Alaska 2022 in Travel Book

My travel friend (I will refer to her as Travel Bestie or TB) and I are trying to come up with some plans for this year and it’s got me reminiscing about the Alaskan Cruise we went on last August. I wanted to write about it because it was one of the greatest adventures I’ve had so far.

Somehow we were lucky enough to get an insanely cheap deal on a last-minute booking for two. AND she was able to go sans kids or husband, so it was just TB and I for a FULL 7 DAY CRUISE. I mean seriously so lucky.

It almost didn’t happen. If you’ve read my recent entries you’ll know that I had a false positive covid test result which almost kept me from going. We had to show a negative test to be able to board the ship.

But it just wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t had to scramble to get my shit together at the last possible minute. Luckily I was able to get a rapid test done at a walk-in clinic THE DAY OF DEPARTURE. Crisis averted. Trip still on.

Funny enough, the cruise line lifted its Covid restrictions about a week after our cruise ended lol.

Vancouver

The ship left from Vancouver BC and ended in Juneau AK. So TB and I met in Houston and then flew to Vancouver. We arrived around 10 pm the night before the cruise. We didn’t have anything booked as far as hotels go, and everything we looked into was insanely expensive. Like $500-600 for 1 night. Which was more than half of what we were paying for our entire cruise (I’m telling you, we got an amazing deal on it!). So we decided to spend a very long night and morning at the Vancouver airport.

From the little bit I saw of it, it seems Vancouver is a really nice city. And the mountains. Drool. I fall more in love with mountains every time I see them.

It took what felt like FOREVER to get through the cruise boarding process. But we finally made it through and were ready to cruise! This was my first time ever going on a cruise, so I didn’t know what to expect. But it was so much fun. We booked with Princess Cruises and our ship was The Royal Princess. She was HUGE. And beautiful.

It took us most of the week to figure out where Starboard, Port, Forward, and Aft were. It’s really easy for a landlubber to get confused lol. But after a while we got the hang of it. For the most part.

Ketchikan

Our first Port stop was in Ketchikan. The little town was picturesque and beautiful. We didn’t have any excursions booked, so we just walked around the stilted Creek Street shops, then we ventured off to a hiking trail in the mountains. It was a tough hike, and I was a bit slow, but it was gorgeous. The nature and foliage there are so different from what we have here. For some reason, we were under the impression that it was a quick 1-mile hike, but we were walking for ages and never got to the end. I knew we had gone much farther than 1 mile and since we had to be back for our ship departure, we didn’t want to chance getting stranded. We had a long walk looking at us back to the port, so we knew we had to turn back. So, I’ll never know what was at the end of that trail lol. Thankfully going back was all downhill and we made it in time, legs sore as hell.

Juneau

Our second port was in Juneau. We took an excursion to see the Mendenhall Glacier here. It was AMAZING. I was falling more in love with Alaska by the minute. It was a decently warm day, but the closer we got to the glacier, the chillier it got- which made me happy. This park was so beautiful. We took the trail to the waterfall of my dreams. Then we just sat and chilled for a while taking it all in. TB fished a glacier chunk out of the water and we took pics with it because we are dorks lol.

Skagway

Third stop was the super cute old-west looking mining town of Skagway. We just walked around this quaint little town. Checked out the history and sights, did a little shopping around, then headed back to the ship.

Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve

I died. I had DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN. Bob Ross was cheering me on. It was bloody magnificent.

This was a cruise day through the Glacier Bay park. We parked our butts on the outer decks of the ship and just basked in the glory of the jaw dropping nature around us. This was 100% the highlight of the trip for me. The Glaciers. The snow-capped, jagged, fucking majestic mountains. The perfect chilly weather. No walking necessary lol.

That night the ship crew put on a big end of the cruise party with a champagne toast. The champagne was free flowing and I drank a LOT of it lol. I ended up dancing my ass off all night and loving it.

Whittier/Anchorage

Our cruise ended in Whittier where we disembarked for good. From there we took the most scenic hour-ish-long bus ride to Anchorage where we had to say goodbye to Alaska and each other. TB was flying back to Texas, and I was headed back to Cleveland. I bought myself an ‘Alaska’ mug at the airport. I hardly ever do souvenirs and gimmicky stuff when traveling, but I just had to take a piece of Alaksa home with me.

My only regrets were that we never got to see a bear or the northern lights. I really wanted to see a damn bear (safely of course) lol. But I would have KILLED to see the aurora. It’s been on my bucket list for ages. I checked EVERY NIGHT. But it was always too cloudy. However, we DID see eagles, whales, mountains, glaciers, and a buttload of salmon. And I am so happy I was able to go.

There was many a Titanic joke/reference made through the entire week aboard The Royal Princess. And we even had our own little scary Titanic moment when we were at dinner and the power fucking went out. We just sat there in stunned silence for a couple of minutes and then it came back on lol. Thank god, we hadn’t left port yet and were not out at sea. The captain told us later that it was a weird glitch when switching from the land power to the ship’s power. But it was still creepy af lol.

I did battle a tiny bit of seasickness, but nothing terrible. Overall, it was an amazing trip. I had such a wonderful time and fell totally in love with Alaska.

Last updated May 10, 2023