We have survived our journey home -- docked in Seward Monday morning, about a 3 hour bus ride to Anchorage (traffic backup), about 3 hours waiting for plane to Seattle, and finally wheels up in Seattle again at 11:45 p.m. before finally, finally, landing in Boston at 8 a.m. Tuesday. I had no sleep, plus I don't think I've seen a sunset since embarking from Vancouver.
Have you seen the Sandra Bullock movie, "The Proposal?" The one where she tries to force her assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her so she can get American citizenship, leading to wacky hi-jinks in Sitka, Alaska where the sun apparently never sets? Yes. You need those blackout curtains. Yes. Night does look like day (I can't say how late, but I swear that final night, it was still bright after 11 p.m.
(In any case, "The Proposal" is also in constant rotation on the ship's romance channel if you find yourself sick in bed on your cruise. That would be me, blearily calling at my husband "that's not Alaska, where we are! That's Rockport, where we used to be!")
We haven't been on a cruise since 2017, when we cruised Hawaii on the Pride of America. That was an amazing experience, and hard to top and it was also the last vacation we took, period.
DH and I are in our mid-50s. Since 2017, we've put two kids through college (without debt thanks to the combination of saving since their births and very smart kids who earned merit scholarships and, yes, graduated with job offers). I also was laid off from my news job -- my third layoff in a decade. And did I mention the pandemic?
I ended up finally landing the perfect job late last summer and to celebrate, we booked this cruise! We, ah, spent a long time during the pandemic looking at Norwegian cruise brochures. We picked the Jewel because it didn't have a race track on top (it just seemed inappropriate around glaciers?) AND it left on June 12 -- my 56th birthday.
So what happens when you have a birthday during your cruise? Something sweet arrives out of the blue while you're unpacking.
Let's talk about the room. We had 10120, a balcony cabin, midship. Not a lot of room for storage. There are two small closets, each with a single shelf. There's a desk, which holds the hair dryer (solidly inside the top drawer, cannot be removed) and two desky drawers. This is a room that calls for magnet hooks, which we put everywhere.
And we definitely overpacked. Temps all week were in the high 40s, low 60s. We needed the rain gear, not so much the winter coats and Bean boots. My best option on excursions were leggings under these water-repellant hiking pants I bought on a whim during one of those late night Amazon binges, which was really comfortable and not overly warm. And we only dressed up for dinner on one night.
I'll tell you about the other birthday surprise tomorrow. It involved a gift of underwear, seaweed, giant mylar blankets, and a really festive hairstyle.