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Review-visions 8/13-alaska


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Here is my Vision of The Seas 8/13/04 Review- Alaska South Bound

 

First of All this is my First Cruise but not my last! :o We had a wonderful time! Great weather...almost like a Caribbean Cruise to Alaska. Good to Very Good Food & Beautiful Ports.

 

We left around 5:00 AM from Dallas to get to Seward by 9:00 PM sailing time. We had a stop in Seattle and The Bus Ride to Seward. We got to Anchorage around 2:00 PM and then the 3 hour ride to Seward. There was not much of a wait to get into the bus and start towards Seward. We had a young woman bus driver (around 21) from the States. We stopped off at a Rescue Zoo on the way to Seward. The Zoo was ok. It gave us a chance to stretch our legs and see a bald eagle, moose, & sleeping bear. Back to the bus and onward to Seward. The ride was nice, however, due to the smoke from the forest fires, the visibility was limited . There is a train ride that goes the same route as the boat . I was glad I didn’t pay extra for the train. When we got to the ship, it was around 45:00 minutes to 1:00 hour till we got to our room. The lines were huge but moved quite fast.

 

 

We got the cheapo Interior Room but it was roomier than I expected. I had 2 luggages & a roll on and DH had 1 luggage and a roll-on w/garment bag & camera gear! There were plenty of places to stow your stuff. I brought some extra hangers and used some of them. The dressing table had several draws on either side, then a mirrored medicine type cabinet on each side. The TV had 2 deep draws under it & we had 2 chester draws on each side of our bed. The closet held our roll-ons and a selection of clothes. The shower was somewhat tight but I didn’t expect it to be roomy.

 

 

 

Our room stewards were excellent. We never needed anything except one time the light would not work in the bathroom. I left a sticky note on the switch & it was fixed the next time we were in our room.

 

 

 

The food in the main dining room ranged from Good to Very Good. The Service was Excellent. The deserts were almost all the time Excellent. The Windjammer is where we ate all of our lunches. I would say the lunches & breakfasts were Excellent. A very good variety. One thing that surprised me was that we always had a very nice window seat. I was expecting to have to fight for a good seat. Not so! In fact, there is a nice bar at the very front of the ship that has a killer view and the 2x we were there, there were only a few (like 3) people in there!!

 

 

 

The ship is AWESOME!! I was nervous about the ship because there were very few posts regarding the Vision. I booked it because of all the glass the ship has. I was not disappointed. Every where you looked there were beautiful details. Whether it be wood, granite, marble, leather, glass, moziacs, etc. Tons of art. Even the elevators were pretty to look at.

 

 

 

 

 

The ship was very clean, never felt crowed except when we went to see Hubbard Glacier. Then everyone was out. But...I never encountered a rude person. There were a few children on the boat and most were well behaved. There were a couple of loud kids in the hot tub, but I just overlooked that. In fact, there was a mother and her daughter (in her 40's) arguing by the grill. I wanted to say lighten up, you are ruining your cruise, but I just moved.

 

ITINERARY:

 

 

 

Hubbard Glacier: Real Cool --literally & Calving everywhere!! Totally the Bomb! Before we left, there was a huge chunk that fell off. It had to be 10 stories plus. Wow!

 

 

 

Juneau: Went Salmon Fishing. Booked on the Internet. $139 each for 4 hours. Had a very nice time. There were 5 of us fishing. DH caught a 12 lb. Salmon and a young woman on the boat caught a huge 20 lber!! We sent ours home to be smoked. The tour operator said that we could usually see much better but because of the smoke.... Tell you the truth, if they didn’t mention it, I would have thought it was just fog!!

 

Skagway: Rented a car, a 95 Thunderbird from Sourdough & drove to Emerald Lake. BTW the car had 100,000+ miles on it!!! It drove fine. Saw the waterfalls by the cemetary. So charming and beautiful! The drive to Emerald Lake was Nice, however, the smoke ruined the visibility. Again, I was glad I did not do the train ride. When we got to Emerald Lake, we took pictures and drove back. Not sure if there was a place to picnic. I was puzzled by the lack of signage, ie., picnic area 2 miles. We decided we wanted to have a few hours in town.

 

 

 

When we got into town, we hit some of the stores, had a brewsky and then bought a loose tanzanite from DI next door to the pub! They set it for me in Ketchikan. It is beautiful! And yes, I did bargain. They were going to set it for me and deliver it to the boat, but then they told me that it would be better to have it set in the next port. Then I got real nervous, but when we got to Ketchikan, I dropped it off before I went on the Misty Fijords Floatplane. It was ready when we got back.

 

 

 

Icy Straight: We didn’t book a whale watching trip because we already were spending some serious money but we said what the heck! So, we did the RCI whale watching. The boat was somewhat crowded, however it was worth the trip. We saw so many whales we were whaled out!!!! Yes, the breached. DH got tons of breaching on the Vido. In fact, when DH and I got back to the boat, he saw one right in front of the boat and got it on video again. Very close up and personal.

 

Ketchikan: Pretty port town. We did the Misty Fijords Float Plane. A highlight of the trip. We used the 2 for 1 Alaska Tour Saver Book. I have been to the Grand Canyon and have done the plane ride for that one and this on is at least 100% better. Don’t miss it!

 

Misty Fjords: A very earily beautiful experience. We even saw 2 bear playing by the shore by a stream. But, if you did not have binoculars, you would be hard pressed to see them. DH again has em right on on the video.

 

Inside Passage: A very calming majestic Uzilevsky type ending to the cruise. (See site: http://www.roko.com/Art/Uzilevsky.htm

). We had been up to Whistler, so we had seen the many layers of the mountains with snow. At least here, you did not have the smoke.

 

 

 

Disembarkation: A mess! We paid the extra to not have to see our baggage until we got to our home airport. We met at the Theater for our instructions. It took 1 hour before we left the theater and got on the bus. When we got to the airport, we were told that one of the customs agents did not show up so they were short staffed (of course, not RCI’s fault), but we would still be ahead of the other passengers that did not pay for the express checkout (I am not sure what RCI called it). We got into the airport around 12:00. No need to worry, our flight wasn’t until 4:15 and then it was delayed. We didn’t get home until 3:00 AM the next day!! This was not RCI’s fault. We booked our cruise about 6 weeks before leaving so I guess we got the best air we could get. Boy I slept that night and the next.

 

 

 

All in all, we had a fabulous trip. We were one of those that didn’t want to be "locked up" on a boat and we didn’t feel that way at all. In fact, I convinced DH to go on another cruise for New Years!

 

 

 

Any questions?

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Claudia, we disembarked from the Vision on Sept.13th and took the train into Anchorage and had absolutely NO SMOKE. In fact we had did not see any smoke our whole trip, just beautiful weather and scenery! All it takes is one cruise to get most people hooked and I see you are no exception. We thought the food in the dining room was very good every night except for the 'pork chop night'. That was a little less than perfect but still edible. Have a good time on your Panama Canal Cruise. Expect really hot weather, we were there last year in December.

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  • 1 month later...

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