The #3 Cruise was Alaska

A cruise to Alaska is on so many people’s bucket list that I have to share our experience. Looking back on it I can see where we made some big mistakes. This should have been the trip of a lifetime. But let me fill you in and you can let me know what you think.

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Alaska Land-Cruise

There is so much to see in Alaska that we didn’t want just a cruise. Most of the cruise lines offer land/sea packages so that’s what we looked into. When the time came to book our cruise I turned to a travel agent for help. Usually I plan and book all of our trips myself but we were spending a lot of money so I wanted to be sure we had the right cruise.

The First Mistake

We weren’t sure about the best time to take the cruise so I met with the travel agent. We talked about what we’d like to see. Were the Northern Lights important or maybe 24 hours of sunshine or were the abundant animals the draw? Having previously discussed some of this with my sister I said we’d like the animals, especially baby animals. The agent then went on to sing the praises of an early  spring cruise. The flowers would be blooming and baby animals would be everywhere. Alaska is beautiful in the spring. Sounded good. Sign us up.

No one can control mother nature but spring came late that year. Our cruise was cold and rainy. Baby animals were rare. Many animals were not around at all. And as for wildflowers, the were still snow covered.

The Second Mistake

While on the land part of the trip in Denali National Park  we took a tour into the park. We saw a moose or two and some caribou but no bears. It was a little disappointing. Turns out our travel agent  signed us up for the short half day excursion. The folks that went on the full day saw a  lot more animals, went deeper into the park and at one time had 3-4 grizzly bears surround their bus.  Note to self, next time take the long tour!

The Good Advice

 We had a choice of starting in Denali and then sailing south to Vancouver or doing the cruise first. Our Travel agent advised since this was a spring cruise that we go south to north. Good advice. We signed up for 3 days in Denali at the end of the cruise. We really would have missed out if we had gone the other way. It would have been way too cold in Denali.

But Wait There’s More

Before I rate this cruise I want to go into some more detail about the excursions and ports of call so stay tuned for more details. This was just an overview.