This grand adventure is grand indeed, and is, in large part, about checking things off our bucket list. Well, my bucket list, anyway. I write about bucket lists a lot in this blog. It’s because we’re in the fourth quarter of our lives, I suppose. Having the time and money to spend achieving those things, and still live as comfortably as we do, is an incredible blessing. If you’re interested in some of the bucket lists posts I’ve written, they’ll all come up using the search bar.
It’s hard to believe that last year (January 2024) was the first time we ever took a cruise. As we guided Lynn and Dave through the embarkation process in Seattle last week, Randy and I felt like veterans though it was only our third cruise experience. The first one, described here, was not particularly impressive. In fact, at the end of that post, I concluded that we’d probably only cruise again for our Panama Canal and Alaska bucket list items. Both of those are behind us and now, surprise, surprise…I’ve fallen in love with cruising. So in love that I convinced Randy last week that it was smart to buy a couple of thousand dollars worth of Cruise Next certificates AND get a Norwegian Cruise Lines credit card.
First, why Norwegian?
There are a lot of cruise lines to choose from, and our first experience was simply a case of good timing on Norwegian’s part. As I contemplated cruising way back when we first moved to Florida, one of the things I didn’t like at all (at all!!) was the anticipation of mandatory formal nights and rigid meal experiences (set times, seating assignments every night). That’s just not our thing.
Norwegian introduced Freestyle Cruising in 2000. Because I knew next to nothing about cruising, I’d never heard of Freestyle until I (kind of accidentally) got some communications from them in late 2023. What I read about Freestyle Cruising really appealed to me. That’s when Randy and I signed up for a 4-day Bahamas cruise out of Miami to see if we liked it. I wrote this post, titled Cruise Virgins, at the time. If it wasn’t for my Panama Canal and Alaska bucket list items, we would have never cruised again.
The Panama Canal cruise was so different from the Bahamas cruise. Read why here. We knew we would do it again in the future, this time to Alaska. Last week, as the future is wont to do, became now and we ended up in Seattle on Saturday morning, September 13, aboard the Norwegian Bliss. A few things were a bit different on this cruise. We had cruise virgin travel companions, Lynn and Dave, and we bought the drink package. We planned to have a boatload of fun (pun intended).
The Norwegian Bliss and the Norwegian Joy (which was the ship we sailed to Panama) are sister ships, so we were familiar with its layout and amenities. After a 12-day adventure on the Joy last year, we knew what to expect on the Bliss. We knew how to avoid the crowds on embarkation day. We knew what to keep with us to be prepared in case our luggage was terribly tardy. We knew how to make reservations for specialty dining and entertainment. We knew where to be to avoid the crowds but still have great views during sail-away. We learned how to make the most of our first-ever drink package. We had a great embarkation day. I have to compliment Norwegian who really are expert at loading 4,000 passengers within a few hours seem easy. There were no lines or waiting at all during embarkation in Seattle.
We knew that this particular cruise was criticized for short port times in Sitka, Juneau, Icy Strait, Ketchikan, and Victoria. We didn’t care because our intent on this cruise was to BE, rather than to DO. There are so many YouTube videos to prepare you for the cruise that when you spend nearly a year planning as we did, you’ve seen everything there is to see in each port 10 times over. We didn’t book any excursions. In Alaska they’re phenomenally expensive, and because of the short port times, we would have felt rushed and anxious. As I said, we just wanted to BE in Alaska, to see the natural beauty that surrounds a person there, and to enjoy the relaxation and pampering that a cruise offers. We accomplished all of that.
We sighted whales from our cabin balcony, not up close and personal, but enough times that we didn’t feel cheated. We got out and walked around in Sitka and Juneau, bought a few T-shirts (Randy) and stickers for the Epic Road Trip travel mugs we were making as a souvenir of the trip. The weather on those 2 port days was gorgeous–no rain and about 60 degrees. But really, we found them to be just a collection of colorful tourist traps. Without excursions the ports are interesting, but pretty common.
On the evening of the day we visited Juneau we had reservations at Cagney’s Steakhouse, which is a specialty dining venue on the ship. Unfortunately, there were serious winds that night. Cagney’s is on Deck 8, Aft so we got whipped around pretty badly while dining. One of our waiters said he’d been aboard 8 months, and it was the worst it’s ever been for him. I was so sick to my stomach I left before dessert. Laying down in our midship cabin on Deck 14 helped a lot and I didn’t experience any further discomfort. Apparently we were the last cruise to leave Juneau that day. Others were held in port because of bad weather.
The next day we had tickets for a gondola that would take us 1,800 feet to the top of a mountain with spectacular views at Icy Strait. We looked forward to that one and only “excursion” of the cruise. Sadly, the winds were still howling and for the first time since 2020, the gondola was shut down because of weather. We still enjoyed Icy Strait which featured a free, much lower gondola ride to their tourist traps. But it was raining, and the boardwalks were slippery for dummies like me who didn’t wear their hiking boots. Still, it was a fun stop, probably my favorite of the cruise.
The next day, it rained all day and none of the 4 of us got off the ship in Ketchikan. Norwegian’s dock is a 20-minute shuttle ride to town. Crowds are dense, lines are long, and we didn’t feel that much like shopping in the rain. The next night, Randy and I got off the ship in Victoria, British Columbia just so we could say we set foot in Canada, but we never left the dock. We did get stickers in the gift shops there.
Finally, on Saturday morning, September 20, we docked in Seattle and were off the ship by 8:30 am. Again, the disembarking process was well managed and there wasn’t much waiting for anything, including the shuttle to get back to the off-site parking where we’d left the car.
On the 5-hour drive back to Cindy and Dan’s Lynn asked me where “we” (meaning the 4 of us) were going next. We all had a great time, and love cruising for cruising’s sake, not necessarily because of where the cruise goes (although we don’t want to cruise anywhere that has NO appeal).
I’m adding a repositioning cruise (a one-way voyage that moves a cruise ship from one geographical area to another to start a new seasonal cruising season) to my bucket list. New Zealand/Australia also appeals to me, as does the South Pacific Islands (Fiji, Bora Bora, etc.), Croation, and the Greek Islands.
Where do you think we’d enjoy cruising? Where have you been that you’d recommend?
P.S. We’re leaving Cindy and Dan’s on Sunday and will arrive in Grass Valley, California on Tuesday. I’ll tell you in the next post about the forever friends we plan to visit in this next leg of the Grand Adventure Road Trip as we work our way back to Florida by mid-October.
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