Seward Alaska is a great place but extremely expensive

After yesterdays drive to Anchorage, which as reported earlier was magnificent, we had pre booked a cruise to the National Park which was departing at 11.30 for six hours but first some things to do.
The cruise indicated that food in the disguise of a chicken wrap would be provided as part of  an inclusive lunch package but with things you can never tell what else is in the wrap and so we went to the local Safeway Store for Noel to get a hand made sandwich which ensures he knows what in it and then on to the Fuel Station to fill up the tank on the Toyota Camry that we had from Hertz rental which was necessary before returning it. We filled the gas tank, as they say here in America for the grand total of US$ 19.50 which is about £ 15.00 so fuel here is still dirt cheap as we have covered over 250 miles in the car without pushing the accelerator pedal to much. We then returned the the car and we knew it would be expensive and it fact its been the most expensive car rental that we have ever encountered as 24 hours and covering 250 miles cost USD 245.00 or roughly £ 200.00 which is frightening to say the least. Unfortunately everything in Seward is expensive like hell!!!
Last night we had a mediocre meal for about £ 125.00 and tips here are suggested as 15/20/25/30%%%% what!!! but we gave 20% which we thought was enough but got stabbed in the back, metaphorically speaking, as we left the restaurant. Anyway back to today.

Then on to the cruise which was on a quite a large boat and it was a very nice catamaran  with sightseeing potential and off we went for our six hour cruise to see the local wildlife which I thought would be Whales and Dolphins etc but the first thing they showed us was a mountain Goat and some Ducks, so I was getting a bit worried that this might turn out to be a bit of a dud cruise but things changed dramatically the longer we went on.

We then carried on deeper in to the Kenai Fjords National Park and lo and behold there basking in the sunshine was the Seabourn Sojourn looking at the Aialik Glacier together with a number of people in the Zodiac rubber boats and also in canoes. However our metal hulled catamaran was able to get up really close and we were very able to get some really good photos. Then on to see some seals which were enjoying the sun on a large rock and also a few Dall’s porpoises which sometimes followed the boat but not on this occasions they were not interested as they were watching Chelsea beat Arsenal.
We then came across some Hump Back Whales which are always difficult to photograph as you never know where they will come up and when, and so you have to be on your guard and holding the camera like a gun ready to fire so as to ensure that you can get a photos which we did eventually. We also saw quite a few birds and tufted ducks before returning to Seward Harbour at 17.30 and then we headed back to the Hotel on take stock on what to do next. 
We also saw the Seaborne Sojourn our recent cruise ship which had left Seward and now up at the Glacier with the Zodiacs out.
We were both quiet tired with all the sea air and standing with a moving and swaying boat, not good for Noels knees.
The choice of restaurant was limited either due to location and/or they were closed on Wednesday and so went next door to a place called Chinooks which was quite busy and had a much better atmosphere than last night in Rays Steak and Fish restaurant and we enjoyed the experience whilst looking at all the boats in the Dock, and it was half the price of yesterday which cant be bad.
I am writing this blog and its 21.30 and slowly, very very slowly uploading the photos from the past week to our SmugMug online photo album but its painfully slow. Out home internet provides an upload spead of around 50 megabits per second  but this this is less than 0.5 a megabit and so at home I would upload 20 photos in a minutes this is the reverse. Oh well will keep my busy for a while and I still have tomorrow morning as well but this does not take into consideration the hundreds of photos taken during the past week. So hope to finish by Christmas and also not of the photos have been adjusted and cropped yet.So much to do and so little time.