By now you have the general flavour of our extended trip. All I have left is to start putting together the things we need for our road trip and the clothes we need for our cruise. Luckily, sending out laundry is fairly cheap on the cruise ships, as is dry cleaning if you need it. It helps people who fly to their ports actually pack less and stay within the new air luggage guidelines.
Even though we are driving, we plan to pack light. There is nothing worse than having to shift around all the stuff in your van if you want to use it for sleeping!!
So, the checklists are out. (Sound familiar, Jim?)
One for camping
One for the cruise
One for general gear
One for closing down the house.
The next week will be spent ticking and bopping my way to a vacation. Stay tuned. Daily updates (I hope) should start on August 3!!
I calculated the approximate mileage of our trip using Mapquest and by the time we return we will have driven over 10,000 km. (6000 miles) give or take a few miles or kilometres. We have done a couple of cross country drives and while the total amount seems high, those miles sneak up on you because you do them in short stretches.
I will post one more time next week before we leave just to let you know how we are doing. For now, I am counting down the days. And hoping that there is some heat relief before we leave!!
Wednesday 25 July 2012
Saturday 21 July 2012
The Amsterdam - detail
I've been checking the temperatures in Alaska and they are running in the high 50's F, so certainly a break from all the heat and humidity we have been having. Also, on our drive, once we get into the Rocky Mountains, the nights will be cool for sleeping. We will hit the hot weather in Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming and then on our return in the American Southwest, although by the end of August and early September, even the temperatures there should be bearable. We just need to stay clear of forest fires!!!
On our cruises, we always book an inside cabin since all we use the space for is to sleep, shower and change. The rest of the time we are out and about on the ship or walking at our port stop. An Interior Stateroom is approx. 182 sq. ft. - certainly bigger than my tent and I can most certainly stand up in the cabin.
The beds can be configured as two singles or as one queen size bed. The room is very compact - every inch of space is accounted for. Believe it or not, condos are being built in downtown Toronto, even as I write, that are not much bigger than this - although they do have a balcony and a nice big window. I can live in this much space for a couple of weeks but I don't think I could live in such a small space for any length of time, even with a balcony and certainly not with two people.
There are lots of bright, open spaces on a cruise ship where you can sit and watch the water go by. The best place for doing that is in the Crow's Nest - deck 9. The Crow's Nest is a bar with wall to wall windows at the front of the ship. The nice thing about a cruise ship is that you can sit in the bar and not have to drink. It is a public space.
If you want to see more of the ship, go to www.hollandamerica.com and click on the "our ships" drop box and find the Amsterdam. Once we get on board, I will post pictures of the ship either to this blog, or to the Flickr link at the top of the blog.
An example of an interior stateroom layout:
On our cruises, we always book an inside cabin since all we use the space for is to sleep, shower and change. The rest of the time we are out and about on the ship or walking at our port stop. An Interior Stateroom is approx. 182 sq. ft. - certainly bigger than my tent and I can most certainly stand up in the cabin.
The beds can be configured as two singles or as one queen size bed. The room is very compact - every inch of space is accounted for. Believe it or not, condos are being built in downtown Toronto, even as I write, that are not much bigger than this - although they do have a balcony and a nice big window. I can live in this much space for a couple of weeks but I don't think I could live in such a small space for any length of time, even with a balcony and certainly not with two people.
There are lots of bright, open spaces on a cruise ship where you can sit and watch the water go by. The best place for doing that is in the Crow's Nest - deck 9. The Crow's Nest is a bar with wall to wall windows at the front of the ship. The nice thing about a cruise ship is that you can sit in the bar and not have to drink. It is a public space.
If you want to see more of the ship, go to www.hollandamerica.com and click on the "our ships" drop box and find the Amsterdam. Once we get on board, I will post pictures of the ship either to this blog, or to the Flickr link at the top of the blog.
An example of an interior stateroom layout:
Thursday 19 July 2012
The Amsterdam - general facts
We will be sailing on the Holland America ship, the Amsterdam, for 14 days. We have an inside cabin booked, but my sister-in-law has booked a balcony and we can sit and sip wine up there.
This is the last year that Holland America is doing the 14 day trip. Indeed, most cruise lines only do 7 day Alaska cruises, either round trip Seattle, round trip Vancouver, or one way to or from Seward or Whittier. It seems the 14 day cruise is not as lucrative as the 7 day cruises.
We are traditionalists when it comes to cruises. We like the fixed seating, early (5:45 pm). We like to dress up for formal nights. Most cruise lines have become fairly lenient about formal night dressing and some have done away with formal nights altogether, but we still enjoy them. There will be 4 formal nights on this cruise. One of the formal nights will be Otto's birthday - what better way to celebrate.
Ship facts:
Registered in the Netherlands
Number of passengers - 1380
Number of crew - 647
Gross tonnage - 62,735 grt
Length - 780 feet
Beam - 106 feet
Maximum speed - 22.5 knots
Built in 2000 in Italy
Refurbished in 2010
She is what is known as a Panamax ship - she can fit through the Panama Canal, and does every year when she leaves Fort Lauderdale for her 115 day world cruise. A ship can't be longer than 965 feet nor wider than 106 feet to use the Canal. The new canal, currently being built, will allow larger ships to travel through it.
The Amsterdam is a relatively small ship since she is under 2000 passengers. Compare her to the Oasis of the Seas or the Allure of the Seas (Royal Caribbean ships) each of which carry 5400 passengers and another 2100 crew members. Indeed, they can carry up to 6000 passengers if the rooms are booked 3 and 4 to a room. We like the smaller ships.
The best thing about Holland America - they let you bring all the wine you want on board. And not just at embarkation but also in each port. If you drink it in your stateroom, no charge. If you bring it to the dining room there is an $18 corkage charge. You can also pre-order alcohol to your stateroom. The prices are reasonable if you compare it to Canadian prices. Holland America you rock!!!
This is the last year that Holland America is doing the 14 day trip. Indeed, most cruise lines only do 7 day Alaska cruises, either round trip Seattle, round trip Vancouver, or one way to or from Seward or Whittier. It seems the 14 day cruise is not as lucrative as the 7 day cruises.
We are traditionalists when it comes to cruises. We like the fixed seating, early (5:45 pm). We like to dress up for formal nights. Most cruise lines have become fairly lenient about formal night dressing and some have done away with formal nights altogether, but we still enjoy them. There will be 4 formal nights on this cruise. One of the formal nights will be Otto's birthday - what better way to celebrate.
Ship facts:
Registered in the Netherlands
Number of passengers - 1380
Number of crew - 647
Gross tonnage - 62,735 grt
Length - 780 feet
Beam - 106 feet
Maximum speed - 22.5 knots
Built in 2000 in Italy
Refurbished in 2010
She is what is known as a Panamax ship - she can fit through the Panama Canal, and does every year when she leaves Fort Lauderdale for her 115 day world cruise. A ship can't be longer than 965 feet nor wider than 106 feet to use the Canal. The new canal, currently being built, will allow larger ships to travel through it.
The Amsterdam is a relatively small ship since she is under 2000 passengers. Compare her to the Oasis of the Seas or the Allure of the Seas (Royal Caribbean ships) each of which carry 5400 passengers and another 2100 crew members. Indeed, they can carry up to 6000 passengers if the rooms are booked 3 and 4 to a room. We like the smaller ships.
The best thing about Holland America - they let you bring all the wine you want on board. And not just at embarkation but also in each port. If you drink it in your stateroom, no charge. If you bring it to the dining room there is an $18 corkage charge. You can also pre-order alcohol to your stateroom. The prices are reasonable if you compare it to Canadian prices. Holland America you rock!!!
Monday 16 July 2012
Post cruise Itinerary
Remember, Murphy and that best laid plans thing? Well he has struck even before we leave. I just discovered today that the first campground we intended to stay at is located across the highway from the Iowa Speedway and they have a race there on August 3. Guess what? They have no room for a tent!! So we will have to drive another hour on the first day to get a tent site or a hotel room if it is raining.
On to the post cruise itinerary:
We arrive back in Seattle early in the morning of August 24th. Because our car will be parked across the street from the port, we will walk off early with our luggage. This will give us the whole day to explore Seattle, if we didn't have time before the cruise, or be well on our way to Portland, our first stop after the cruise.
There are a couple of restaurants named Otto's in Portland and we want to discover them. We also plan to visit an acquaintance near here for coffee and do some outlet shopping since Oregon, like Alaska, has no retail sales tax.
We will head out to the coast highway at Newport, OR and travel down the coast, hopefully to Eureka, California. From here we will head inland and catch up with Highway 99, another decommissioned "main" road through the centre of California. At Bakersfield, we will head east to Barstow and get on Route 66 to Kingman, AR. This will allow us to complete much of the still drivable section of Route 66. We have had two other trips following the mother road.
From Kingman we plan to travel north to Vegas and try our luck at one of the casinos. Then it is on to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Scenic Highway 12 in Utah (and a couple of more National Parks) before getting back on Interstate 70 to Denver.
We hope to be able to tour Denver since it got short changed on our 1992 trip. We spent an entire day at a Ford dealership having the air conditioning fixed on a relatively new (6 months old) Aerostar. This time we would like to see the city.
From Denver we will head home and have only one more stop planned in the Amana Communities in Iowa. We have bypassed them on a couple of trips and I would finally like to tour them. Yes, this is where the Amana refrigerators were originally built. The colonies were settled by Germans who were being persecuted at home for their religion.
It looks so simple on paper but will take us 2 to 3 weeks to complete. We hope for good weather and we hope not to run into any forest fires that will take us off our planned route. But like I said, the best laid plans............!
Next: the ship
On to the post cruise itinerary:
We arrive back in Seattle early in the morning of August 24th. Because our car will be parked across the street from the port, we will walk off early with our luggage. This will give us the whole day to explore Seattle, if we didn't have time before the cruise, or be well on our way to Portland, our first stop after the cruise.
There are a couple of restaurants named Otto's in Portland and we want to discover them. We also plan to visit an acquaintance near here for coffee and do some outlet shopping since Oregon, like Alaska, has no retail sales tax.
We will head out to the coast highway at Newport, OR and travel down the coast, hopefully to Eureka, California. From here we will head inland and catch up with Highway 99, another decommissioned "main" road through the centre of California. At Bakersfield, we will head east to Barstow and get on Route 66 to Kingman, AR. This will allow us to complete much of the still drivable section of Route 66. We have had two other trips following the mother road.
From Kingman we plan to travel north to Vegas and try our luck at one of the casinos. Then it is on to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Scenic Highway 12 in Utah (and a couple of more National Parks) before getting back on Interstate 70 to Denver.
We hope to be able to tour Denver since it got short changed on our 1992 trip. We spent an entire day at a Ford dealership having the air conditioning fixed on a relatively new (6 months old) Aerostar. This time we would like to see the city.
From Denver we will head home and have only one more stop planned in the Amana Communities in Iowa. We have bypassed them on a couple of trips and I would finally like to tour them. Yes, this is where the Amana refrigerators were originally built. The colonies were settled by Germans who were being persecuted at home for their religion.
It looks so simple on paper but will take us 2 to 3 weeks to complete. We hope for good weather and we hope not to run into any forest fires that will take us off our planned route. But like I said, the best laid plans............!
Next: the ship
Sunday 15 July 2012
Proposed Itinerary - pre cruise
If you look to the right side of this blog you will see that I have added a gadget that will allow you to follow my posts by email. If you submit your email address you will be notified when I have a new post online. This is managed by Feedburner. Also, across the top I have a link to Flickr for any additional pictures that I don't post into the blog itself.
Ok, "blogkeeping"chores done, now on to today's post.
"The best laid plans of mice and men........." Keeping in mind that plans change or Murphy gets involved, here is our proposed itinerary pre cruise.
We have a fair distance to cover to get to the west coast. Mapquest tells me it will take about 40 hours to reach Seattle from home. That's 4 days of hard driving or 6 days of reasonable distances. We have 7 days to cover the distance in order to meet our cruise ship on time.
Because we have crossed the USA a few times now, there is no "new" way for us to go. We will pick up Interstate 80 in Illinois and follow it to Interstate 29 in Iowa and head north to catch Interstate 90 to Spokane, Washington. We have one stop planned at Devil's Tower, Wyoming, a National Monument. Once we hit Spokane, we will get off of the Interstate and use Highway 2 to Leavenworth, Washington. This is a town with a German flavour, lots of half timbered houses, good beer, good food. Other than overnight stops to sleep, these are our only two stops before we reach Seattle.
The current plan is to have one full day to explore Seattle. If our driving time is extended, we will simply tour Seattle after the cruise.
Our 14 day cruise to Alaska on the Amsterdam will make the following stops and has 3 or so sea days:
Ketchikan
Tracy Arm (cruising only to see the glacier)
Juneau
Icy Strait Point (Hoonah)
Anchorage
Homer
Kodiak
Hubbard Glacier (cruising only to see the Glacier)
Sitka
Victoria
Back to Seattle
Otto's sister and brother-in-law will be flying to Seattle to join us on this cruise and the four of us plan to walk all the port stops and explore on our own. As I was doing my research for our walking tours, I discovered that the only place without a McDonald's was Icy Strait Point!! Some of those McDonald's will be useful for free wifi along the way.
Cruise Map
Next: post cruise itinerary
Ok, "blogkeeping"chores done, now on to today's post.
"The best laid plans of mice and men........." Keeping in mind that plans change or Murphy gets involved, here is our proposed itinerary pre cruise.
We have a fair distance to cover to get to the west coast. Mapquest tells me it will take about 40 hours to reach Seattle from home. That's 4 days of hard driving or 6 days of reasonable distances. We have 7 days to cover the distance in order to meet our cruise ship on time.
Because we have crossed the USA a few times now, there is no "new" way for us to go. We will pick up Interstate 80 in Illinois and follow it to Interstate 29 in Iowa and head north to catch Interstate 90 to Spokane, Washington. We have one stop planned at Devil's Tower, Wyoming, a National Monument. Once we hit Spokane, we will get off of the Interstate and use Highway 2 to Leavenworth, Washington. This is a town with a German flavour, lots of half timbered houses, good beer, good food. Other than overnight stops to sleep, these are our only two stops before we reach Seattle.
The current plan is to have one full day to explore Seattle. If our driving time is extended, we will simply tour Seattle after the cruise.
Our 14 day cruise to Alaska on the Amsterdam will make the following stops and has 3 or so sea days:
Ketchikan
Tracy Arm (cruising only to see the glacier)
Juneau
Icy Strait Point (Hoonah)
Anchorage
Homer
Kodiak
Hubbard Glacier (cruising only to see the Glacier)
Sitka
Victoria
Back to Seattle
Otto's sister and brother-in-law will be flying to Seattle to join us on this cruise and the four of us plan to walk all the port stops and explore on our own. As I was doing my research for our walking tours, I discovered that the only place without a McDonald's was Icy Strait Point!! Some of those McDonald's will be useful for free wifi along the way.
Cruise Map
Next: post cruise itinerary
Thursday 12 July 2012
Transportation and Accomodation
We will be travelling by road to Seattle and our trusted 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan with Stow and Go seats will be our vehicle of choice. This van has been on several long road trips and always behaved well. We have no reason to expect any less this time. And yes, we have slept in it, most recently on our trip back from Florida in April when we couldn't get a hotel room for love or money. Usually we use it for sleeping when a rainstorm comes up and we are already in a campground.
Now our accommodations for most of the trip are always a surprise to people. We camp. We don't pull a trailer, we use a tent!! Yes, I said tent. Most of our friends think we have rocks in our heads, never mind those we sleep on in the campground. After last summer's camping trip, we bought a new tent. It is the biggest one we have had yet, but of course most tents go up quickly now. They are easy to set up, although we struggled with the rain fly on this one until we got it going the right way over the doors. Doors plural - two entrances or exits depending on what you need to do in a hurry. The tent is 10 feet by 10 feet and almost high enough in the centre to stand up straight - a huge improvement on our previous tents.
We just finalized our homeward bound itinerary and that will be the subject of my next post.
Now our accommodations for most of the trip are always a surprise to people. We camp. We don't pull a trailer, we use a tent!! Yes, I said tent. Most of our friends think we have rocks in our heads, never mind those we sleep on in the campground. After last summer's camping trip, we bought a new tent. It is the biggest one we have had yet, but of course most tents go up quickly now. They are easy to set up, although we struggled with the rain fly on this one until we got it going the right way over the doors. Doors plural - two entrances or exits depending on what you need to do in a hurry. The tent is 10 feet by 10 feet and almost high enough in the centre to stand up straight - a huge improvement on our previous tents.
We generally stay at KOA's (Kampgrounds of America). We are always sure of clean showers and bathrooms, nice grassy areas on which to set up the tent and lots of friendly campers. We have occasionally stayed in public or state parks but the services are hit and miss. I have found a couple of private campgrounds for this trip which look promising.
The other component of our transportation and accommodation is of course our cruise ship, since we are doing a 2 week Alaska cruise as part of the road trip. I will post the picture of the Amsterdam, a Holland America ship, but will save descriptions and details for another post.
Friday 6 July 2012
Road Trip!!
Well, time to embrace the 21st century and write a blog instead of postcards!
My plan is to document our trip to the west coast, specifically Seattle, our 2 week cruise on Holland America's Amsterdam to Alaska and our meandering trip back home.
Once we are on the road, it is my plan to blog daily so that the grandchildren can follow our adventure. They love to be on the computer and the internet so they should enjoy following our trip online.
As we get ready to leave, I will post a few pages with some preliminary information - mostly to gain experience using the blogging site. Some of the topics I plan to cover before we leave: itinerary, mode of transportation, accomodation along the way and our ship. With luck, I will be able to attach pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I could write less.
Time to end today and set up the template and all the other lovely computer things I get to do to get this blog to look professional.
Next up: Transportation and Accomodation
My plan is to document our trip to the west coast, specifically Seattle, our 2 week cruise on Holland America's Amsterdam to Alaska and our meandering trip back home.
Once we are on the road, it is my plan to blog daily so that the grandchildren can follow our adventure. They love to be on the computer and the internet so they should enjoy following our trip online.
As we get ready to leave, I will post a few pages with some preliminary information - mostly to gain experience using the blogging site. Some of the topics I plan to cover before we leave: itinerary, mode of transportation, accomodation along the way and our ship. With luck, I will be able to attach pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I could write less.
Time to end today and set up the template and all the other lovely computer things I get to do to get this blog to look professional.
Next up: Transportation and Accomodation
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