Over the past 3 or 4 years, I’ve been doing more traveling than I have my entire life.   I finally have the time to do that, and enough to afford it.  For that I’m very thankful.  I’m making up for lost time.

One of the things I like to do is cruise.   I like cruises because they are relaxing.  There is always something to do, and everything is taken care of.  They come make your bed, and leave chocolates on your pillow.  They pick up after you.  They feed you and do the dishes.    They entertain you.  You can usually find something to do for everyone.

The downside is you don’t get to stay ashore many hours, but it does give you enough time to find places that you’d like to see more of.  When you do you can always return on a flight and spend more time.

I was thinking back to some of the places I’ve been.

[caption id="attachment_145" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Alaska"][/caption]

I think the favorite of all times is when we went on a Land/Sea cruise to Alaska.    If you’re going on one,  I highly recommend doing the land portion first as it’s VERY busy.  By the time you finish it, you’ll be ready for a relaxing cruise.

We flew to Alaska.   We met at the airport by our cruise director.  She brought us to our hotel on a bus. We quickly learned, they didn’t keep the same hours we did when we found out we were to be ready to leave for a train at 7 AM.

We reached the train about 7:30 AM.  The train stopped to let us say goodbye to civilization, and we never saw another live person (other than those on the train) until we arrived at the wilderness hotel about 4 PM.

[caption id="attachment_151" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Wildlife in Alaska"][/caption]

We had dinner, and then next day went up to the top of the mountain to see Denali then came back and went gold mining on an airboat.  As soon as we returned it was time to get back on the train for Fairbanks.

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Wild animals in Alaska"][/caption]

In Fairbanks, the next morning we went on a paddle boat.  We saw sled dogs and an Indian Village.  It was a great trip.  We were then picked on another bus that took us to an airport.

We boarded a plane that only sat about 50 people, and we flew across the mountains back to Anchorage.  We were taken on a tourist type bus for a trip down the coast, where we saw salmon spawning, and coastline.   It was a 4 hour trip. We were delivered to our ship.   By the time we boarded the ship we were ready for rest.   The land part is fun but it is definitely 4 days of non-stop moving.

[caption id="attachment_146" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Ice From a Glacier"][/caption]

The ship then took us to the standard Alaskan cities, of Juneau, Skagway and Seward.    We did the normal tourist things, shopping and taking tours.    We also went in to the glaciers and saw the ice falling.

We ever saw Eagles and all sorts of animials in the wild.  For a city person from Florida it

Our cruise ended in Vancouver BC where we stayed another 3 days and saw some of the sites there.   It’s a great city as well.

This trip we went on the Coral Princess.    One day we’d like to go on one of the small ships like Silver Seas, that can go up closer to things.

If you’ve been on the Silver Seas, I’d love to hear from you, pros and cons.

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