Holland Statendam 7 day Cruise to Alaska with 5 days Independent Land Tour Review

Some background information first, we are a family of 3 with an 8yr old child. It is my 4th cruise and I've tried Carnival, Royal Carribbean, and Norwegian in the past. My goal is to try all the different cruiselines. I've been thinking about a cruise to alaska since the beginning of this year but due to the nature of my work, I could not book the trip until a month beforehand. I bought the Great Alaskan Toursaver book which saved me alot of money and read reviews on tripadvisor, cruisecritic, and forums to plan my trip. My heart was set on the diamond princess because I loved the itinerary but it was all booked up. The only option left was holland inside cabin or celebrity balcony. I wound up picking Holland because Celebrity was double the price.

My main goal for vacations is to capture beautiful pictures. I have a canon 50d dslr and my favorite walkaround lense is the tamron 17-50mm f2.8. I did make advances in my photography skills for this trip. I brought along 3 lenses, tamron 17-50mm f2.8, tokina 11-16mm f2.8, and tamron 28-300mm f3.5-6.3 and actually used all of them! I also played more with the av and tv settings instead of using av f2.8 all the time. Read more