the love boat

dear friends,

apologies for the sudden surge in posts (inspiration strikes!)  these are the forgotten photos of a cruise to alaska i took summer of twenty twelve, and remembered by a series of recent events: my friend is taking her first cruise (to greece) soon and wondered how it would be and chuck and i had a photo request that prompted a search through our images, so here a bit of what it is like to go on an (alaskan) cruise! 

welcome aboard the coral princess! today is called embark day. we are on the baja deck, on the starboard side. i finally learned a simple way to remember port and starboard, the left and the right side of a boat. port has four letters in it, port : four (letters) easy!

it is necessary to say cheers alot!

we are sailing from whittier into prince william sound and over night into the open waters of the gulf of alaska

during the early hours of the morning we made our way through yakutat bay. every day a paper would be delivered to our room, informing us of our whereabouts, what we would see

  now we are in glacier bay

this is the spectacular margerie glacier

on the top deck, it was a bit surreal to be surrounded by remote and stunningly magnificent landscapes and at the same time such luxury

heading towards skagway and ketchikan...

we discovered that at every moment, really every single one, there is something to see, incredible beauty outside, completely surrounding us

inside, which we took full advantage of as well, had it's benefits

one night after coming back to our stateroom alone, i found treats my sister had left  :)  it is true,
anything you could possibly desire, is available

on mornings the ship would dock and we would dash off! to explore, sometimes joining with an excursion

we visited saxman

and saw how totems are made

a carving in progress

creek street, ketchikan

always making sure we knew the time to be back on the ship, sometimes we cut it too close and had to run the entire way through town, seeing the crew throw the giant towlines free and hollering 'all aboard'!!

we are sailing back into our time zone, we are heading towards vancouver now, we'll be at sea for a day and a half

there is so much to do! we did a 5k for breast cancer research. here is my sister, a survivor, cutting the pink ribbon at the start of the walk/run

eight laps around the promenade deck is a 5k

it is good i ran with my camera, we saw an orca!

we are in the middle, u.s. is on one side and canada on the other

canadian waters now

british columbia is spectacular

walking for the cure!

one of our favorite experiences on the ship was the crew. everysingleperson we met was lovely, kind, helpful, so friendly...the next few photo show a tiny bit of the fun we had....

my sister mentioned to our waiter, the only thing she hadn't seen on our great alaskan adventure was a wolf. moments later, as we sat enjoying our g & t's and the stunning scenery outside, this same waiter tiptoed past the window, posing as a wolf! he HOWLED! ooowwww!!

hahaha

hello!

lindy and i

lindy and lori and rose

lindy lori rose and bob!

every evening we sat in the same dining area. and had the same servers, bernado and antonio

this was intentional

:) we had to find out how they did this!

our new friends

thank you guys, what memories we have from your generosity (and good advice on what to order) :)

thank you princess cruise!

we sailed all night through calm seas, under a full moon. waking to the twinkly high rise city lights of vancouver. it was a bit startling, but lovely in it's own way. our cruise ~ tour was over. i learned so many things on this trip, first, that i was sure i was not a cruise person, but i was wrong. what i've shared here was only the tip of the iceberg, of all the things we did, that you can do on an alaskan cruise. there is something for everyone, every age (we line danced and i joined a knit group! we hiked on a glacier!). there is one more reason i remembered to share this post, my travel agent called to ask if i was aware of a cruise, a knitting cruise with mary jane mucklestone. the girls in the office thought i would like to know. oh dear me. i need a second job.

for more alaska! :
alaska
fairbanks
kantishna experience
interior to life at sea
skagway to haines ~ eagles and whales
juneau ~ ice and wool
dancing reindeer (mostly knitting but some reindeer photos!)

thank you for coming along, it is such a pleasure to share! xoxo lori