North to Alaska

In August 2009 Janet & Bob embarked on their latest holiday overseas, this time to San Francisco followed by a Cruise up to Alaska on the Sea Princess. We fitted in a trip up into the Yukon, the cruise up Tracy Arm to the Sawyer Glaciers and wildlife observation Although it can be hardly described as an adventurous or unique experience (there were four large cruise ships berthed in Juneau when we were there), the Alaska cruise was on our to do list for some time and the we were not dissapointed. The trip arrangements made by Leanne Sharp of Travel Managers went off like clockwork. Our ship was comfortable and there were no complaints about the service. A few of the passengers we met had made the same trip before. The ports of call in Alaska are populated by large numbers of jewellery stores, most operated by the cruise lines, but wandering further through the towns you can come across locally operated stores. In the cruise season there are a lot more visitors off the ships than locals in the towns.
We had two further nights in San Francisco when we returned and managed to fit in a trip to Yosemite Valley before we returned back to New Zealand

Days 1-3 San Francisco

	The first full day saw us looking around the Fishermans Wharf area where we were staying. We went on the mandatory cruise on the harbour to see the Golden Gate Bridge only to see it dissapear into the ever present fog


Day 4 Muir Woods & Sausalito
	We had our only trip out of San Francisco on our first visit, north over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Muir Woods National Monument and then back to Sausolito which is a pretty little town on the north side of the Harbour. We had our evening meal at Angelino an Italian Restaurant recommended by one of Bob's work colleagues who had previously lived in San Francisco. Having "missed" our tour bus we came back to San Francisco on the Ferry


Day 5 The start of the Cruise
	Day 5 saw great excitement when we woke up to see our ship the Sea Princess berthed at Pier 35 at the end of our street looming up like some great building. The afternoon saw us aboard settled into our very spacious quarters with our own Balcony. Accompanied by a flight of Brown Pelicans (not to mention an airship) we set sail past Alcatraz and then sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge appearing barely scrape under (although we were told there were many metres to spare)