Alaskan cruise - day 1 — Captain Father John

United flight 1756 lifted off one hour past the scheduled time. Weather south of O’Hare airport caused some rerouting so we waited on the Tarmac until that was all sorted out. We are on our way to Vancouver, Canada to meet up with our Royal Caribbean cruise ship Radiance of the Seas for our Alaskan Cruise. We have all the eggs in one aluminum basket ( airplane ). Priscilla and I are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary and invited Alison, Oscar, JP and Rachel to join us. With only 12 seats up front our group has taken over half of the first class cabin. It is good to have Global Premier ( Demi-god ) status with United Airlines.

Planning for this adventure started 15 months ago when the cruise ship reservations opened up for our preferred trip dates. We wanted to include the Labor Day weekend to minimize the number of work vacation days needed for this 10 day trip. We will spend 7 days on the cruise ship and 3 days on a land tour to Fairbanks and the Denali national park. The cruise will start in Vancouver and travel north to Anchorage, Alaska. Along the way we will visit the Inland Passage, Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, Juneau, Skagway, Hubbard Glacier and Seward.

I mentioned that I have been planning this cruise for 15 months but it has taken 47 years to get here. It started with Priscilla and our first date on Valentine’s Day 1968. We attended our Junior and Senior high school proms together, attended separate colleges, Boston College and Northeastern University, and dated for 7 years before getting married on September 6, 1974. This is our wedding anniversary trip but we will be back in Illinois for September 6. We will share that date with Sam Serrano and Denise Bothby. I will be the wedding officiant at their wedding at the Waukegan Yacht Club. This is the first trip Alison and Oscar have taken since their wedding on June 14 at which I was also the wedding officiant.

Why did I book this trip so far ahead of time? I wanted to get my choice of cabins on the ships starboard side. The starboard side faces Canada and Alaska so the view from the balconies should be breathtaking. On the port side the view never changes.

We had our first little bump in the road at the Vancouver airport. Vancouver is affectionately know as Hongcouver because so many Chinese from Hong Kong live in Vancouver. The population of Vancouver is 56% Asian. We landed at the airport along with two jumbo jets from Bejing and one from Hong Kong. The immigration line was a mile long and not be outdone, so was the customs line. We obtained our luggage with thoughts of making our way to the Royal Caribbean bus and head to the ship for the all day buffet and start using our unlimited drink package. However, Canadian customs people has other plans for our group. The Chinese are notorious smugglers trying to bring in all sorts of contraband and cash. The customs officials divert hundreds of a Chinese to a full luggage search area. In order to avoid being charged with racial profiling they randomly select a non Asian couple for every 100 Asians. Alison and Oscar got the golden ticket and we waited over 45 minutes for customs to comb through every nook and cranny of their suitcases. After showing our passports and standing in several more long lines we finally boarded the Radiance of the Seas. We found our way to the luncheon buffett and ate a late lunch just before we had to go to our muster drill to practice how to abandon ship. In the unlikely event we would ever have to abandon ship off the coast of Alaska.

We decided to enjoy the trip out of the harbor from the balcony on our suite. It easily accommodates all six of us with several chairs and a chaise. The ship set out promptly at 4:30 pm. We are headed to the inland passage for our trip north. Time to relax.

View of Vancouver from the balcony.

Our ship Radiance of the Seas – Royal Caribbean