Cruise

Our Alaska Cruise on the Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam was an amazing experience, giving us the glacier views we hoped for as well as inland Alaska scenery; we mostly lucked out with dry weather warmer than we’d expected, although unpredictable fog had an impact a couple of times.

We chose the best cabin on the ship, the Pinnacle Suite, and we loved the spacious rooms and balcony and the exceptional shower – though I note that the Nieuw Amsterdam in particular doesn’t offer the “premium” experience as well as some ships (no premium dining room for example, no special seating at shows, etc)

We chose the land+cruise package so we could get a taste of Alaska itself in addition to the cruise / glaciers, although our particular choice was limited in the land portion (especially due to early snow at Denali National Park preventing visits there!); on the other hand a longer land portion would have meant a lot of coach travel and less glacier views, so I think we made the right choice.

Here are my daily posts, in order:

Flying to Fairbanks

Coach to Denali Lodge

McKinley Explorer train to Anchorage

Anchorage to Whittier, and the Nieuw Amsterdam Pinnacle Suite

Hubbard Glacier

Glacier Bay and the Margerie Glacier

Skagway and the White Pass Railroad

Juneau

Ketchikan and Bears

The [foggy] Inside Passage

Today was supposed to be another sea day with spectacular views of the Inside Passage, but sadly the fog got us again and our views were minimal – though we did see an amazing “fog bow” at one point!

As you see in the last photo, we had to pack because it’s the final day and we will be off the ship soon!

To end, here’s a collection of the souvenirs from our trip: