North To Alaska

I’m five days into my fourteen-day Alaskan Adventure and each day’s scenery, ports of call, and shipboard experiences have exceeded all of my expectations. I am traveling with the WTMJ Listeners Group and many friendships have already been formed.

I had breakfast today with Colleen, the tour manager from Fox Select Vacations, the group travel division of Fox World Travel. She developed and customized this itinerary which starts with a seven day inside passage cruise on Holland America’s MS Statendam and continues with a seven day interior Alaska land tour. Our conversation turned to the best way to do a land/cruise Alaska journey; cruise northbound first and then experience the land versus doing it in the reverse order. There are arguments for both.

One theory is that if you begin in the inside passage on a cruise ship you are “building” to the climax of “the Great One”, Mount McKinley. It truly does give one the sense of going “North, to Alaska”.

Then there is the equally compelling argument that you should begin your trip on land as that tends to be the more active part of the trip. The cruise is then considered to be a relaxing way to finish your Alaskan vacation.

Since I’m traveling north, I am going to make a bold statement and say that this is the best way to do it (until my next Alaskan Adventure when I may change the order and thus change my mind. It is after all, a woman’s prerogative).

So far we’ve seen Ketchikan and Juneau; both were great and the weather cooperated. We have two days at sea coming up which will give me the opportunity to fill you in on more of the details, but right I’m off to explore Skagway.