Awesome, Amazing, Spectacular, Breathtaking, Majestic Alaska...Words do not do her justice. Embarkation We flew to Anchorage early on the day of our cruise, took a taxi to town and dropped our luggage at the museum where our independent tour bus operator stowed it for our trip to Whittier. We toured the area on foot and walked to the mall to buy shoes since I neglected to pack them. We enjoyed not paying sales tax in Anchorage for our mall purchases.

At 3:00 our bus to Whittier departed Anchorage. Our driver was also our tour guide as he narrated the entire trip with lots of interesting details about the ecology of the area and its history. We had a fifteen minute wait at the tunnel that seemed longer because we knew what was waiting on the other side. In Whittier, our tour bus operator checked our luggage at the ship, dropped all of the other passengers there, and dropped us at the kayak center for our first excursion. We kayaked Prince William Sound to a nearby salmon run. While kayaking, we were greeted by many eagles including a giant juvenile preening itself on a boulder just above our kayak. This was an exhilarating experience. Our kayak guides dropped us at the ship terminal for embarkation just before 8:00 p.m.

We walked through the terminal showing our doc's and getting our cruise sail and sign cards. We missed all of the heavy boarding traffic by doing our excursion before boarding. The cruise staff was pleased with our independent tour bus operator for having checked our luggage before our excursion. Dining We enjoyed our first meal in the main dining room. This was our first experience with traditional early and late seating on a cruise. It was different from personal choice dining, but we got the hang of it quickly and really enjoyed our servers and our table mates. We dined in the Supper Club (upcharge) once and wished we could squeeze it in one more time. Stateroom We booked our cruise with a guarantee for an inside stateroom (TBA). Our room was upgraded to a window with an obstructed view and was larger as it was handicapped equipped, and apparently not booked for such purposes. We never really saw our cabin steward after the first morning, but he took excellent care of our stateroom all week. Read more