Our Next Cruising Adventure!

"Everyone has a crew, a stone cold, never-blink, walk in slow-motion crew..."
~ Borrowed from a Cadillac commercial

We've got ourselves a crew, too, and we're all heading for Alaska next May! We're taking my parents, #1 Daughter & Daughter-in-law, and #2 Daughter with us. My sister Linda's son (hereafter referred to as Nephew) has decided to join us to make it an even party of eight! 

Originally, I'd thought about waiting until January to book this trip, hoping to snag a sale, but we really wanted to have 4 balconies in a row, so we've settled on the May 9, 2020 seven day sailing of the Ruby Princess round trip out of Seattle. This will be our third trip to Alaska, my parent's second, but it'll be the first time for all the kids. 

From our 2017 trip to the 49th state

However, even though we've been before, this trip will be different. For one thing, it'll be in May instead of our previous September cruises. Winter will just be leaving instead of almost arriving. I'm curious to see how far into the Glacier Bay National Park the Ruby Princess will be able to sail. I also wonder if we'll see any babies among the wildlife since spring is their usual time to appear. 

We have our airplane reservations. We'll all meet in St. Louis on May 8th, stay overnight, and then fly to Seattle non-stop on Alaska Air the next day. Our flight leaves at 6:oh-dark-twenty in the morning, so we'll need to be close to airport to make it on time. I really appreciate a non-stop flight. Less opportunity for our luggage to go off on adventures of its own. Once we touch down at Sea-Tac, we'll be whisked to the port for boarding.

Everyone definitely needs to bring a pair of binoculars!

Another thing that's different about this trip is that we'll feel responsible for everyone traveling with us. Lately, it's just the DH and me, looking after each other, though we did take my parents and our kids to Hawaii in 2012. Eight is the largest group we've led. This time, we want to make sure everyone has the time of their lives, which means hanging out with each other as much or as little as everyone wants. And that mileage can vary. I've asked that we all meet for supper each evening to share what we've done that day, but if we want to run around the ship or go on excursions together, that'll be fun too. It's everyone's choice. We'll have a plan the rest of the crew is welcome to join, but if they want to do their own thing, it's fine. (I do however, want to get at least one pic of us all strutting in that too-cool-for-school formation like the Cadillac commercial!)

The Ruby Princess is a Medallion Class ship, which means it's supposed to have super-fast wifi (for a cruise ship!) and the app we'll all download is supposed to let us find members of our party while on the ship. We'll see. I'm sure all the kids will be able to figure it out, and the DH retired from Google, so I'm golden. But my parents aren't terribly tech-ish. Mom has a phone she uses to text with, but I doubt it's new enough to even upload the Oceans app. Anyway, they'll likely hang with us and that'll be great. 

Here's our itinerary:

And just to remind you of some of the glories of Alaska, the DH has put together a montage of our 2017 cruise. Our friends Mike and Joy met us in Seattle and joined us on the Holland America Eurodam for this trip. Enjoy!

Oh! And as usual if you receive this blog by email, you'll need to click over to the actual blog to see the videos. Sorry...

And just for grins, the DH put together some pics from our 2007 cruise to Alaska with my folks!