Some explaining

We are now only 26 days away from the start of our North West Passage cruise on Crystal's Serenity. We are 21 days from departure to Alaska for our pre-cruise road trip. Putting off things like haircuts and packing for a bit longer!

This is a big trip by any definition. I am blogging it here instead of as a standalone blog as I've done for some other big trips for a number of reasons. One is that it starts as a road trip. Two is that it never really leaves North America in my mind (sorry Greenland!). Third because I decided to do it. I really don't like the time-limited stand-alone blogs. That said, one of the main reasons I decided to blog it here is that we've never cruised Crystal and have no plans to return to them but there a couple of Crystal long-timers onboard with us and they are each blogging. I don't want to put my opinions and experiences up against theirs as experts. Links to those blogs are here and here.

Why the North West Passage? This went on my to do list near the end of 2008's Circle South America cruise. I wanted to Circle North America. To the best of my knowledge, such a cruise has still never been offered. Regent is doing one next year though that comes close! Over time as I kept this dream cruise in the back of my mind, there were a very few cruises each summer that did the North West Passage. This is the big, hard part to finishing a Circle North America cruise as it turns out. The loss of sea ice is the reason the North West Passage is good at all and frankly for that reason, I'd almost rather not do it than be able to do it! Anyway, there was always some reason not to book one of these. Price, ship, schedule or availability or rather lack thereof. North West Passage cruises have historically been on very small ships and so not a lot of people can go even if they are willing and able. Crystal Serenity is a big ship. Not huge, but big for this itinerary and in our experience. So, we decided to afford this one and waitlisted. We got an acceptable cabin and now our departure date looms!

Lastly in catching up here. I have been adding news links as I found them to a previous day's entry. Probably not the best idea, but I didn't want to start a new post on the subject of news stories every time one appeared. Understanding that most people don't go back in time and reread, here is a link to that day. As the sailing date nears, the cruise becomes more and more controversial.

41 days from North West Passage cruise

We got our cruise documents from Crystal yesterday. They came through the front door's mail slot in a Priority Mail envelope. It is a nice compact gray vinyl zippered folio-like case. It has 6 luggage tags and our cruise tickets/contracts plus some other random sheets about things like how to reach the ship or ship luggage to it. We have been assigned a cabin in the category which we bought a guarantee. It is on the port side on deck 7. This will be the longest cruise we have ever done without a balcony and the smallest yet most expensive cabin! And on one of the largest ships for us. Looking at the deck plan though it looks like a quick outside door to the Promenade deck is available to us so fingers crossed. We had to take a window cabin as the price difference between C1 (ours) and the lowest level balconies above us (B1) was over $11K. That was just too much for me in cold sailing and the same tiny-sized cabin. We'll see how we do. We fly out in a little more than a month!