Pointyhead

First of all the OP NEVER said he hated to go, so if you are going to rant on, at least get the facts straight.

 

Second, myself, have been married for 42 years and if my wife wanted to do something badly enough, and really wanted me to be there, why would I deny her that joy instead of being so selfish and say, you go ahead, I have better things to do.

 

Marriage is a compromise and during those years we do many things we may not want to do, just to make our spouses happy. If that is possible, then that brings joy to me.

 

Life is short, but not standing on ceremony and doing things to make your spouse happy, that is more important than not really enjoying the one week. And it is only one week.

 

Cheers

 

Len

Len, you are a wise man. We all do things that we don't necessarily like, but we do it to make the other happy. I clean the cat's litter box, not because I want to, but the wife hates to, so I make her happy by doing it. I hate balancing the checkbook, and she's a financial manager for the government, so she does that for me. Marriage is give and take.

As for the cruise, I am warming to the idea. We hope to see friends in Portland that we haven't seen in 25 years, or meet up with an old AF buddy that lives just north of Seattle. I like trains so the White Pass train tour looks promising. We'll make it work. I'm just not into the Alaska scene, mountains, ice, crab legs or whales and that was my original point.

Well, I just booked the cruise. In August of next year, we will be sailing on the NCL Pearl for 7 days. I now have 14 months to warm up to the idea. (Pun intended). We are not guaranteed our next breath, so any time I can spend with the missus goes in the plus column. I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever we do, even if it's not my "dream vacation". Thanks for all your inputs. -PH :D

We had crummy weather and weren't on our ship of choice for our first trip to Alaska-and LOVED it. So much so that the next year we went again. We're thinking of returning in a few years as well.

 

Like you we didn't have a huge interest in whales, animals, mountains, fishing, glaciers, etc... so that did not draw us to the cruise. In fact we didn't do any of that stuff on either cruise. We did see some wildlife, but we not actively looking. It's impossible not to see mountains or glaciers, but we didn't take any special excursions to hike or anything.

 

What we did like was cruising; the ships, the activities, the entertainment, the spa-even the covered pool which we did use.

In ports we mostly just walked around town which was a very enjoyable experience. One of the cruises was over the 4th of July so we got to participate in the town's festivities.

 

I suggest you don't think of it as a cruise in the stereotypical sense(beach, hammock and mai tai in hand) but just think of it as a vacation.

Surely you've taken other vacations that didn't end up in the Caribbean. Have you been camping? Road trip across the USA? Europe? There are a million fun vacations that don't involve the beach.

 

Enjoy the time with your wife and friends and I do hope you aren't being serious about spending the entire time listening to tunes in the sauna.

I have traveled extensively all over the world, lived in Germany for 3 years, been in a war, got shot at, gotten lost at least once in most major cities of the world. (The Air Force is a great travel agency! :D). I'm pretty much ready to go anywhere, anytime, but Alaska has never been on my bucket list. But, I subscribe to the ancient truth-Happy wife, Happy Life, so I'm going. :cool:

 

OTOH, if you have no interest in this trip or getting anything out of it, why should any of us care ??

I am not suggesting that I won't get something out of it, quite the contrary. I am just saying that at this point that I have 0 enthusiasm for going, and I'm looking for things that would pique my interests. I should have made that clearer in my original post. I do like history and hope to hit a museum or two, although my wife gets bored easily in them. (we are an odd couple :p)

Everyone I have talked with that has been has liked Alaska, but they also were looking forward to going. I have yet to meet someone like myself that went and came back ready to go again. I'm sure they exist, I just haven't seen one.

BTW, I just got back from my 3rd trip to Brazil. If you want to see some beautiful country, go there! It's absolutely gorgeous, outside of Sao Paulo, that is.

To keep my bride of 40 years happy, I have signed us up for a cruise in Alaska next August. We will be going with two other couples our same age (60). My problem is that while I love cruising (been on 9 so far) I have absolutely no desire to go to Alaska. I have read all the stories of people here about having fun but that's assuming that they all had an interest in it before going. I don't. I love the beach scene and warm weather. I'm more of a Jimmy Buffet guy than a Johnny Horton one.

Before you say it, I spent 21 years in the military, I've been in cold places many times, and I didn't care for it then either. I know it could be 95 degrees when we are there, but for every one person to tell me how hot it was on their Alaska cruise, two would show me photos of their party on deck with parkas on.

I don't care for the mountains much. I don't fish, so that's not an option. I can go fifteen minutes from where I'm sitting right now and see bald eagles, so it isn't a big deal to watch them in Alaska. Whales don't interest me either.

I suppose the most I can hope for is that the ship has a good sauna where I can stay warm and sweaty while listening to Inner Circle on my mp3 player.

Lest you think I'm just being the grumpy old man, I'm not. I don't plan on going there to make everyone around me miserable (I'm really outgoing and the life of the party in our groups), but I have tried, and I can't work up any enthusiasm for this trip.

Maybe someone can shed some light on my situation, or at least commiserate with me over this situation I have found myself in.