We chose this cruise for the itinerary, to visit places that would be difficult to get to otherwise. We had previously visited Japan, and one of us had been on an overland trip to Alaska. This was our 6th cruise and our second Regent. We decided to do the more expensive pre-cruise excursion which took in the Mt Fuji area.

The pre-cruise itinerary was quite good, but unfortunately we had a very grey foggy day for our visit to the the Mt Fuji area. We stayed at a Hilton Spa hotel in Odawara, about 90 minutes from Tokyo and that was very enjoyable with the baths and traditional Japanese food.

The cruise was generally good, although due to trying to avoid bad weather, we missed the port of Petropavlosk in Russia. We seemed to ride on the edge of teh storm for about 4 days. We were also unable to see the Hubbard Glacier due to fog and rain, despite cruising right up next to it. However, we were blessed with excellent weather in Kodiak & Juneau and decent weather elsewhere - better than we could have expected. Missing the Russian port meant we had 6 consecutive days at sea - everyone was well and truly ready to get off by the time we reached Dutch Harbour. All the Alaskan ports were good apart from Ketchikan which was unpleasantly touristy. The 3 Japanese ports were all interesting places to visit. Read more