Planned excursion or winging it?

I don't like to plan. For some people, the research and planning for travel is half the fun. Not me. That's part of the reason we signed up to live on a cruise ship. I want to see the world but I don't want to decide where to go, what to do, and how to get there. Living on board the Villa Vie Odyssey I don't have to do any of that. I Just look out my cabin window and ask. "Where are we?"

Sometimes though, I know we miss things if we don't do a little research and planning. Since July 4 is such a big day for us, we did our due diligence and booked a kayak trip a week or so in advance. It was an absolutely spectacular experience. It was worth the effort.

That was in Ketchikan. By the time we got to Skagway, we almost didn't even get off the ship. But, at breakfast we heard people talking about the "Days of 98" show in town and I decided to check it out. We were able to book tickets for a 10:30am show, so we got dressed and proceeded to get off the ship. When we arrived at the theatre, there were only 6-8 of us in the audience and we were informed that the show would be cancelled but we were welcome to return to the 12:30 or 2:30 shows.
Well, OK, now what? We looked at Google Maps and saw the Gold Rush Cemetery walking distance thru to the other side of town and we said, "Let's go." It was quite a walk and it was threatening to rain, but it held off. We saw the White Pass train go by and enjoyed the scenery. 

We got to the cemetery and it was in a deep forest. Really quite pretty. The trail kept going and soon we were at a waterfall that, I think was one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen. We kept walking around and back thru the cemetery. When we were ready to walk the 1.5 mile back to town we were afraid we would be late to the 12:30 show, but there was a shuttle bus just getting ready to go! Such luck all around this day.

The 12:30 show had a good crowd and the show was fun. It told the story of Soapy Smith the legendary con artist of Skagway. We had seen his headstone at the cemetery, as well as the headstone of Frank Reid who shot him. The audience participation for the show included getting willing women to get up on stage to do the can-can. Guess who?!?! Men got up on stage as well, but they did not do the can-can.

After the show we had lunch at the Skagway brewery. The beer was good, but the food was maybe even better - Jim had a flatbread with crab and artichoke and jalapenos. Chris had a salmon 'rillette' spread that was chunky and delicious served with toasted focaccia.

As we finished our lunch and headed out back towards the ship, it began to rain. We had to wait maybe 10 minutes for a shuttle and we were soon back to the ship.

No amount of planning could have made such a perfect day!