Cruise overview

This was overall one of my favorite cruises for sure. Alaska has been a bucket list item for me and I would definitely come back. I loved all the aspects of the cruise. Our ship was nice and not at capacity so we could always find seating. The food was on par with other cruise food, which means it was good, not great, but no one was hungry and we enjoyed it. Bigger ships have more to do and they have the big production shows which are fun, our shows were good too. I especially liked the Tango show.  We brought our own stuff to do and also took advantage of the games and activities that were on board.

We saw lots of animals. I would have liked to see more but that is a timing issue. It takes patience and time to see animals in the wild. We were patient but the time was limited. Maybe if we come back to Alaska we will do a cabin and spend more time. 

The travel has been cumbersome. Getting to anchorage was fine but long. We flew to Minneapolis and got a quick connection then had a long flight to Anchorage. Going home has just begun but I know it’s not going to be awesome. We docked, went thru customs, Ubered to the airport, and now we wait 4 hours for our flight to Seattle where we will go thru customs and then wait 5 hours for our red eye. We will try not to be grumpy but we probably won’t be successful. 

Our internet in the ship wasn’t awesome. I paid for the internet because I started my class and I wanted to keep in touch with Grace. I was able to work, but we couldn’t FaceTime or call. Mostly we texted. She’s been having blood in her vomit so Hannah took her to the ER yesterday, and today to the GI, and next week she will have an endoscopy. I hated being gone for all of that and there is a fair amount of Grace worry at all times. 

I loved being with Val and Dani and we spent a lot of time chatting. I loved getting to know some of the other passengers. I loved our balcony room and Rob and I loved laying in bed at night with the curtains open watching the ocean and seeing the land when the sun rose in the morning. 

I was super sad to say good bye. I try really hard to be happy in the present but sometimes it’s hard to be far away. 

If Grace had not been sick I would have given the cruise a 10. 

I am excited to get home and have a couple more days with Han and Ez, to see Lu, and to have Arrow and Deo come next week!

Update: it’s 12:30am Seattle time, which was the last place my phone updated the time. Did you know Alaska has its own time zone? It’s true. 

Anyway our travel day is not over. In 2 1/2 hours we will land (said optimistically) and then we will just have a short Uber home. I will say it’s been a super long day but it hasn’t been as terrible as I thought this morning. 

Update #2. We woke up yesterday at 7am. We arrived home today at 7am. Was it worth it? Yes. Is there a better way? Probably. Now it’s time for some sleep.

I stayed awake the whole time, Rob is sick and was able to sleep.