Alaskan Cruise-Day 1

July 31, 2011, Day 1, started early. I was up at a little after 5am…Sharon a bit later. We got dressed, loaded the car and hit the road to the airport…remote parking actually. I had made reservations at a park-n-ride close to the airport that had covered parking…such a deal! What we didn’t know that the operation had changed owners within the past few weeks and the name of the place was something completely different that the one I has made reservations with.

It took a few minutes to realize this during which I was freaking out. To make matters worse the van picked up another couple on the next row over and left us standing, wondering what was going on. Sharon suggested we walk up to the office and see what was going on…which we did. The office was locked up tighter than a drum. Eventually, we got a signal so we could get on the Internet and find the phone number of the place. The driver answered and said he was on his way back.

Thank goodness we started early enough because we had to be taken to two American Airlines terminals before arriving at the correct one. There wasn’t much of a line at security so we breezed through and found out gate in plenty of time.

Our plane made its 9:15am takeoff at 9:25 but we arrived in Seattle two minutes early after an uneventful flight…if you don’t count the little kid sitting behind me kicking me all the way there…3 ½ hours.

We finally got to our stateroom around 2pm and were pleased to find a very nice room. It’s only about 350 square feet but there’s plenty of room for a queen sized bed and a sitting area…plus the balcony with chairs and a table. Of course, once the sun goes down it gets a little chilly. After the mandatory evacuation drill, we wandered around the ship, took a tour of the spa and fitness facility, checked out the shops in the Atrium and eventually made it to one of the dining rooms.

We opted to eat in the buffet dining room tonight…not bad…but tomorrow we’ll see if we can get reservations in one of the nicer places. Day 2 will all be on board the ship at sea…if you can call the “Inside Passage” sea. There’s a lot of water, even if you can see land on both sides of the ship, but we still think it’s the “sea”. We will probably take it easy during the day, check out some more of the ship and rest up for the next few days.

Day 3 will bring us to Ketchikan, AK where we’ll check out some of the shore excursions…more about that tomorrow.

North to Alaska-Getting Ready

Hello there. It's been a while since I posted to my blog...mostly because I haven't taken any big trips. Started to chronicle my motorcycle trips, I quickly broadened my coverage to include any of my trips that I thought might be interesting to my family and friends.

Next Sunday, July 31st, Sharon and I are beginning a 7-day vacation via plane and ship to Alaska and back. This will be our third cruise but our longest by far. We leave Dallas on American Airlines Sunday morning headed for Seattle, where we will embark on the Sapphire Princess. We will be making stops in Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway, Alaska with a final stop in Victoria, British Columbia.

I've spent the last couple of weeks on the Prince Cruise Line's web site, personalizing our cruise, making notes and reading up about what goes on once we hit the ship. This ship is much bigger than either of the ships we were on before...once to the Bahamas and once to the Eastern Mediterranean. There are at least 7 restaurants on board, not counting the bar and grill, room service and a couple of other casual places to eat.

Sharon and I spent some time this past weekend, choosing from dozens of shore excursions. We had so many to choose from that it was truly difficult to pick only one or two at each location...but there's only so much time at each stop so you have to pick.

I will take pictures and videos at each stop and post some of them on this blog that night. I hope you enjoy seeing the pictures and reading about our adventure almost as much as we're going to enjoy making them and experiencing the sights and sounds.

More to come...stayed tuned.

Papa Jax