabin and bed. A day at see tomorrow so I think that its going to be a long day..

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