Our Trip to Alaska

[sagiv666]

In September, my wife and I took a 14-night cruise to Alaska on Royal Caribbean International's Radiance of the Seas. We boarded the ship at Vancouver, Canada, and sailled to such ports of call as Ketchikan, Juneau, Icy Point, Skagway, and Sitka; the excursions Royal Caribbean offered just increased our enjoyment (for us, this included whale watching, and walking on a glacier from a helicopter, to mention but a few). We cruised though the Inner Passage, and our Captain treated us to a marvelous view of the Hubbard Glacier. On our return, we enjoyed ports of call on the USA's West Coast, including Seattle in Washington, Astoria in Oregon, and San Francisco and Los Angeles, both in California.

 

As this was not booked as a cruisetour, we also booked a separate land tour through Alaska Tour and Travel, to see inland Alaska as well. The railroad ride from Anchorage to Fairbanks, and Denali National Park, in particular, were fabulous. After the land tour ended, and before we flew to Vancouver, we flew by float plain to a lodge on Lake Clark, where we spent a day watching brown bears.

 

I know there are those who book cruisetours, which include land tours conducted through the cruise line. When our land tour was ending, our tour director told us she was meeting a tour group in Seward, disembarking from their ship after a cruise. Her recommendation was to take the land tour first, then "pamper yourself" on the cruise. I think I understand what she meant. As enjoyable as the land tour was, we had to live out of our suitcases, as every two days, we left a hotel to travel to a new destination. My wife and I enjoyed being able to unpack on the cruise and "stretch out".

 

I have returned with some marvelous photos, my prize being the pictures from our day of bear watching. At the same time, as I start to see the other photos (I took well over 2000), we have marvelous memories of our vacation. As soon as I go over my photos, I will be ready to share them with you all. By the way, we met other members of cruisecritic.com, and to them I express our hope that they arrived home safely. We began our cruise on September 14; if you could reply, we would enjoy communicating with you.