Alaska cruise, Post 1: Departure

From May 2nd to 9th, we did the Alaska cruise we had wanted to do ever since arriving in Vancouver almost 3.5 years ago. It was a 7-night Vancouver return cruise on Holland America's ms Volendam, and it was wonderful!

Our vacation started with us taking the bus from our house to the nearest Skytrain station, and then riding the train in to Canada Place in downtown Vancouver, where the Volendam was scheduled to sail from at 5pm. We think this would have been our lowest carbon footprint vacation ever!

Waiting for the bus

We went through US Customs and were on the ship by about 3pm. We checked out our stateroom and explored the ship a little before it was time to do the all-passenger safety drill at 4:30pm.

Our room

Our bathroom

Top deck

One of the swimming pools

Canada Place

Canada Place

We saw a few float planes arrive and depart nearby. Time for the commuters from Vancouver Island to head home for the night!

Love this floating gas station in the harbour!

Stanley Park in the background

When it was time to set sail at 5pm, Angharad came to wave us off after she finished work. It was SO fun to have someone wave us off... thanks Angharad!

(Kelly also texted us as we were sailing out to say that he could see our ship and he was on his balcony waving his hat. What great friends we have!!)

There's Angharad!

Talking to us on the phone

When the ship's horn blew

Waving a white hanky!

Sailing out of Vancouver was an amazing way to start the cruise. The white sails of Canada Place, the clouds overhead, the city skyline, Stanley Park, float planes, and a little seal swimming in the water below us... I could hardly believe we live somewhere so beautiful.

Heading for the Lions Gate Bridge... we only just fit under it!

Stanley Park

Lions Gate Bridge and Stanley Park lighthouse and seawall

One amusing thing that we started noticing even before we got on the ship was that there seemed to be an inordinate number of Australians around. We'd already known that this was the Volendam's first Alaska cruise of the season, but we subsequently found out that it had just spent 34 days cruising across the Pacific Ocean from NZ and Australia (a repositioning cruise, as the ship divides its year between the southern and northern hemispheres' summer cruise seasons).

So, in addition to at least 70 (or 120, depending on who you talked to) people who'd stayed on board since NZ or Sydney, there were also two Australian tour groups with at least 50 people in each... plus however many Aussies were, like us, travelling independently! The Cruise Director (the guy who made the announcements about the daily activities and entertainment on board the ship) was Australian. An Officer of the Watch was Australian. Two of the three couples in the "Marriage Game" entertainment one evening were Australian. The guy stuck in the lift was Australian.

In short, between 200 and 400 of the 1400 passengers must have been Aussies... so most of the people we chatted with around the ship, or dined with during Open Dining meals, were either Australian or Canadian. The ship's crew were mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines, and the Captain was from the Netherlands. We had expected our fellow cruisers to be mostly Americans, but we didn't dine with any until the second last day!

Not since being at Whistler and Lake Louise have we been surrounded by so many Aussies in North America. Who would have thought that a British-American owned ship sailing from Canada to explore Alaska would be full of Australians? Ah... globalisation. :D

To be continued...