Our Alaska Cruise & Road Trip Photo Highlights

Have you ever considered exploring Alaska? An Alaska vacation has been on our bucket list for years, mainly because my husband was born in Fairbanks while his dad was in the army, and he wanted to return to the home state he’d left as a baby and never really knew. So this spring, in celebration of our 60th birthdays, we booked a 7-night Alaska cruise on the Regent Seven Seas Explorer and then charted out a 10 day inland tour of the state on our own. Today I’d love to share some of my husband’s photographs from our journey as I briefly hit the highlights of our vacation.

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IMPORTANT: Because this blog post if FULL of amazing photographs, it will need to load onto your device slowly, gradually. I suggest you scroll through the post slowly and don’t try to rush it. You’ll also want to have the best Internet connection possible, so it’s best to read this post where you have good Wi-Fi. I do apologize if you experience trouble, but I just couldn’t leave any of these photos out. You’ll probably also have a better experience on a laptop or desktop computer, too.

ONE MORE NOTE: I’ve included a few cell phone photos for context, but I’ve designated the photographs James took with his camera with a photo credit in the caption. You’ll see what I mean as you go.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

We began our cruise in Vancouver, British Columbia. If you have the opportunity to visit this port city, I highly recommend it. We stayed at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver as part of our cruise package, but we added an extra night. I definitely suggest you take an extra day here if you cruise out of Vancouver.

We were blessed with beautiful weather that day in Vancouver, and we spent our time strolling along the seawall. There were lovely places to have a bite to eat. We spent just a little while in Stanley Park and then headed down to Gastown where we had a late lunch at Al Porto Ristorante. It was delicious.

The Regent Seven Seas Explorer

We cruised on the beautiful Regent Seven Seas Explorer, which features authentic art by Pablo Picasso on its walls. The interior of the ship has old world charm but with very modern accommodations. All Regent ships are fairly small and have all spacious balcony suites with walk-in closets. Our ship carried approximately 740 guests and 548 crew, so you can imagine that service was impeccable and attentive.

You can dine wherever and whenever you want, choosing from eight different restaurants featuring amazing cuisine. You do make reservations at several of them, but we were able to eat at all of them during our cruise.

And you can also order room service any time. Each morning we had coffee and fruit delivered to our room. Then we enjoyed more breakfast at one of the restaurants. We also had afternoon teas. We generally ate lunch during our excursions or in one of the restaurants.

I have developed an egg allergy, and the staff was very attentive to helping me enjoy each meal with options that wouldn’t affect me negatively. We did dress for dinner each night. All Regent cruises have a dress code for the evening, but the bottom line is no denim or flip flops. Still, Regent cruisers are generally well-traveled and polished. Most everyone on our cruise – even cruising Alaska – dressed up in the evenings.

If you have questions about our Regent cruise, definitely ask in the comments. But you may also enjoy this YouTube video I published shortly after our trip.

Our Alaska Cruise from Vancouver to Seward

I’ll just briefly hit our ports of call. I notice that they have changed slightly in the Regent cruises that are available in the future. But you may find yourself in one of these lovely Alaska cities or towns in your travels one day.

We first stopped in Klawock. This was a brand new stop for cruise ships, and we were greeted by people from the small town who were anxious to host visitors for our one day stay. By the way, Regent cruises are all inclusive. So excursions, alcohol, tips and even laundry are included in your fare. But we did upgrade most of our excursions. On this day we went on a whale-watching cruise. We saw only one whale, I believe, but we witnessed an amazing convocation of Eagles.

The eagles here are only a small portion of the ones filling the trees and circling in the air.

Our second port was Juneau, Alaska. Amazingly you can only access Alaska’s state capital by plane or boat. It’s a beautiful city, but small in comparison to most state capitals.

In Juneau we took a combination hiking and whale watching excursion. We did see a number of whales that day and learned a lot about them from our very knowledgeable private tour guide. That tour only included about 8 people, so it was very enjoyable.

Our ship provided binoculars in each stateroom, but I definitely recommend taking your own. We each had ours, and that worked out beautifully.

Our third port was Skagway, Alaska. We took the Skagway Scenic Rail and Yukon Suspension Bridge excursion, and I think this was my favorite tour.

In the photo above, do you see the caribou we saw from the train window? And the photo below was taken from the Yukon Suspension Bridge. I was safely in the coffee shop when James took this shot, mind you. I made it across the bridge and back, but evidently I’ve developed a fear of heights and couldn’t bring myself to stand there and look out for long.

The next day we had a rainy but pleasant day in Sitka, Alaska. Unfortunately our planned excursion, which was a hike, was cancelled. So we just opted to amble around downtown, stopping for coffee in a local coffee shop.

And the final day of our cruise was spent on the water. We cruised within an amazing close distance of Hubbard Glacier. The sun was shining and the air was crisp. I awoke to our resident Alaska expert telling us about the glacier over the ship intercom. I quickly ordered room service and got dressed.

That was such an enjoyable morning. The narrator respectfully paused for long moments of silence, encouraging us to take in God’s handiwork in the quiet.

Our Inland Road Trip

James planned our road trip on his own, leaning into itineraries he found for similar group trips that were available. We almost opted for one of those train and/or bus trips, but decided we might be tired of large groups of people by that point and long to be on our own. We were right. We thoroughly enjoyed getting out and exploring James’ native state by ourselves.

We began our time in Seward, where the Explorer docked for many of us to depart, taking on new passengers, too. You could, by the way, remain on the ship for the 7-night return voyage to Vancouver. But we needed to get to Fairbanks to see where my husband had been born.

We hiked in the beautiful Exit Glacier Park that first morning. It was another crisp, sunny day. Almost immediately in our hike, we came across a moose eating his breakfast.

And it’s a good thing it was a him! Female moose were just at the dates when they would be calving, and they can be much more aggressive anyhow. You’re not supposed to get within 50 feet of moose, and suddenly I was about 10 feet from one! James had unknowingly walked right by him without seeing him. But when I told him what I’d seen, he inched back along the trail just a bit and used a zoom lens to capture the photo above.

We did indeed see a lot of wildlife on our cruise excursions and land trip. I’d say we probably saw more on the road trip actually. We stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center when we traveled that afternoon from Seward to Anchorage. (We rented one car in Seward, but needed to travel to Anchorage to rent a different one for the rest of our trip because we would be returning to Anchorage for our flight home. This was simply more cost efficient.)

Of course, along the way as we drove through Alaska, we stopped to just take in the scenery and for James to take photos.

James originally purchased his first camera in 2017 to take up landscape photography, you know. Then I highjacked that plan by asking him to start taking fashion photos of me. Ha! So in recent years he has had the opportunity to return to that first love. I think he’s getting pretty good at it. And he took some beautiful wildlife photos, as you’ll see, also.

We didn’t do much in Anchorage because the hotel we had first chosen turned out to feel unsafe, so we spent the afternoon moving to a different one. By the way, in Seward we stayed at the Spruce Lodge and in Anchorage we stayed one night at the Lakefront Anchorage. I can highly recommend both.

The photo above is of the Chinook Wind Cabins, where we stayed in Talkeetna, Alaska, for two nights. I highly recommend it. While in Talkeetna, we browsed downtown shops, hiked the Railroad Bridge Trail and when on a Denali flight and glacier landing with K2 Aviation.

The K2 Aviation center is top-notch, and I definitely recommend them if you choose to do this type of excursion. They were very professional. According to them, very few people who book the Denali Glacier landing actually get to land on the glacier, due to weather constraints. But we were blessed with a beautiful morning and were able to walk on the glacier. Amazing!

The next day we journeyed about 153 miles on Alaska 3 toward Denali, staying at the McKinley Creekside Cabins, Cafe and Bakery. Their meals were fabulous, by the way.

James booked a photo tour with Denali Photo Guides while I stayed at the cabin and rested. That’s when he took the photos below. We learned that it’s smart to book a tour with a photographer when we were in Bar Harbor, Maine. In fact, James later took a weeklong photo workshop with the photographer he met there, and we’re going to the Finger Lakes area of New York for him to do another with that same photographer later this month.

After a brief time at the visitor center of Denali National Park, we ventured on to Fairbanks, approximately 125 miles on Alaska 3. We stayed in Fairbanks for two nights at Sofie Station Suites. It was pretty utilitarian, but safe, clean and spacious. We did laundry there for the only time, as we had had it done frequently on the ship.

We spent a morning at the Creamers Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. The refuge has mild hikes that really just facilitate bird-watching. But we’re old…and love birds!

We ate dinner in Fairbanks one night at the Pumphouse Restaurant, and it was worth recommending. Otherwise, we just drove around the University of Alaska Fairbanks a bit, I had my nails done (it was time!) and we looked for landmarks his parents told us to hunt for (like his mother’s high school and the church her father had pastored). Oh, and we did take a long drive out the Elliot Highway towards the Artic Circle to the Wickersham Dome Trailhead, stopping at Hilltop Restaurant, known for their burgers and pies, for lunch along the way.

After spending a couple of days in Valdez, we drove 192 miles on Alaska 4 and 1 to Chickaloon. We stayed at the Sheep Mountain Lodge and did a little hiking in the trails behind the lodge.

On our final day, we drove back to Anchorage to grab a bite to eat and then catch our plane home.

If you were to ask me which part of the trip we enjoyed more, the cruise or the land trip, I’d have to say both. We’ve discussed it and we both agree that the two parts of our vacation were different, but complemented each other beautifully. We strongly recommend the Regent Seven Seas cruise, and look forward to taking other journeys with them some day. And we encourage people not to be afraid of exploring Alaska on your own. It’s very doable and so enjoyable and relaxing.

You can see more about what I wore in Alaska in this blog post and this one.