Alaska - Part One

A twelve-day ocean voyage seems to be a long trip and with six days considered to be at sea it may be one that you might find boring. In fact, it is the perfect combination of activity and rest.

Princess Cruses Ship the Star Princess (po8 photo)

This trip was to Alaska and started and ended in Los Angeles. That makes it very popular with Californians especially those from Southern California. That may be the one down turn in the trip that you did not meet many people who were from other parts of the world. The good part of our cruise was that being early in the season we were the only ship in port at all of our stops. Even a week later it showed that, multiple ships had arrived at this very popular area.
One warning about being at sea is that you are not going to have internet access all of the time unless you are fortunate to be on a ship that has upgraded to the latest technology and not all of them have done that. CHECK WITH THE CRUISE LINE TO FIND THAT INFORMATION BEFORE BOOKING.
We did stop at Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway besides cruising in Glacier Bay. I will write about each of these and our one stop in British Columbia, Canada; Victoria on Vancouver Island. An overall comment is that all of the local people we met at every stop had one thing in common in that they were people we enjoyed meeting and that made all of us feel at home. The trip was 4000 km or in real life 2485 miles and with all the distances and temperatures in metric that made the trip a math education. So when the ship was traveling at a speed of 20 kph in reality it was never going over 14 mph and so we really never knew how slow we were going. It also meant that when we traveled up the coast it did take three days to get from Los Angeles to Alaska.
A few of the highlights on the way up the coast were the slightly rougher sea heading north and the fact that the swimming pools on the upper deck looked like small wave pools and not that inviting. People did use them but it was decided that they had to empty the pools on the second day. It seemed that they might overflow and that could be a problem since a bank of elevators was located between the pools and there was a chance that if they overflowed, the water would get into the electronics of the elevators. It was a good excuse not to use the pools or the hot tubs that were available. Yes, you can bring medication to prevent seasickness but unless you are very susceptible you will not need it.
On a sea day you should be careful that you don’t spend all of your time eating and that is one of the problems on a cruise. Food is always available. Bring plenty of reading material or other things to do and even if you do not find time to do it all you will have something to fall back on. The cruise staff works very hard to eliminate what they consider boring and so many activities and shows will be presented. Every evening had several performances with a variety of styles. It was one major show in the main theater and shows in the lounges and other smaller venues. Yes, for those who want it they had a casino that was open when in international waters and people could play Bingo most days.
Because the ship is traveling at a distance from shore you will not see much of the coast and during most of the summer, the central and northern parts of California normally have fog off shore. If you study California history you will note that this fog is why the first explorers sailed past San Francisco Bay, missing the opening in the fog and landed further north. All cruises seem to have one thing in common and that is that the ship has a casino. Since some parts of the journey will be in international waters and not part of any particular nation they can have gambling. Some people do spend a large amount of time in the casino and on this ship it is all electronic slot machines. You don’t even need to exert yourself to lose money.
The best part of a cruise is that you can meet people from all over the world. When you have dinner using the open seating and sit at a shared table you do meet many different people and get to talk about different interests of the dinners. Some people fear that they will have dull companions but you will find that most people have something interesting to talk about and you might find some things that you have in common.
This trip was different in that many of the people take this trip because in leaves from Los Angeles and that meant that those from California and Arizona did not need to fly. Any trip that does not include going through airport security is great. Yes, you do go through a screening but it does not seem as bad as the airport. Because of maritime law, you need to visit another country and that means you will go through customs when you finish the trip.
Many highlights of a trip this long and I will take time later to try and cover some of the events but for now just think about the trip as one relaxing journey where you don’t need to change hotels and you only unpack and pack one time. Have fun and enjoy it all.