sheriatsea

Having never visited the Caribbean this cruise gave us a good sample of what it has to offer. The ship was bigger than the one we had sailed on our Panama cruise. We definitely prefer the smaller ships. As far as service and attitude of the staff, we could not have asked for more attentive and pleasant encounters.

Our Alaskan Adventure began with a 7 day land tour that included an overnight in Anchorage at the Captain Cook Hotel. From Anchorage we boarded a motor coach which took us on the Glen Allen HIghway to the Princess Copper River Lodge where we stayed for two nights. The lodge staff was very friendly and we enjoyed the stay. The excursions we had booked were cancelled due to issues on the part of the vendor so we enjoyed the Wrangells-St Elias National Park and the area surrounding the lodge. From there we got back on board the motor coach and headed for Fairbanks. We spent two nights at the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge. This lodge is more like a hotel than Copper River. We did the Riverboat Ride and Gold Dredge Tour. Both were good and informative. This was our second time in Fairbanks. Here we did see the Northern Lights from our room. From Fairbanks we headed back on our motor coach to Denali Princess Lodge. We had been here on our first trip and had done the bus ride into the park so we opted to walk around the lodge grounds and the shopping area across the highway. The pizza spot on the lodge grounds is good. From Denali we took the Alaska Railroad to Talkeetna where we enjoyed the Jet Boat tour and a short walk around town while we waited for the motor coach to take us to the McKinley Princess Lodge. The entire week we had lovely, clear skies and the mountains showed themselves the entire time. From McKinley we again boarded a motor coach for Whittier where we quickly embarked on to the Island Princess for our seven-day southbound cruise. We saw the Hubbard Glacier which we had not seen on our prior cruise which was a north bound. It was beautiful and amazing as everything in Alaska is. Our second day on board was spent in Glacier Bay where we got to see the John Hopkins Glacier which is not always possible. The naturalist on board are very informative and the days just glide by. Our third day was spent in Skagway where we took the narrow guage railroad into the Yukon. We were under the assumption we would be going all the way to Whitehorse but we got off the train in Fraser and onto another motor coach that took us to Carcross for lunch & shopping. It was not nearly what we had expected based on others comments. We have taken the Durango-Silverton train several times and this was not nearly as spectacular nor authenticly restored. These engines were diesel and the Durango train still uses the steam engines. However, we were enchanted again when we went to the Skagway Brewery for a beer and a snack before boarding the ship to leave for Juneau. In Juneau we did a whale watching trip on a research vessel which was extremely exciting. We saw 4 or 5 different humpback whales and worked with the staff to identify which whales they were based on their flukes. The trip was enjoyable because it was a limited sized group and no children under 12 were allowed. After a successful whale watching adventure, we boarded the ship and went on to Ketchikan the next day. In Ketchikan we went to the RainForest Sanctuary to hunt for bears. It was successful as well. We saw four or five different bears, pink salmon running, some eagles and also a carver of totems. We did a bit of shopping and boarded for our final sea day on the Island Princess. All in all, we had a great time and will probably go back to Alaska for a third adventure.