Our next Port of Call on the Disney Alaskan cruise was the capital city of Juneau. Surprisingly, only 32,000 people live in Alaska’s second-largest city.

I remember visiting here with my parents. We took a small plane to explore the glaciers. As we took off, the window opened a few inches and my mom screamed. That’s all I remember – nothing else.

Since we hadn’t researched anything until the trip, we quickly decided to visit Mendenhall Glacier, which is 13 miles away. After looking up shore excursion and shuttle costs, we found renting a van with my brother-in-law’s family was the most cost-effective option.

I realized we’ve gotten spoiled in our larger metropolitan cities with choices of car rentals – and cars for that matter. Although the rental center didn’t look like much, a clean minivan awaited us.