I have become addicted to that method of travel - partly in measure because I don't want to fly and once I reach a destination by train or bus or in some cases by walking about nine blocks to a cruise terminal - I can board and see parts of the world I wouldn't otherwise.
I have about thirty cruises under my belt - around 270 days at sea - from a number of one night cruises between Vancouver and Seattle and vice-versa to a long 49 day one around South America.
At present I have four cruises booked over the next 2 years - three on Norwegian and one on Royal Caribbean - the latter will be the first time on that cruise line.
Two are west coast based - and two are east coast based although one of those ends up on the west coast.
Here are the details of two of those cruises. The other two will follow in a separate post.
First up - is a 14 day Alaskan Cruise on the Norwegian Sun in May 2017
I first sailed this ship back in 2004 when I did my first Panama Canal cruise.
For this cruise I will travel down to San Francisco by Amtrak - meet up with some friends and take in a SF Giants baseball game and then the following morning board the Sun for the trip north.
After a stop in Astoria, Oregon we head to Alaska - for stops in Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Sitka, Ice Straight Point as well as visiting Glacier Bay, Hubbard and Sawyer Glaciers - then on the southbound part we will stop in Prince Rupert and finally Nanaimo before sailing across the Salish Sea and into Burrard Inlet and our berth at Canada Place
Sept 2017 - The second cruise for 2017 will see my trying a new cruise line - all of my previous cruises have been on either Norwegian or Princess but as I was researching for something on the west coast in the fall to celebrate my 70th birthday I came across a 7 day west coast round trip from Seattle down to San Francisco on RCL's Explorer of the Seas - what I liked about it was firstly the pricing and secondly a full overnight stay in San Francisco - just a stop at Astoria on the way down and one at Victoria on the way back.
There were a couple of features on this ship that intrigued me - one it has an ice-skating rink and also something called promenade inside cabins - these are inside cabins that have a window view to the inside promenade or atrium area of the ship.
The long layover in San Francisco will give me the opportunity to too a longer day trip as we won't need to be back on ship until 4 PM the next day.
One option I am looking at is to do a day trip and take in the 17 Mile Drive at Monterrey - while I have driven down that way on a couple of occasions I have never done that drive.
While I could also do a long day trip to Yosemite from San Francisco most of the day tours have a meet time that makes it tough for me to take as by the time I get off the ship I likely won't catch the tour.
Perhaps my friends in the Bay area will come up with some other ideas .
Do want to spent some more time exploring the Presidio and the Pacific Ocean beaches.
In a separate post I will outline my 2018 cruise plans and a possible hint at what I might do in 2019 - boy that seems like a long ways off but in planning travel those dates are already starting to come online.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment