Alaska Cruise Information

Guido asked which ship I'll be on for the Alaska cruise. (Guido maybe you can help those who are interested in following the ship on line, when the big day comes, I'm not even sure how to do that.)  Anyway, it's Royal Caribbean's "Vision of the Seas."  Our cabin is on deck 3 (cabin 3098),  I found that last year, the one time we were in a little rough water, the motion of the ship was less down low. We leave Seattle about 4pm Friday August 17th and return the following Friday morning about 6am.  Note: They do let you eat breakfast before you get off the ship.  And they let people off according to priority...in other words, I won't have a flight to catch, so will be among the last group to disembark.  Last year, I believe it was about 10am before we walked down the gang plank.  They served breakfast up until 8:30am and after that we were able to go back to our cabins, brush our teeth, go potty and get our luggage and head for the very beautiful Masquerade Theater...where we waited until our group  was called to leave the ship.  People were snoozing, visiting, reading and some were just gazing off into space, no doubt thinking about some wonderful off shore excursion they participated in or thefact that they had to go back to work soon.

Our itinerary is as follows;

Friday August 17th we leave Seattle at 4pm, we'll cruise north up past the San Juan Islands out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then Saturday August 18th we'll be cruising all day on the outside of Vancouver Island.  Sunday August 19th we arrive in Juneau at 11am and we are there until 9pm.  Last year Lynnette and I attended a non-denominational church service in the "Some Enchanted Evening Lounge" before we set off to explore Juneau.  It was wonderful sitting in that lounge, having church, with huge windows all around, watching the beautiful scenery as we floated into Juneau's harbor. Monday, August 20th we arrive in Skagway and we are there from 7am until 8:30pm (this is the day I woke up sick last year~~not happening this year !)  Tuesday August 21st we cruise thru Tracy Arm Fjord from about 7am until noon.  Then on Wednesday August 22nd we explore Prince Rupert, British Columbia from 8am until 6pm.  Thursday August 23rd finds us cruising the Inside Passage.  There will be lots of on board activities, shopping, visiting the casino, playing bingo and relaxing on deck that day.  They also have demonstrations on folding the towels into frogs and other animals that day.  I missed most of that day last year.....only made it up on deck a few times to take some pictures and then it was back to my sick bed.  Friday morning when we pull back the drapes on our cabin windows...we'll be tied up to the dock in Seattle. 

I've signed us up for the Meet & Mingle which will be around noon on Saturday, August 18th.  There I'm finally going to meet another AOL journal buddy, Lanny and his family. We live probably less than 10 miles from each other but have never met in person.  From what I understand, it's a great way to meet others on the ship, a time to make new friends and get some hints from those seasoned cruisers. 

So many have emailed and commented, wishing they could go along. And I agree...I wish this was an AOL journalers cruise, and all of you could join us.  Everyone has different experiences and different perceptions so all the entries would no doubt be different.  Once again, I'll do my best to take photos & possibly videos. To let you get an idea of what all takes place on this  big 917 foot ship, as well as off shore.  I know Kathy and her husband have been on several cruises and they also cruised to Alaska last summer.  They did different off-shore excursions than I did and I loved looking at her pictures and hearing of her experiences.  

Well, it's time to get going.  I'm taking my vacuum cleaner over to Sears for a free check up.  There's nothing wrong with it (I just got it in January) but might as well take advantage of the free "check up" that comes with the maintenance plan.

So until next time........Linda