Cruise Destinations

Passengers on Diamond Princess probably thought nothing could surpass the splendour of Glacier Bay. They were wrong. A day later, after crossing the Gulf of Alaska, our ship entered Prince William Sound and then headed for the inlet of College Fjord. The first thing to make an impression was the amount of ice floating in the water; bergs large and small which had detached from the five tidewater glaciers which reach the sea in the inlet. Then there were darker objects which caught the eye, sometimes in groups of as many as five or six. Otters - big sea otters [...]

How did you feel when you woke up this morning? What did you see when you drew back your bedroom curtains? I was like a bear with a sore head after staying up too late drinking too many glasses of JD and Coke in the Windjammer bar on Diamond Princess, and should have been awake long before the back-up alarm went off at 8.30. Stumbling from the bed to the balcony, I threw the curtains open to discover that the ship had come to a halt a few hundred yards from a beach deep inside Glacier Bay. Right in front [...]

Well, the weather has reverted to the wind and rain we had expected from Alaska, but although it has become cooler, it's far from chilly. Before the rain arrived in Juneau, it was still warm enough for a room service breakfast on the balcony prior to a turn around the souvenir shops and a $27 trip up the Mount Roberts aerial tramway. From viewpoints along a nature trail 2,000 feet above Alaska's state capital, we could look along the Gastineau Channel, and down on the Diamond Princess, Radiance of the Seas and Norwegian Pearl - three cruise ships which had [...]

Alaska is the far north, right? Alaska is cold. Alaska is wet. In Ketchikan they measure their annual rainfall in feet rather than inches, and they have clear skies on only about 20 days a year. Well the sun is certainly shining on Captain Greybeard right now. Last week in the Canadian Rockies we were rained on only briefly in the tourist trap town of Banff - where there were plenty of shops and bars to shelter - and at Lake Louise - where we could simply stay inside the Fairmont Hotel watching the biggest, brightest rainbow ever. Today, as [...]

The second day of my journey on the Rocky Mountaineer through the Canadian Rockies began by passing a pretty black and white church (above) used as a location in Clint Eastwood's 1992 film Unforgiven, and ended just after the coaches passed the Vancouver Film Studios known as Hollywood North. There were plenty of sights in between which, if they weren't so remote, would be a film-maker's dream. Hell's Gate, the narrowest part of the Fraser River, where up to 200 million gallons of water pour through a narrow canyon every minute, was a serious challenge to the men building the [...]

All aboard! Today our happy band of Princess Cruise passengers, on a land tour in the Canadian Rockies, left behind the motor coach that brought us from Calgary, and boarded the Rocky Mountaineer train in Jasper. We said farewell to driver Dale, and hello to train attendant Tim who kept us entertained - and fed - throughout the day. There were about 500 passengers on the train in 17 carriages; six of them with the domed observation cars providing GoldLeaf service. I'm up front, in coach number 1, enjoying RedLeaf service at half the price. We still get breakfast and [...]

There's a world of difference between a cruise - which I will be embarking on board Diamond Princess on Saturday - and a land tour, which is what I am doing right now in the Canadian Rockies. On the ship, I will be taken from port to port without the slightest hassle on my part; I'll leave Ketchikan one day and I'll wake up in Juneau the next, for example. On land, getting from Calgary to Banff, and from Banff to Jasper, involves a coach ride, and different hotels, and packing, and labels, and bellmen to deliver and collect the [...]

Now I know how Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards must have felt when he took part in the 1988 Winter Olympics. I stood at the top of the 90 metre ski jump at the Calgary Olympic Park today and stared down . . . and down . . . and down. I wasn't wearing skis, and the hill and the landing area are now overgrown with grass. But it was still scary up there in the early morning chill. Imagine the butterflies that must have been raging in Eddie's stomach when he took it upon himself to challenge the world's best, [...]