Below is the map of our 22 night June 2025 Alaska cruise. This was the longest and went the
furthest north of any of our Alaska cruises. Click the picture to get a live map. Clicking
a pin on that map will show a description of the picture taken at that location. Clicking
the link in the description takes you to the blog entry describing the that day with links to an album
with more pictures for the day.
Our last stop before heading home was Victoria. Usually the Alaska cruise ships stop for only a short time in
Victoria, but we had a full day to explore the city. This time we decided to take a self guided tour of the
Victoria China Town and, of course, some of the local pubs. To get there and back to port we used a reasonably priced
Uber.
We'd just finished traveling through the heaviest concentration of glaciers in Alaska, so it
was time to get back to more settled parts of Alaska. Not that they don't have glaciers, but they're
not as close together and not as big.
Except for the picture below, click on a picture to see more pictures from that day.
June 18, 2025 - Cruising to Icy Strait
Just a relaxing day at sea.
Lazy Day at Sea
June 19, 2025 - Icy Strait
We've been to Icy Strait a few times. The first time we were there we didn't see much
but we learned that it is one of the best spots for whale watching. In many cases you can see
the whales from the shore. We did a boat cruise, which is usually the best way to see whales,
but our best whale shots were on the cruise ship... while it was docked!
We had just finished lunch and were back in our rooms when we saw the whales from our balcony.
We don't always get a cabin with a balcony, choosing instead to save some money and get a cabin with just a window.
But when we go to Alaska, especially on a glacier cruise, we always get a balcony. This time it was really worth it!
Aftter lunch, and our unexpected whale drive by, we took the Sky Peak Gondola for panoramic views of the area.
Most of our time in Skagway was spent on a tour to see Davidson Glacier.
We boarded a small boat in Skagway and cruised down Chilkote Inlet, past Haines where we'd been a week before,
to Glacier Point Wilderness. Once there we had a short hike to another landing where we boarded a 31 foot canoe
for a short ride across a lake
to a point near the glacier.
After the glacier tour we took the boat back up Chilkote Inlet where we had a
view of some of the wildlife and waterfalls. Click on the pic above to see the photo album
with some of those pictures.
We had a little time to explore the town before we had to get back on the ship, enough
to make our traditional stop at Klondike Brewing Company for a flight of some great local beer.
June 21, 2025 - Juneau
One of our favorite things in Juneau is the whale watching tour.
We didn't see as many whales as we did in Icy Strait, or as many as we had on
our last trip to Juneau, but we did a couple of distant shots.
Glaciers, glaciers, and more glaciers! Leaving Sitka we headed into parts of Alaska
with some glaciers we'd seen before, but some we'd never even heard of. This was definitely
the part of Alaska to see tidewater glaciers!
Click any of the pictures below to see more images from that day.
June 13, 2025 - Glacier Bay
First up was the classic Glacier Bay. If you only have time to see one glacier in Alaska, this is the one to see.
It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and for good reason. The glaciers are stunning.
Our next stop was the Hubbard Glacier, which is the largest tidewater glacier in North America.
I actually didn't know that until the AI type ahead in VS Code told me! But I double checked and it's true!
A lot of people have heard of Valdez because of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Not as many remember it as the town that was completely wiped out by a tsunami from the 1964 Alaska earthquake,
which was a magnitude 9.2, the largest recorded equake in North American history and the second largest earthquake ever recorded.
After that event the town was rebuilt in a different location.
Our tour took us to the Worthington Glacier near Valdez. After what we'd seen the previous two days
it was a bit of a let down. But not to worry, Growler Bay Brewing Company, walking distance from the port, had a decent
flight of beers. Click the picture below to see more.
Next up was Seward. Although it is one of two ports within driving distance of Anchorage,
it's a 2.5 hour drive and we didn't have time to do that. So we just stayed in Seward and
took a boat tour to see the nearby Aialik Glacier, one of the most active glaciers in Alaska.
I think it was actually one of our best glacier tours so if you're in Seward we highly recommend it.
Click the picture below to see more from that tour.
College Fjord is a beautiful fjord with more tidewater glaciers
than any other location in Alaska. It actually puts Glacier Bay to shame.
It's named College Fjord because the glaciers are named after colleges
The first leg of our Alaska cruise was from San Francisco to Ketchikan, Wrangell, Haines and
then Sitka.
We'd never been to Sitka before but Ketchikan is one of our favorite ports with the George Inlet Lodge
all you can eat crab feast!
Click a picture below to see more pictures from that stop.
June 6, 2025 - Leaving San Francisco
There are usually beautiful views leaving San Francisco and today was no exception.
We've been to Ketchikan several times and one of our favorite things to do is to
eat at the George Inlet Lodge.
They have an all you can eat crab feast that is delicious and a great value.
We also enjoy the local beer, which is brewed right there in Ketchikan
at the Bawden Street Brewing Company, one of the most enjoyable ways to
support a Vet!
June 11, 2025 - Haines - American Bald Eagle Foundation
Another very small port with some beautiful scenery.
We visited the American Bald Eagle Foundation and got to see some of the eagles and
other birds up close. We also went to The Three Northmen Tasting Room and Haines Brewing Company,
which was a great way to support local businesses and enjoy some delicious beer. All are walking
distance from the port.
Beautiful sail into port followed by a visit to the Alaska Raptor Center,
which is a great place to see some of the local wildlife up close and learn
about the conservation efforts to protect these amazing birds.
This was a short seven night cruise down the California coast from San Francisco to Ensenada, Mexico and back.
We visited several ports of call including Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Below is a map showing where I took pictures during the cruise. Click on the map to see a full size interactive Google map.
Our cruise started with a day at sea so we could just relax and unwind.
Storm clouds may look gloomy but they make for some gorgeous views if you wait long enough.
In Santa Barbara we had to take a tender boat ashore, which is less convenient than a docking port where you can just walk ashore.
Luckily there were a number of attractions within walking distance of the port,
including multiple brewpubs which served beer flights.
Our next stop was Los Angeles, where we had a food tasting tour in the Venice Beach area.
The biggest problem with the Los Angeles port is that it's not near anything. So expect to spend some money to get anywhere
and, of course, given L.A. traffic allow plenty of time.
Click the picture below to see pictures of some of the local surfers and Venice Beach canals.
The highlight of the trip was probably our visit to the San Diego Zoo. Click the picture below to see more
pictures from the San Diego Zoo including a panda!
The Karl Strauss Brewing Company is an easy walk from the cruise port
so we stopped there as well as another nearby brewery for beer flights on our way back to the ship.
The final stop on our trip was Ensenada, Mexico.
We had a tour of some of the local breweries for a few more beers.
I hadn't realized how big a part of the local culture beer is in Ensenada.
There's even a yearly beer festival. Click the picture below to see some of the
local beers we tasted.
Did a long three month trip starting in Korea and Japan. Next boarded a cruise from Tokyo to Hong Kong with stops in various places along the way. Then flew from Hong Kong to Manila and spent most of the month of December traveling in the Philippines. And finally, flew to Singapore, staying there a few days before boarding another cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong with a lot of stops along the way, including a snorkeling trip at Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Below is a preliminary map showing where I took pictures during the three month tours and cruises. Pictures aren't yet online.
Did a quick five day trip to NYC, primarily to take photos at the NYC Marathon, but took advantage of the beautiful fall
weather to take pictures along the the NYC waterfront.
Below is a preliminary map showing where I took pictures during the trip. Pictures aren't yet online.
Below is a preliminary map showing where I took pictures during our September 2024 20 day China tour. Highlights included Beijing, Xi'an where the terracotta army is, Chengdu, home of the Giant Panda research center, a Yangtzer River cruise followed by a bullet train to Shanghai. Pictures aren't yet online.
Spent most of August of 2024 driving across country in our Class B RV to a variety of places including Twin Falls Idaho, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Fort Collins, Rocky Mountain National Park, Chapman National Forest Campground, Grand Junction, Bryce Canyon, Great Basin National Park and Yosemite.
Below is a preliminary map showing where I took pictures. Pictures aren't yet online.
Below is a preliminary map showing some of the highlights of our April and May 2024 Eastern Europe Capitals cruise down the Danube River.
We had pre cruise extenstion in Prague and a post cruise extension in Istanbul.
Click the map to see a resizeable map with picture marker pins. Note that the links in the map pins are not yet correct.
A preliminary review of the pictures was done using an AI to score images and remove duplicates.
Click the picture below to see the ablum with the highest scoring pictures.
Click the picture below to see a photo album with some of the best photos from this trip. The album has a summary slide show or you can click any photo in the album and scroll through the pictures manually. The manual review displays a description for each picture. For more detailed information including date and location, click ⓘ or ⋮ during the manual review.
After five days at sea we reached Ensenada Mexico. Hawaii cruises from San Francisco have to visit at least one foreign port before returning to San Francisco. In most cases that is Ensenada.
We'd been to Ensenada before and had considered not even getting off the ship. But Elizabeth found what turned out to be an excellent beer tasting tour. We lucked out even more by being the only two people on this tour, so we had a private tour for the price of a group tour. One other perk we ended up having was having pretty much the entire tasting area to ourselves since our tour started before many of the places we went to even opened. I hadn't realized how vibrant the craft beer culture is in Ensenada. They even have a beer festival once a year.
Our first stop was at Cardera and Bruer Tasting Room. Although it normally doesn't open until 1pm we were there around 11am. This tasting room is actually for two breweries, Cardera and Bruer. Their beers have won many awards and they were excellent. They were also brewing some barrel aged beers for the upcoming beer fest, but we weren't able to taste those.
Our second stop was at Chikilla craft beer. They also had an excellent selection of beers including one they don't normally serve, which was made from distilled beer. They used a beer that didn't quite turn out as they wanted, so they distilled it. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade!
The beer mugs you see in the picture above are owned by regular customers. For a small price you can have your own beer mug. And of course, you get a discount if you own one. According to the website they have "18 regular beers, 14 seasonal beers and more than 10 special beers." Although the first stop had slightly better beers, if you're going to one place I'd definitely recommend this place! The first beer tasting room did probably have almost as many different beers since it was two colocated breweries, but the second stop had the advantage of being colocated with a sushi restaurant.
Our third stop was actually at a deli to taste the beer of another brewer, Wendlandt Brewing, which doesn't open until 5pm, after our ship leaves. Regardless, we still tasted a Wendlandt beer at the deli and Elizabeth was able to get a cheese and meat plate to tide her over.
We hadn't booked any excursions for Hilo so we decided to walk 1.5 miles to Liliʻuokalani Gardens, with a stop at Coconut Island. On the way there we saw a turtle swimming in Reeds Bay near the shore.
Coconut Island is a small island park accessible via a short pedestrian bridge from Liliʻuokalani Gardens. If you look closely in the picture below you can see our ship in the distance.
We also visited Hilo Brewing Company but didn't take any pictures. Unfortunately when we were there they had been experiencing some equipment failures and didn't have any of their beers available. They did have four guest beers which were actually pretty good. They also had a separate area that sold some food. The tacos sold there were excellent!
A word of warning. Although Hilo Brewing was only a 1.5 mile walk from Liliʻuokalani Gardens, once you get away from the shoreline Hilo isn't a very walkable city due to the lack of sidewalks, narrow streets and sometimes heavy traffic. We took a Lyft from there back to the ship and if we had it to do over again, I think we would have taken one from Liliʻuokalani Gardens to the brewing company instead of walking.
Our next stop was Kona on the big island of Hawaii. We walked a bit over a mile to the Old Kona Airport Beach, a beach visited mainly by locals. I was hoping to find at least some snorkeling, but it turned out not to be a very good place for that. Still, it turned out to be a fairly uncrowded beach with scenic views. Although it's not too far from the tender boat docks, the heat and humidity made it a bit of a slog.
The above picture is a panorama best viewed in Google Photos. To do that, click on the picture which will take you to the album with the picture. Then click on the picture within the album and click on it again to enter viewing mode.
Next we headed to the Kona Brewing Company, not too far from the ship tender boat dock. Because the cruise ship was in port that day, they were very busy. We were lucky to get one of the first come, first served tables in the bar area. A restaurant table would have been a 45 minute wait. The food was pretty good, but the beer was even better. I tried a couple of their standard beers and a couple of the limited edition beers, all very good.
There were a couple of small beaches next to the pier where our tender boat docked. The larger of the two, suitable for sunbathing and offering beach chairs and umbrellas for rent, was very crowded. But on the other side of the pier was a very small spit of sand with a roped off swimming area. That turned out to be a nice place to snorkel. Since there weren't very many other swimmers it was also a nice place to get photos of a variety of fish.
I always try to get up early enough to see us pull into Oahu harbor to get a shot of Diamondhead and the sunrise. Although I like the photo below, it wasn't quite as impressive as the last time we visited Oahu.
We'd booked a snorkeling trip that day. Elizabeth, who books most of our tours, is always great about booking snorkeling and beer tasting tours for us, even though she doesn't swim or drink alcohol. This tour took us to Turtle Canyon, just off the shore from Waikiki.
This was a nice tour, the captain and crew were great, but the area was pretty crowded with our group as well as other groups. It was a challenge to get pictures without random body parts from other snorkelers.
The snorkeling trip left from a dock about a mile from where our ship docked, so we walked there from the ship. Our ship wasn't leaving until later that evening so we had plenty of time to visit a nearby brewpub and brewery.
Our first stop was at Off the Wall, a brewpub with a nice selection of local beers. At this brewpub it's easy to sample as many beers as you want. You get a card which you then put in a slot above one of the beer taps and your account is charged by the ounce as you pour beer. It was a great place to sample a lot of different beers 4 to 5 ounces at a time from a variety of local breweries. I tried a few of the Belgian and IPAs as well as a pilsner.
At Off the Wall brewpub I'd avoided any of the Aloha Beer Company beers since I knew we'd be heading there next. It's tough to beat a flight of super fresh IPAs right from the source, and probably fresh from the brewing vat. You also get to taste some of the limited editions as well and the Froot Lupes was one of my favorite tastes of the day. They were all very good and, of course, super fresh.
