Alaska has been on our bucket list for quite a number of years now. So when Ruthie saw a special deal to sail the inside passage of Alaska from Vancouver, she jumped at it. Now I’ve said before, a cruising holiday may not be for everybody but for me it’s such an easy holiday. Unpack once, food laid on, cocktails by the pool, great theatre shows, music and dancing as well as visiting exotic ports. Some of the ships are like floating cities with many more activities on board, ifly, dodgem cars, flowrider, North Star, trivia, dance classes, gym, walking/running track just to name a few.

I had a lightbulb moment! Wasn’t this ship relocating from the Australian cruising season to the Northern hemisphere summer season? Why can’t we catch it all the way? So next thing you know we’re sailing Brisbane to Hawaii via Tahiti, Hawaii to Vancouver and Vancouver to Alaska. Repositioning cruises tend to be a little cheaper and that allowed us to jump on board for the 3 legs.

The day we sailed from Brisbane was a balmy 29 degrees and was the only Australian city that didn’t have rain on that day. For the Hawaii leg, we have Captain Krzyszthof from Poland and cruise director Mike from Australia. Royal Caribbean make the loyal cruisers feel so at home. It’s only day 2 and we’ve already had 2 welcome back functions. The top loyal passenger on this cruise is Craig from Orlando who has over 5,000 points. To put this into context, we have just over 100 points and we have been cruising for 10 years!

We’ve also taken ourselves out of our comfort zone by joining the ships passenger choir as well as Salsa lessons (wish it was for blokes with 2 left feet.) Our theory is that we’ll never see these people again but chances are by the end of the cruise new friends will be made.

Follow me here people and get your mind around this (my brain hurt). Overnight on day 2, we lost 1 hour, overnight on day 3, we lost another hour. After day 4 we gained a day by crossing the international dateline. So -1-1+24. Suddenly we had 2 Saturdays 15 April 2023! So I figured if I got the winning lottery numbers for the 1st Saturday and played them for the 2nd Saturday, I’d be set for life! Somehow it doesn’t work that way even though it felt like Groundhog Day.

Although you can buy an internet package, we’ve opted not too and it’s so refreshing not to be device dependent. It really feels like we’re sailing the high seas. Aye aye captain!

So after 8 days or was it 9 days of ocean sailing, we’ve arrived at the port of Papeete, Tahiti.