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Published: August 4th 2016
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Our 14-Day Northbound Tour from Vancouver to Fairbanks Alaska 25 to 7 August 2016 The following is on the 7-day cruise. A separate blog will cover the 7-day land tour through Alaska. After a quick breakfast in our Calgary hotel, we had a 1 hour 30 minute flight with Canadian Airlines from Calgary to Vancouver. We hopped into a taxi in Vancouver, which took us straight to the cruise ship port next to Canada Place. Check in took under 1.5 hours which would have been shorter if we had all had our visa for the USA. Since Tom and I had been to Hawaii in June 2015, he had a new passport so had a different passport number and therefore the 2-year ETSA was no longer current. Sheryl only had a Canadian ETSA. They both had to sit down at a computer to apply on line for their visa – no real problems.
As soon as we got into our cabins, we found a restaurant for a quick lunch, which heralded the start of our 7-day Inside Passage Alaskan cruise on the Norwegian Sun Glacier. The ship had less than ,900 people on board
so it was not too large.
The schedule for the cruise was: Mon: Vancouver - Tuesday: Cruise Inside Passage - Wednesday: Ketchikan, Alaska - Thurs: Juneau - Friday: Skagway - Saturday: Cruise Glacier Bay - Sunday: Cruise Hubbard Glacier - Monday: Seward Alaska
Every night there was a very professional entertainment (either singing and dance show or comedian) on at 7.00pm or 9.00pm. We mostly chose to have a late dinner at one of their 8 restaurants which served small tasty, beautifully presented meals, dodging the buffets except for the occasional breakfast.
I was almost successful at either going to the well equipped gym every other day. It was great fun.
We had 2 ½ days at sea but seeing land all the time either one side of the ship or both sides and glaciers. Most of the land was covered in pine or fir and other alpine trees with mountains in the distance with snow on the highest peaks.
The entertainment on board the ship was incredible – the best of the 3 cruises we have done – professional, energetic, colourful singing and dancing,
hilarious comedy as well as a number of presentation on Alaska, glaciers and the general environment. The entertainers were from all over the world, including a good number coming from Australia.
As usual there was plenty to do a see on board. The crew were hilarious at many of the venues that provided entertainment. Events such as cake making competition was sooo funny, as was the competition between 4 couples ie threading a lemon up one man’s leg and down the other!!!
Sheryl and I played only one session of bridge. We played no trivia as we were too busy doing other things.
Again we were so lucky with the weather. Ketchikan was drizzly at times but this is the wettest town in Alaska. It rains over 295 days each year. It always seemed to clear when it was important for a photo opportunity or a great scene. Our 5-glacier seaplane flight in Juneau and our helicopter and dog-sled tour in Skagway were both cancelled due to low cloud and lack of safety.
On the last night we had a special dinner at the French Restaurant. It was
such tasty beautifully presented food, incredible service, lovely wine/Champaign and great company.
I will post separate blogs on the cities and large glaciers we visited during this 7 day cruise.
Our last port of call was Seward where a motor coach met us on 1 August which was the start of our 7 day land tour through Alaska.
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