This is my opportunity to pay you all back for the great advice I have received on cruisecritic.com. We planned this cruise for our 30th wedding anniversary and went hog wild on port excursions, thinking that if we were lucky and the weather cooperated we might be able to complete half of them. Well, when they tell you that the month of May is a great month to go to Alaska (less rain, more sun) – believe it. The weather Northbound was amazing and every single one of our excursions went off as planned. Southbound had more typical Alaska weather (cloudy), but still little rain and good temps.
We travel with a group, and had many of them with us on the first week. This was the cruise first we all had without the kids. In our case, the kids are all either married (Son), in grad school (eldest daughter), or entering their last year of college (twin “baby” girls). Did they want to go on this trip, yes; but could we afford it with all the excursions planned and tuition coming due, no. So be it. It was great even without them.
First, our sailing took us from Vancouver, BC to Seward, and then back again on the second sailing. Because this was the first sailing of the season, the Northbound trip also had Sitka, Ak thrown in as an additional port in order to reset the Millennium to a Friday-Friday schedule. So it was an 8-day cruise going North. Nice bonus!
We had cabin #3116 for the May 12th sailing. GREAT cabin. It is a Cat6 OV that was installed back in the 2012 refurb, so it is basically new and had a little more wiggle room between the front of the bed and the cabin wall – we did NOT have to turn sideways to pass between the bed and the cabin wall. There is maybe an extra 20 square feet or so there. It also has a VERY large window. The area used to be where the old theatre was and a pleasant reading area prior to the new cabins being installed. The windows are the size of the Main Dining Room windows, about 5 feet in diameter (compared to normal OV windows of about 4 feet). Being on deck 3 was also very convenient to get to the restaurants, all venues on deck 4 and 5, and when going/returning ashore. Needless to say, we loved this room. All cabins from #3112 to 3144 are like this cabin.
Clean, safe city. We took the walked from our hotel to the local marina, hopped on the Aquabua to Granville Island, and had the best fish in chips at Go Fish just off the island. What a wonderful welcome and pleasant way to begin our vacation.