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Ketchikan

Ketchikan is at the southern end of the Inside Passage. It gets a huge amount of rain, my first day had nice weather but it poured all the next day. But that also means the Ketchikan is very green and lush. My time in town was spent in two touristy areas, Creek Street and the area next to where the cruise ships dock, which has tons of gift shops. Creek Street is the home of Soho Coho, a gift shop I liked with a lot of fish related items.

The New York Hotel was my favorite hotel in Alaska. It has attractive rooms with dark stained woodwork, including wainscoting in the bathrooms. The rooms have digital cable TV (including digital music stations). The first night I stayed in a room facing the street, and it was a little too noisy for me. I asked to switch rooms and got a quiet room in the back. All rooms are non-smoking and are on the second floor, up a steep set of stairs. The New York Hotel also has a restaurant with good food. The hotel is right next to Creek Street.

I took a boat tour to Misty Fjords National Monument with Goldbelt Tours. Misty Fjords is beautiful but I was not happy with Goldbelt Tours. We toured Misty Fjords and then many passengers got off and flew back, while passengers who had flown in boarded the boat. The tour operators then repeated the tour for the new passengers heading back to Ketchikan. So those of us who were on the boat the whole time got to hear the same spiel and jokes for a second time. No matter how beautiful the scenery is, that just makes the 6 1/2 hour tour feel really long.

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