First Cruise

We are taking our first ever cruise as we transition into retirement. We'll take a Holland America 11 day land sea trip to Denali and cruise on the Westerdam.

Any tips or advice?

Thanks

Welcome to Cruise Critic, cruising, and retirement!

Come on over to the portion of Cruise Critic devoted to Holland America, located here:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=171

where you will find all the Holland America info you will ever need.

Watch out...cruising is addictive!!:D:D:D

As usual CruiserBruce has it right.

I too want to welcome you to Cruise Critic, the world of cruising and to retirement.

All great.

Keith

Welcome to Cruise Critic.:)

Sounds amazing!

Sounds like you are going to Alaska. You couldn't have picked a better place for your first cruise. Denali is great! Come on over to the Alaska board.

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Welcome to Cruise Critic (CC). Congratulations on your retirement!

A couple suggestions -

1. Join the CC roll call for your HAL cruise.

2. Meet up with others on the same cruise by signing up for the Meet and Greet or Connections Party on board sponsored by the cruise line.

3. Read reviews of Alaskan cruises and and land tours here on CC. Some of the reviews are truly incredible and will have lots of advice about recommended things to do in the various ports and stops on the land portion.

4. You may not want to buy the latest guide books on Alaska (Frommers, and The Mile Post, etc.) but you can usually find copies a year or two old in your local library. Read up on the Great State of Alaska.

5. Unless you plan on visiting Alaska many more times in the future, don't skimp on the trip; live it up and enjoy every minute. On a single trip you can't do and see everything Alaska has to offer, so do plenty of research and choose wisely.

We lived in Alaska for 3 years (what seems a lifetime ago) and since have cruised Alaska 6 times.

Here is wishing you a wonderful cruise!

Congrats on your retirement! You'll have a blast on your cruise - you can't hardly go wrong with Alaska.

We cruised Alaska for the third time with HAL in 2016 (terrific trip). since we had already done the excursions we were most intersted in, we decided to rent a car in each port then explore on our own. We can report that we loved, loved, loved having the freedom to explore on our own - we saw many of the sites offered with the ship excursions but without the crowds and without the stops we weren't interested in. We also liked the freedom to spend more time where we wanted - we photographed eagles at a state park, bears along the highway in in a campground, watched whales from a scenic overlook, and we even hit the Walmart in Juneau to stock up on souvenirs! It certainly isn't for everyone but thought I'd plant the seed - after all, you're in the US so no worries about driving, not understanding roads/directions, etc. Our complete write up of what we did at each port can be found on Trip Advisor.

Whatever you do, enjoy!

Welcome to Cruise Critic and congrats on your retirement! (very jealous). :D

We are taking our first ever cruise as we transition into retirement. We'll take a Holland America 11 day land sea trip to Denali and cruise on the Westerdam.

 

 

 

Any tips or advice?

 

 

 

Thanks

Make sure you take along bonine or another remedy. You would not want your trip spoiled by seasickness. Alaska is amazing and a great first cruise. Depending on when your traveling, there can be a lot of mosquitoes so bring bug spray. The weather is very changeable so you needs layers and rain gear. The “ports of call” section of CC will help you explore your ports. The “roll call” section will introduce you to others on your cruise.

Welcome to cruising and retirement. They are both awesome.

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Welcome to Cruise Critic.

Congratulations on your retirement.

Do join your Roll Call -- will give you some ideas of what others are doing on your cruise. HAL does not arrange any Meet and Greets. Hopefully someone on your Roll Call will do that for you.

Choosing a land tour and a cruise is a great way to see Alaska.

Congratulations on your retirement & your first cruise.

Can't think of a better way to spend your leisure time.

I retired almost 3 years ago and my wife will be retiring at the end of March.

We'll be going on our 7th cruise at the end of March and I'll be hosting a Cruise Critic "Meet & Mingle" on this cruise.

Can't wait.

If you want to meet some of your fellow Cruise Critic members on the ship, go to the Roll Call for your cruise and sign up for the M&G.

Thank you all very much, great suggestions. We are doing the land/sea with a couple days in Denali before we cruise. Just started looking at the available excursions and trying to decide which ones to do. It looks like the 6 hour or so time for some of them preclude doing two in one day