400 Alaska Cruises in 3 minutes or less, hold on to your hats...

[InternetAgeTraveler]

When I started this project back in 2010, who would have thought that I would eventually have 4 cruise seasons worth of time lapse cruises.

 

The count has just topped 400 cruises plus a number of port cam compilations as well.

 

Most of them run in 2-3 minutes with a few longer. In recognition of the 400th, I compiled this one from the Coral Princess which runs over 4 minutes but has much more detail than typical.

 

 

The original idea was to try to put some actual facts behind the questions of how rough the seas were, what kind of weather to expect, port times, and so on. And while some of the answers are still it depends, it really does show a few things.

 

• The sailings from Seattle do see more rough(er) seas than Vancouver Sailings although rarely very rough during the cruising season. San Francisco see a lot more challenging seas as you would expect.
  
• It does rain pretty much any time of year but oddly July seems to have the most variety.
  
• It rains much more often in Ketchikan.
  
• Glacier Bay has usually good viewing. It can have high clouds at the entrance but many times it will clear as you sail in. In the 4 seasons, only a handful have had really lousy weather. I did a couple of Glacier Bay only Compilations.
  

 

I can visualize a lot of these cruises in my sleep now since they do the same things week to week (with a few exceptions) and while I have done 2 Seattle sailings on the Pearl, if I had to choose a next one it would be a southbound (on the Coral Princess since it has one of the best webcams :) ). These start off with Hubbard and then Glacier Bay which is a great way to start...

 

I'll be the first to admit that they aren't anywhere near the real thing, but for the original goal, I can say they provide a lot of interesting details. The one that people comment the most - the variance between high and low tide in Skagway.

 

To view the full set, click here or in the link in my signature.

[plane2port]

Great job. This is the first one I've seen, and I enjoyed it. Great music too.