Ocean Cruise – Wandering Dawgs

The journey not the arrival matters
T. S. Eliot

John from Journeys with JohnBo has challenged us to focus on our journeys and the modes of transportation that got us there.

I am grateful for all the many places that planes, trains, automobiles, trucks, ships, boats, ferries, and buses have taken me. I have been fortunate to see most of the United States, several Canadian provinces, parts of Mexico, several European countries and several Caribbean countries.

For this challenge, I am focusing on our two journeys to Alaska. Our first visit to Alaska was in 2013 when we traveled from Georgia to Alaska and back towing our fifth wheel. Henry drove the truck 14,454 miles during our 106 days on the road.

We just returned from our long awaited second trip to Alaska. This time we flew to Anchorage and rode a bus to Seward to board the cruise ship Viking Orion for a 10 day cruise to Vancouver. We traveled in luxury and saw several new places we couldn’t visit by road.

Below you can see the two major modes of transportation from our two different Alaska journeys. Both journeys were spectacular with amazing landscapes and lots of wildlife.

While our truck was our main mode of transportation on our first Alaska adventure, we had to take a couple of ferries to get where we wanted to go.

We took the truck and RV on the Alaska Ferry from Skagway to Haines

There were places our truck couldn’t take us so we took a plane ride and landed on a glacier, took a ride on the Alaska Railroad, and took three amazing wildlife cruises.

This year, after two cancellations, we finally were able to take our Alaska cruise the end of August. Our journey involved planes, moving sidewalks in the airports, a beautiful ship, an Uber, sightseeing buses, a tender ride, two wildlife cruises, and lots of walking. It was wonderful seeing Alaska from the water. We really enjoyed returning to places we loved the first time as well as seeing places that were new to us.

Stay tuned for more from our latest Alaska adventure!

Many thanks to John of Journeys with Johnbo for his Lens-Artists Challenge #215 – Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The Wandering Dawgs just returned from an amazing Caribbean Islands Adventure filled with many memorable events. Our first ever cruise was supposed to be an Alaska inside passage trip in 2020 which we booked in 2019. Then COVID came along and the cruise was rescheduled for 2021. When that one was also cancelled we decided to try something different and booked a January cruise which included some Caribbean islands and a trip up the Amazon River. A few months ago the Brazil portion was cancelled and our itinerary changed to nine Caribbean islands in 8 different countries, starting and ending in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico required a negative COVID test to enter the country. The first of our memorable events was receiving the negative test results the day before our flight!

Everything went smoothly after that. Our flights were on time and we arrived in Puerto Rico on Monday, January 10 for a two night stay at a hotel in San Juan before our Wednesday boarding on the Viking Sea. The most memorable event that first night was watching our Georgia Bulldogs win the college football National Championship from our hotel room.

There were too many memorable events to feature in one post. Here are just a few of the most memorable.

Walking the beaches of the Caribbean just soothed my soul. Our first beach was in a U. S. National Park on St. John, United States Virgin Islands

Each rainbow was spectacular. This rainbow in Dominica was one of several we saw during our journey

Swimming into a cave in Ti Tou Gorge in the rain forest of Dominica was my most memorable experience – Thanks to Henry for this photo

One of the many sunsets we enjoyed. This was from our last night on the ship

Did we love our first cruise? A thousand times YES! It was the trip of a lifetime that can never be duplicated. The weather was perfect, the seas were calm, and each island brought new adventures. With a full crew of 450 and only 150 passengers on a ship with a capacity of 930 we felt like royalty the entire time.

Many thanks to Ann Christine for asking us to share memorable events. Be sure to visit Ann Christine’s Lens-Artists #183: Memorable Events