This was my 47 th cruise but 44 of those were as a crew member on RCI's Song of Norway in the Western Caribbean in the mid 1980s. As a musician on board I got to dine with the passengers and had free access to the ship before and after work. I married one of the passengers! Following my tour on the SON I took two cruises with Carnival to the Eastern and Southern Caribbean. Ships were much smaller then! No balconies, no outdoor movies, no specialty restaurants, no fixed gratuities, no Internet nor cell phones. No waterparks or zip lines. There was bingo and Diamonds International though!
2011 and my traveling companion decides it is time she saw Alaska after years of trekking around the USA and Europe together. After much research on CC and company web sites we chose an Alaska southbound cruise aboard the much-praised Coral Princess from Whittier.
We flew into Anchorage the day before sailing so that we were in place for the coach trip to Whittier next morning and had a relaxing day walking around the city albeit in a soft drizzle which would follow us for our first 5 days at sea.