Shebba

Thoroughly enjoying your comments and pictures. We did a Med cruise 2 years ago and absolutely loved it. Fun to "re-visit" through your posts. Oosterdam was our ship for an Alaskan cruise and South Pacific cruise. We loved that ship and the crew.

I'm really enjoying your reports. Looking forward to more. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you all for the quick responses. This will be very helpful. This is our third Alaskan cruise, but our first time to port in Homer. Excited to go exploring!!

Dh and I will be visiting Homer on our cruise in July. I'm not that interested in the excursions that our cruise line is offering. Any suggestions or past experiences that you can share would be greatly appreciated. We are in our 60s, but healthy and love to see/try new things. Thanks in advance!

Thank you for sharing your information about Sitka. We'll be there in July. Can't wait!!

Have a great time. We absolutely loved it!!

Somehow, the Walt and Mickey "Partner Statue" keeps showing up as the weekly choice. The combination of its significance and the ever-changing surroundings makes me stop and look at it differently every time I pass it. You did good, Walt.

 

Partners at Night

 

 

Dave

LOVE this picture. What a great perspective!!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/E9fzQ9][img=https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1664/25034934524_0080c52800_b.jpg][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/E9fzQ9]Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Queen Elizabeth, Sydney[/url]

One of the most beautiful harbors in the world. These make me want to go back! Nice pictures!

At sea, Pacific Ocean

South Pacific

Paradise Cove, Oahu, Hawaii

Dh and I have done the 7-day Seattle return with Glacier Bay, Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka and Victoria. We enjoyed it immensely. Sitka was a new port for us and Glacier Bay was truly a highlight.

We just recently booked the 14-day Seattle return that you've listed. We'll be going in July and are very excited to see some new ports: Icy Strait Point, Anchorage, Homer, Kodiak as well as return to some past favorites, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka. We, too, usually book a cabin with a balcony, but chose to just do an ocean-view cabin this time. (I hope we don't regret it!)

We've been a bit spoiled by our last two cruises being fairly long--35 day and 21 day, so a 7 day cruise just seems SO short now. LOL But, we always feel very lucky to get to cruise at all!!

Good luck on your choice. Either way, I'm sure you will enjoy beautiful Alaska!

Santorini, Greece---what an intriguing place!

The whole point of my story is that we were over 45 minutes late getting back to the ship, but they waited for us. If on a private excursion I can only assume that I either would not have been able to wait for those bears to get to us, or we would have missed the last tender back to the ship!!! You can check my review below in my signature if you want to see a couple of the bear pictures

 

Whatever you decide, I hope it turns out great for you!!

LOVE your pictures. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks!! Wishing I was on any one of them right now. :)

Thanks for your wonderful review and pictures! We are from Kent' date=' WA too and will be doing a similar cruise on the Noordam for 37 days from Rome to Eastern Med and the Western Med and then transatlantic. Looking forward to seeing some of the places you wrote about![/quote']

 

Awesome! Have a wonderful time. Our cruise two years ago was 37 days (Pacific). Perfect length!!

Very interesting blog. I hope you saw the main "square" in Lucca which is actually built in the remains of a Roman amphitheatre and we'll worth seeing.

 

Palmero shows the effects of WW2 and the mafia who siphoned off a lot of the money that was to have paid for the repairs to the air raids.

We may have seen the square, however we didn't have a guide with us, so we didn't always know what we were looking at. It was an interesting little town, though, and we really enjoyed it.

You're so right about Palermo. It's never fully recovered.

Thanks to everyone for your interest and nice comments!! We are home now. I still have more ports I want to write about (for my own memory as much as anything). It was just so hard to keep up with so much to do and such slow internet service!!

Stay tuned!!

Sharon, DW is a professional photographer and was wondering what make of camera you used to take the excellent photographs in your blog. She was impressed with the depth and detail of many of the photos.

My camera is a Canon 60D. Thank you for the kind compliment.

Lucca, Tuscana, Pisa

http://medcruisewitharget.blogspot.com

For anyone interested, new blog posts on:

Rome--in 4 hours!

Amalfi Coast

Palermo, Sicily

http://medcruisewitharget.blogspot.com

Shebba, we are boarding the ship on July 1... Are you all aware on board of the Barcelona taxi strike scheduled for that day? What is HAL advising passengers to do about transportation? We arrived in Barcelona a few days ago and are trying to figure out how to get to the port, as there will be no taxis that day and there are threats of violence against minivans or grey cabs trying to transport anyone.

 

Just wondering if HAL and passengers are discussing this on board right now...

Yes, we were made aware of this just this morning. DH and I had already arranged a transfer to the airport through HAL. Passengers have been busily booking bus transportation all day today. I hope you are able to make safe arrangements to get to the port. Quite troublesome.

We also found out why our previous captain left us--he went home to be with his wife who is about to deliver a baby. Awwww! So sweet! Our new captain seems very nice and is from Scotland.

Staff Captain Jethro Beck, the Scotchman on moveup ;) (temp assignment)

Thank you. Just getting back to this.

Yes, our new captain had quite a first day. Two passengers 'missed the ship' leaving Monte Carlo. I'm sure that was a hard decision for the captain. We finally left them behind. All aboard time was 5:30, we left the dock at 6:10 and they apparently arrived AFTER we had pulled away. Oops!!

We are presently on the Noordam. There are smokers near enough to our veranda to detect the smoke. However, it hasn't bothered us enough to deter us from using our balcony whenever we desire. I'm sensitive to cigarette smoke, it gives me a roaring headache, but this has not been a problem. Honestly, the public smoking that is allowed all over Europe has been more troublesome. It would be so nice if the restaurants in Europe would at least designate a smoking/non-smoking area.

If you do decide to cruise with HAL, know that you do take the risk. I really don't think there is a higher percentage of smokers because of HAL's policy. Just come into it with a realistic expectation and with a flexible attitude.

We (Noordam) were re-routed to Toulon for today's port instead of Marseille. It ended up being a lovely stop. We were informed last night during dinner of the change by our new captain. Apparently the strike is causing a great deal of unrest and the powers that be felt that we, as passengers, would be unsafe if we docked in Marseille. The strikers are reportedly physically preventing tourists/ship passengers from leaving the dock area.

Good decision on HAL's part. Marseille's loss.

Noordam ended up in Toulon today because of dock worker strikes in Marseilles.

Presently on the Noordam. Creme Brûlée is offered every night in the MDR. Phew!! It's not quite as good as in the Pinnacle Grill, but still very tasty!

 

Yep. still on NODM and loving it. BTW my lamshade reference was to the propensity of very tipsy guests to dance with lampshades on their heads. Or do I attend the wrong (right?) parties.

 

At sea today, much needed before our Florence marathon tomorrow.

Sounds like the RIGHT parties, to me!! ;)

You must be doing that 11 hr excursion. Have fun!! We're doing Cinque Terre. Looking forward to it!

Loving the sea day today. Lunch will be in the Pinnacle Grill. Pedicure planned. The days are just packed!! LOL