Jamie & Henry's Holidays, Cruises & Travel

Henry said I was blogging too much about our Peru trip and he wanted to write something about the last cruise we went on. So here is it:

We’ve been on a number of cruises together now and I’m happy to report that they are getting more enjoyable each time. Don’t get me wrong, I have loved each one, but you learn about what you like and where you like when you’ve been on a few cruises and now we can pick from experience.

We had been around the Mediterranean and even cruised around Scandinavia a bit, but this time we fancied the Indian Ocean. We had not really seen very much of that part of the world and a friend had recommended it. Plus we enjoyed the heat of the Med and this promised to be similar (Scandinavia was not so comfortable, although exceptionally stunning). We also decided to spoil ourselves a little and booked one of WSC’s luxury cruises, with a little financial help from Jamie’s parents I have to add.

We actually set off from Cape Town in South Africa, which is a stunning place to visit in itself and somewhere we will return do soon. From there we headed off around the Indian Ocean and stopped off at places including Madagascar, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. I won’t go into detail about each as they could make up 20 separate blogs posts themselves, but I will say that it was a cruise that I will never forgot. The service was like nothing we have every experienced and the food...OMG it was good. We also saw an amazing amount of wildlife from the boat, which was an added bonus.

We have to thank Jamie’s parents for helping us get away and see such a beautiful part of the world...we have promised to repay the gesture soon.

As you know we both love cruising and have experienced several recently including a beautiful trip on the Indian Ocean back at the beginning of the year. After this trip we vowed that we wouldn’t leave it as long to take the next adventure on the high seas. So having spent some of the summer months planning, we decided that we would head for the west coast of the USA and hook up with a cruise ship bound for Alaska.

The cruises can be boarded in two different locations – Seattle and just across the border with Canada in Vancouver. We decided to go with Candian Sky's Alaska cruises (great rep) and thought that if we boarded in Seattle, we could also enjoy a stop off in Vancouver, where we could meet up with some friends who emigrated two or three years ago.

After the brief respite in Vancouver, the cruise ship headed north towards the frozen wastes of Alaska, making its second stop in Juneau. In Juneau, there is a great pub called the Red Dog Saloon, which has a friendly and relaxed atmosphere complete with authentic sawdust scattered over the floor. If your timing is right, you will experience some local live music and a nice log fireplace to warm your feet. If you like fresh fish, you cannot leave this place without sampling an Alaskan grill in the Twisted Fish Company. We both had a delicious halibut burger, which was accompanied by wild berry and mango chutney – yummy!

After Juneau, we headed further north to Glacier Bay where not every cruise ship is allowed to go (luckily ours was :-). This place was amazing, and I still cannot forget the intense blue colours of the glaciers as they stood formidably in front of us. We were lucky enough during this visit to see large chunks of ice break off and crash into the sea – a memory that we cannot easily forget.

The largest city on the trip, with the exception of Vancouver is Skagway – with its wooden boardwalks evoking memories of the great days of gold panning. The city has lots of Russian influence, with many buildings displaying the trademark ‘onion dome’ tops resembling St Petersburg or Moscow. We especially enjoyed the coffee in the Black Bean, which was lively and full of characters.