Monday Morning with Viking River Cruises 5/2/11

Spring is still in the air! This is one of my favorite times of the year right there next to the college football season. The trees have their leaves on, the grass is green and the weather is just perfect. My garden is already planted and things are actually growing. I planted peppers, garlic, onions, potatoes, fennel, shallots, tomatoes, eggplant, lettuce and radishes. If everything produces I will be very happy. This week has been very tragic with all of the storms and tornadoes that have gone from Texas through the south. My thoughts and prayers go out to those families who have lost a loved one, their home or business during these terrible storms. I pray for your comfort and healing during this time. God Bless you all! Spring Break travel is in the books and Alaska is gearing up for what should be an awesome year to see her beauty. If you have not been to Alaska you should consider it this summer. You can check out my blogs on my journey to Alaska on the right hand side of the page under blog archives. Now I am craving pizza from my favorite pizza joint in Talkeetna. Mountain High Pizza Pie I sure wished you delivered Todd. With Alaska travel and Cinco de Mayo in the air I thought I would share a few of my favorite beer labels with you. My short list is Alaskan Amber, Real Ale's Devil's Backbone & Lost Gold IPA, Dogfish Head, Blue Moon, Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA, Full Sail Wassail and my old standby Guinness. One of these days I am going to tackle home brewing, but I will save that for another chapter of my life. Our River Cruise series moves to Viking River Cruises. One of the things that intrigues me the most about River Cruising is that it is a fantastic way to see parts the world from your very own floating hotel that takes you right to the center of these world famous cities. Viking River Cruises takes you to the rivers of Europe, Russia, Ukraine, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Egypt.

Why River Cruising with Viking River Cruises

Viking River Cruises operates the world’s largest and best fleet of deluxe vessels built specifically for river travel. With extensive background in European river cruising, they are the most knowledgeable company in the business. Viking was the first to offer river trips in Russia, and their China management team has decades of experience helping travelers see China. As a result, more than half a million people have joined Viking on magical, enlightening journeys through these exciting places.

• Elegant, Comfortable Ships
• Spacious Accommodations
• Gourmet Cuisine
• Consistently Excellent Service
• Expert Planning & Execution
• Cultural Enrichment
• Great Travel Value
• Travel the World with Viking
• The World's most Award-Winning River Cruise Line

The Viking Fleet - Elegant, Comfortable Ships

Viking operates the largest fleet of their own river cruise vessels, and they are proud to offer you the best ships in each region where they travel. Most of the Viking ships were built during the past few years, and by virtue of their program of continuous improvement the rest have been recently upgraded or refurbished. Their ships are smaller than ocean vessels, so every stateroom has an outside view of the river and passing scenery. And the flat-bottomed shape of these ships ensures a safe and smooth ride with no worries about motion sickness. Viking ships are specially designed to navigate the world’s great rivers and provide convenient access to every destination along the way.

Viking accommodations—a warm welcome

When you are a guest on a Viking ship, your complete satisfaction is of utmost concern. From the moment you check in and find your luggage waiting to the time you disembark, you will feel at home. Comfortable staterooms stocked with amenities, helpful staff and connections with the outside world are just a few of the touches that mean so much when you travel with Viking.

Gourmet cuisine to complement your cruise

Dining is a very important highlight of any travel experience, but especially with Viking. Their chefs create a variety of delicious offerings featuring European, Russian and Chinese specialties—adapted for Western tastes—with fresh seasonal vegetables and soups prepared throughout your cruise.

The Viking standard of service excellence

Viking River Cruises provides a superior travel experience, from one end of the trip to the other. They operate our own ships and pride themselves on directly managing all aspects of your vacation, from the onboard cuisine to shore excursion lectures to ground transportation. This strong sense of commitment to excellent service sets them apart from other companies.

The Viking experience—scenery, history and cultural enrichment

Picture-perfect scenery surrounds your ship as it glides gracefully along one of the world’s great rivers. But the Viking experience is so much more—with a perfect combination of shore excursions, lectures, demonstrations and performances; every journey is a cultural adventure.

All-inclusive packages—another Viking hallmark

A frequent comment about ocean cruise lines is that so many things are not included. But with Viking, your fare includes just about everything—from meals, enrichment lectures and shore excursions to hotel accommodations on our “cruisetour” itineraries. A Viking vacation is an excellent travel value.

Viking River Cruises—a great travel value

However you look at it, a Viking vacation is an outstanding value. Viking guests never have that feeling of being “nickel-and-dimed.” All meals are included on virtually every itinerary, plus daily shore excursions, port charges, entry fees and so on. Check here for even more ways that Viking maximizes the value of your travel dollar.

Viking's New Ships

The Christmas Markets & Holiday Cruising

Cruising in Europe

As you can see Viking River Cruises sets it’s self apart from the other River Cruise lines. As a leader in the industry They have the highest customer service satisfaction rating with 99.8% of the customers commenting that Viking River Cruises has exceeded their expectations. Here is a link to my Viking River Cruise website. Here you will find information on all of the itineraries, rivers and online brochures to view at your convenience. What are you waiting for? Take a look at River Cruising. What a great way to visit the world with your spouse, your kids, your mom & dad or your grandmother or grandfather! Are you part of a group who loves history, art, wine, Christmas Markets or the traditions of other countries throughout the world? If you are, then River Cruising is for you! If you have any questions let me know. I would love to help you plan your next journey on a river cruise! Until we unite again remember to always love your Travel Agent. He needs lots of love, plus he is a real nice guy! Remember that my services, research and recommendations are always No Charge! If you know someone who travels send them my way. They will be treated just like family. If you have a group who wants to travel together let me know and you could travel for free. Traveling in a group is always more fun when you all share like interests! You will be taken care of. Keep your Cruisitude in check and most important is to always Travel Your Way!

Monday Morning Painkiller 3/22/10

It has been a great week! My wife came home for a couple of days! Boy will I be glad when this house sells so we can see each other daily instead of every other month. I have faith and my thoughts are positive that it is going to sell real soon. Can I get some more positive thoughts? Together we can make this happen. I am thankful for my father in law this week. I am not a very mechanical/repair type of person and he came over for a few days to help me with a couple of repairs. I had some sprinkler heads that my mower killed and a crazy door bell that was playing hard ball. The sprinkler head replacements ended up being fairly easy and the spray alignment ended up being quite wet. Now for this stupid door bell that was another story. We spent one night and half of another day tracing wires from the door bell transformer in the attic to the door bell itself. One place we did not look until we were about to call it quits was the carbon monoxide detector in the upstairs ceiling. There were a couple of wires loose and once those were tightened the stupid door bell worked. Why would a home builder run the door bell connection thru the carbon monoxide detector? I have no clue, but I am very thankful for my father in law making everything all right. Thanks Papaw! Pod started spring practice at La Tech this week. They had three practices and with a new head coach and a new offensive coordinator they have a whole new system to learn. Their spring game will be April 10th in Ruston. This week I spent more time learning and researching the River Cruise segment of travel. This is such a wonderful way to see the world from your very own floating hotel. I am very excited about River Cruising! I had some bookings this week in Alaska! Can I get a Woo Hoo? Alaska Cruisetours are the way to go in Alaska. You really get to see the beauty of Alaska from the ship and by rail to the interior. My two favorite Alaskan towns are Ketchikan and Talkeetna. Talkeetna is where you get to see Mt. McKinley and eat the best pizza in the world at Mountain High Pizza Pie. Pizza and Alaska Amber Ale! Nothing is better on a beautiful day in Alaska. Ok it is time to continue with our journey on the Norwegian Pearl. As always we need a nice beverage to start our journey off with and this morning we are going to sip on a Painkiller! You start off with 3 ounces of Rum (Pusser’s), 2 ounces of cream of coconut, 1 ounce of pineapple juice and a healthy splash of orange juice. Sprinkle Nutmeg and add 1 Maraschino cherry. Fill your drink shaker with lots of ice. Add you Pusser’s rum, Coco Lopez, pineapple juice and orange juice. Shake well, add a cherry, sprinkle with nutmeg and grab a straw! This will take any pain that you have away for sure! This was originally made in the British Virgin Islands – Pusser’s is the official rum of the Royal British Navy. This morning we are anchored just a short tender ride to NCL's private island Great Stirrup Cay. It is a little overcast this morning, but I am in hope of some sunshine! We cannot get off of the Pearl until 10AM so we had plenty of time to eat breakfast. Since I am a huge fan of breakfast I am going to eat too much as usual. I start off with smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers on a toasted bagel. Then it is on to those crispy waffles with warm banana compote, country potatoes and a side of crispy bacon. This is all washed down with strong coffee and my two glasses of prune juice. I am glad I started breakfast early. That was a ton of food, but I am happy! I am looking forward to just chilling on Great Stirrup Cay! I am sure what to expect from a private island that has been made up to look like a tropical paradise. Great Stirrup Cay is part of the Berry Islands and is located 62 nautical miles from Freeport, Bahamas. It is an exclusive port of call featured on NCL's Caribbean and Bahaman itineraries. Our tender boat ride will take about 10 minutes to get to the island. The tender boat goes right up to the beach and you walk right off on to the sand. It looks pretty cool and the water is very clear. I just wish the sun would stay out. We staked our claim around a couple of picnic tables and a couple of hammocks. There were plenty of things to do and some of our choices included snorkeling, parasailing, kayaking, volleyball or just soaking up the sometimes available rays of sunshine. I elected to walk around the island and explore some and chill in the hammock. Don't laugh, but after a few hours I was getting pretty hungry. I know my breakfast should have carried me through to the next day! They had a beach barbeque and it smelled mighty fine. They were grilling burgers and dogs and were even baking pizza. There were lots of fruit choices and condiments to go with burgers and dogs. I made my plate and picked up a couple of beers and headed back to our picnic table compound. I waited my 30 minutes after I ate and headed to the water for a little swim. It was a little cool, but the water felt good to me. Off in the distance you can see a storm coming in so we decided to call it a day at the island. With this storm coming in the trip back to the Pearl was going to be interesting as it was getting pretty rough. As we got close to the ship we had to wait for the tender boat that was ahead of us. They were having a hell of a time getting close because of the high waves. This is not going to be very fun and I was a little scared. It felt like we were on a trampoline and the gangway was going up as we were going down. We were able to get back on the ship, but if was not much fun doing that. I am more of a let me off at the pier person, but I am aware that some of these big mega ships cannot get into some of these ports. I hope the seas calm down for the others that are still on the island. Overall I was not impressed with Great Stirrup Cay! I hope NCL will invest some money into her. She does have potential, but I was not impressed with her as she is now. I was going to go to the free seminar on Detox for Health and Weight Loss, but I figured I would just keep drinking prune juice and I would be just fine! I am going to head to the pool and order a bucket of beer and enjoy my last afternoon at sea. They had sail away music going and the bikini scenery was looking good! I think I am getting ready to get hit! HaHa! What a great afternoon this has ended up. Do as much or as little as you want. It is your choice and the options are endless! The last night on the Pearl was going to be a food extravaganza. Not only were we celebrating my parents 50th wedding anniversary, my dad's 70th birthday, but we were celebrating my brother in laws 50th birthday and my brother & sister in laws 5th wedding anniversary! That is a lot of celebrating! Our pre meal beverage would be at Maltings Bar. They were hosting the 2 - 1 martini's tonight. I was going with the lemon drop and I was not disappointed. Tonight we were going to eat at Lotus Garden. It is like a PF Changs. I had met Jasmine who was my server during my sushi event yesterday and she served at Lotus Garden at night. She was the most incredible customer service oriented person I had met on the Pearl. I was so impressed with her that I told her our last dinner was going to be at Lotus Garden and she made sure we were seated in her station. Ok, before I get started don't laugh at me yet, but I ordered a lot. There was a $15 cover charge for eating at the Lotus Garden and I was going to get my monies worth. I ordered crispy spring rolls, crispy crab won tons, fried calamari and barbecued ribs for my appetizers. I love this eating and ordering concept! For my meal I ordered Singapore street noodles, lemon pepper shrimp and hot & spicy schezwan beef. Then for dessert I ordered crème burlee three ways. The flavors were green tea, red bean and ginger. All I can say is oh my! What a food event this was and I am so stuffed and in a major need of a wheel barrow! The food was so awesome! There are way too man food choices for a 7 night cruise! I was going to go watch the movie, but I needed to go walk around the ship. After several laps I was feeling a lot better. The show tonight was a late one and we went to the Second City "Scriptless" Adult Comedy Show! This show was awesome and the improvisation was incredible. This day and night have been indescribable. What a day it has been and so many memories! My heavenly bed is calling me for one more night. When we awaken tomorrow I will be back in Miami and I will be happy and sad. Good night to all! I appreciate all of those who are following! Leave me a comment sometime. I would love to know who is reading! Until we unite again remember to always love your Travel Agent. He needs lots of love! Remember that my services, research and recommendations are always No Charge! If you know someone who travels send them my way. If you have a group who wants to travel together let me know. Traveling in a group is always more fun if you all share like interests! You know you will be taken care of. Keep your Cruisitude in check and most important is to Travel Your Way!

Monday Evening Blue Lagoon 3/15/10

It has been an awesome week! We started off with the wet crap and the week ended with sunny cloudless skies. I can't believe that we actually touched the 80's. I guess I have to say Spring is in the air since we have now sprung forward. Look out patio here I come. Lighter later equals more time outside with a glass of red wine. Pod starts spring football practice at La Tech and one of my passions besides helping you with your travel vacations is my love for college football. I can't wait. March madness and St. Patrick’s Day are here as well. I am not a huge college basketball fan, but come tournament time and I am at point at the TV. It should be an interesting Final Four. Who is going to win? Leave a comment below. I think West Virginia is going to win! Last week I spent time learning more about River Cruises and will expand and break those cruise lines down in the near future. Summer travel and cruising bookings are pretty hot right now. There has even been interest in getting holiday travel set in place for the end of the year. Alaska was on my mind this week as I completed my education on Alaska and became a Certified Alaska Expert. If you have not been to Alaska yet make sure you add it to your bucket list. Cruises and Cruisetours take place from early May until late September. You can go from 7 to 14 nights or even longer in some cases. The choice is yours as you can cruise and then add a land portion to the interior of Alaska before or after the cruise. It is an awesome way to see all of Alaska. On top of that the best pizza in my book is made in Talkeetna. Mountain High Pizza Pie is the bomb and I cannot wait to get back for my fix! Todd makes the best pizza, calzones, hummus and serves ice cold Alaskan Amber. The cruise lines that sail in Alaska are Princess, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Holland America, Cruise West, Silversea, Celebrity, Norwegian Cruise line and Regent Seven Seas. Alaska is so cool and there are so many options to choose from. If you need help with your Alaska journey give me a call and leave your worries to me. I need a drink! Day 6 on the Norwegian Pearl is going to start off with a Blue Lagoon! What the heck is in a Blue Lagoon besides crystal clear water and white sand? Here we go! Take 2 parts premium vodka, 1 part blue curacao, 1 part lemonade and a couple of cherries. Pour the vodka and curacao over ice in your favorite highball glass. Fill to the top with lemonade, top with the cherries, and serve. With spring in the air get your groove on and make a Blue Lagoon. Day 6 is a sea day. That means we will not be stopping until tomorrow when we reach Norwegian's private island called Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. Last night was a long night so I sleep in a bit. The restaurants are open a little longer for breakfast when you are at sea. I was not sure what the day would bring, but I was starving. We ate breakfast at the Summer Palace. I had my normal of smoked salmon on a bagel with cream cheese and capers. I can't forget my prune juice and coffee. I did add these golden waffles with this warm banana compote that almost put me on the floor with yumminess. I just thought I was going to go lay at the pool. I need to go walk the interior of the ship and burn some of my breakfast off. If I have not mentioned it yet my dad is a blackjackaholic! He is good at it and when the casino is open he will most likely be there. During my walk I made my way through the casino and I see my dad not playing blackjack, but standing next to a wheel of fortune slot machine with a light flashing above it. What in the world is going on? He just hit 2K on this slot machine. Now that is what I am talking about! I need some of that luck to rub off on me. Some of the things I could choose from this morning included rock climbing, bowling, trivia, crazy golf, Texas Hold'em, bingo and a Burn Fat Faster seminar. I should be going to that one but elected hit the library for a while a write. I know boring, but I needed some quiet me time. After some good writing I headed out to find the rest of the family who were soaking up the rays at the pool. That is the cool thing about a cruise is that there are so many things to do for everyone. You can do as little or as much as you want. It's your vacation! I know I should not be talking about food again, but it was after 12 and I was a tad hungry. Don't laugh, I love food! I was going solo today for lunch as I would be sampling the all you can eat sushi at the sushi bar. There is a $15 charge for this and I was glad to pay it. There were a few people at the sushi bar so that meant my rolls would not take very long to make, plus I got to watch these sushi masters make my rolls. I ordered a spicy tuna roll, a godzilla roll, a dynamite roll a glass of white wine and a shrimp tempura roll. You heard me four rolls and I and going to stay here a long as I have to. I will finish them all. They are all really good and I am in sushi heaven. After I am done they bring me three flavors of mochi ice cream and the only way I can describe it is like eating a frozen gummy bear with ice cream in the middle. I think I need a stretcher! I am going to hang at the pool this afternoon, play some ping pong and watch Pea & Pod play in another soccer tournament. Later in the afternoon we went to the Champagne art auction. They have several of these throughout the cruise and there is art being sold from world class artist. Opening bids start at $100. Some of the art sold for thousands! That was amazing to watch. Daylight is almost over and it is almost time for our pre dinner tradition of the 2 for 1 martini at the star bar. I still think it is one of the best bargains on the Pearl if you like martinis. Pear Pleasure was my martini of choice again. What a great way to finish off your afternoon and get your mood right for the evenings activities. It is nonstop action! Dinner would be at the Summer Palace tonight. My meal would start off with an onion mushroom tart and chilled strawberry soup. The main course was surf and more with lobster, filet minion and grilled shrimp and a side of mushroom risotto. Desert was a lemon cream pie. Oh know I never should have had dessert. I forgot at 10:00 was the all chocolate buffet. I am in bad trouble. I guess I cannot worry about that now. We decided to waddle down to the Garden of Geisha show. It is a show featuring flying circus acrobatics. It was really an awesome show. I was still waddling even after the show as we headed for the all chocolate extravaganza. I am not kidding you they have transformed the entire garden cafe to this amazing chocoholic paradise. You name it in chocolate and they have something made with it. The chocolate sculptures are beyond belief. I think I sampled about 10 different things. I am in a chocolate coma! I have requested a wheel barrow, but I am not sure they are going to accommodate me. Where is my prune juice? I thought I was going to waddle my way down to the Bliss Lounge and rock the night away, but my dance moves would not have been very pretty. It has been an awesome day and my heavenly bed is calling my name. Tomorrow we will take a tender to Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. This is a private island owned by NCL. I am really looking forward to the crystal clear waters. Good Night! I appreciate all of those who are following and if you know someone who likes to travel I would be honored if you would forward them a link to “Travelin’ with John” Make sure and tell me who is going to win the final for in the comment section below. Until we unite again remember to always love your Travel Agent. He needs lots of love! Remember that my services, research and recommendations are always No Charge! If you know someone who travels send them my way. You know they will be taken care of. Keep your Cruisitude in check and most important is to Travel Your Way!

Tuesday Evening Tequila 6/16/09

Now that the Alaska cruise season has started, I thought I would share our adventure's on the trip that Janet and I took to Alaska in 2007. It is a trip that is still fresh in my memory and I will never forget it. We elected to cruise with Princess on this trip. We were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary and could not think of a better destination than Alaska. So we decided to do a wilderness tour for 5 days before we caught up with the Princess Coral in Whittier (Near Anchorage) We started off our trip from San Antonio with a long flight to Fairbanks through Minneapolis. It’s a long ways to Fairbanks. Packing for the trip was even more difficult because you had to have one bag for the ship and one for the land portion. When we arrived in Fairbanks they took our bags for the ship and told us that our bags would be in our cabin when we boarded the ship in 5 days. I hope I see my clothes again! We were just staying one night in Fairbanks and catching the train to Denali in the morning. Since it stays daylight in Alaska forever, we had no problem checking out Fairbanks. Neither one of us slept at all with the anticipation of our journey starting in the morning. Morning arrives and we take the motor coach from the hotel to the Princess train. Most of the cruise lines all have their Double Decker trains all hooked together. We were seated at our assigned table on the upper deck and had the most amazing view from our domed train. They had a specialist on the train who gave us the history of the different areas that we were traveling through. We were able to get up and walk around the train. They had an area at the end of train that you could go outside and see the views from there as well. As you can see Janet is a Happy Camper! It was really awesome. About half way through the train ride our table was called to go down to the dining car where we ordered breakfast and watched the most amazing scenery go by as we sipped our coffee and juice while we waited for our breakfast to be served. After breakfast we went back to our upper deck table and watched the beautiful scenery pass by. As we arrived in Denali there was a small lake off to the left side and we saw our first Moose playing in the water. Well I think it was playing!
We have now arrived at the Princess Lodge at Denali National Park. This is so cool! Hoo Ya! We get off the train and we are just about 1/2 of mile from the lodge. Once we get to the lodge we walk around a bit. It is a huge place with several restaurants and shops. Our favorite place was the Base Camp Bistro. It has the most amazing decks that looks over the river and mountains in the background. We liked it so much that we ate lunch and dinner there. They had this most incredible appetizer. It was an Alaska Crab Pot. It had crab, artichoke hearts, sherry cream, celery and loads of Parmesan cheese served with toasted Parmesan baguette slices. I am drooling! As we were eating lunch we kept seeing these Mewgulls flying around. There was a group that had just finished eating and their table had not been cleaned yet and all of a sudden here came the Mewgulls and stole the french fries. Crazy birds. We spent the rest of the day walking around the many trails around the lodge and visiting the Denali National Park Museum. It was really breathtaking. We awoke the next morning for our 65 mile trip into Denali National Park. We elected to upgrade our tour to the Tundra tour that would take us even further than the Natural History tour. We saw, Grizzly Bears, Moose, Caribou, Dall’s sheep and many other wildlife. Way too cool! Can not explain the rush when a Grizzly Bear comes right up to the school bus that we were on. I would love to spend more time here, but we are now off to the Princess Mt McKinley Lodge. Oh mountains here we come! Mt McKinley is a very strange mountain and only likes to show her beauty once every so often. We take a motor coach form Denali and arrive at the Mt McKinley lodges. They were spectacular with many restaurants and shops. They also had this amazing deck that looked out over the area where Mt McKinley is supposed to be, but nothing but clouds blanket her. We walked around some of the trails around the lodge. The funniest thing is the warning signs for the bears while you are on the trails. They show you six bear types and what to do if you see that type of bear. One bear type has you lay in the fetal position, another has you start clapping and yelling. I can tell you that if I ran into a bear no matter what type, I would not take time see what type it was nor figure out what I was supposed to do. I would be running like hell as fast as I could in the opposite direction. We had several meals, drinks and played cards in the bar that looked out over the deck waiting for the glimpse of seeing the mountain. No such luck on day #1. The next morning we take a motor coach to the small town of Talkeetna. This place is so cool. It has old shops, restaurants and a super tiny grocery/package store. We found this awesome pizza joint called Mountain High Pizza Pie and I have to tell you that besides my mom's pizza that this was the BEST I have had anywhere.
Those of you who know me know I love to eat and I love pizza. Oh yea, the beer was good too. When you finish your pizza you need to walk around a while and make room for pie at the Road House Cafe. Sweet Perfection! Not to take away from desert, but we found the city hall while walking around and they were selling shirts for the Moose Dropping Festival the next weekend. How bizarre is that? I guess they have a Moose Dropping toss, like in Texas they have the Cow Chip toss. Too Funny! We head back to the lodge in hope of seeing a glimpse of the mountain, but nothing but clouds. We have a few drinks and toast the mountain and still nothing in sight. We are bummed that we can not see this mountain. Are you really there or you just a myth? Off to bed we go and it is still daylight. It never gets dark in Alaska and this makes sleeping quite interesting. We wake up the next morning and pack our bags as we are heading to the Princess Coral today. We put our bags outside for the staff to pickup and we head to the big deck to see if maybe she might show a little and oh my gosh. There she was in full view and not a cloud in the sky. Janet was smiling from ear to ear. She was so excited! Almost like being in a candy store. She took video and I snapped tons of pictures. In a matter of 15 minutes she was gone. The clouds had taken over Mt McKinley and she had vanished. We were so blessed with the perfect timing and the view that would last us a lifetime. So Unbelievable! We jump on the motor coach back to Talkeetna where we will board the train down to Whitter to board the Princess Coral. The train will take around 6 hours to get to Whitter. We have a great table to see all of the awesome scenery as we reflect on our first trip into the interior of Alaska and what an experience it has been. We are very excited about our first cruise to Alaska. I can tell you this much, I fell in love with the area's of Alaska that we have visited and I will return again. I will end here as our land portion of our trip has ended. I will continue my next story on this fantastic trip as we review the various ports of call. Until then Happy Travlin' Travel Your Way!