As a rule, I do not do a wrap up post, but every now and again, I feel motivated to do so. As his holiday marked the end of one chapter in my life, I thought it would be a good idea to share some final thoughts. Since our honeymoon in 1998, the USA has played an important role in our travels. Our love for this country predates our love for cruising. I have a number of close friends in the USA and some of them feel like family. That will not change. I am hugely grateful for what I had been able to see and experience in the USA. However, with recurrent news of people suddenly having their ESTAs cancelled for no apparent reason, this has become too risky of a proposition. I personally do not post anything political or controversial on social media. However, I have a number of very outspoken friends who often make political posts that then turn up on my feeds. Add to this the proposed changes to the ESTA application process which due to my complicated family dynamics would be impossible for me to comply with, we have decided that there will not be any future visits to the USA. There are so many amazing places in world, and this gives me a welcome opportunity to rekindle my love for the Far East. We also want to explore a bit more of Canada.
Airport Hotel
As we had an early flight, we spent the night before at the Holiday Inn at Manchester airport. We have stayed at this hotel for most early morning flights since early 2023 and this never disappoints. The rooms are nice with comfortable beds and a great shower. You could not get any closer to the terminal as it is right across the road. We also love their Turkish restaurant and had another great meal there. It really felt like the holiday had started as soon as we walked into the hotel.
Manchester Airport
On the whole, this was a positive experience. Let’s start with the not so thrilling aspects. The terminal was only completed in November, and they spent millions on this. Yet none of the lifts in the terminal was working. We were quite happy to use the escalator, but we were not allowed to do this. We had to head to the parking structure and use the lifts there. The second aspect that irritated me was that according to the airport website the check in for British Airways opens only two hours before departure. I did not question this as all the British Airways flights from Manchester go to London. However, when we got there, the check in had been open for some time.
Everything else worked like clockwork. Security was frightfully efficient and we ended up still having time for some breakfast. They also for once announced the gate in plenty of time, which made a nice change.
Arriving back into Manchester was a pretty smooth experience, but it did reveal a pretty serious design flaw of Terminal 2. Considering that it was always intended to be home to the vast majority of airlines some of which wholly or at least partially operate domestic flights, it is shocking that Terminal 2 was built without a domestic arrivals area. Even though we were right at the terminal, we had to get on a bus where we were taken to a domestic arrival area that is in the old Terminal 1. We wondered how long it would take for our luggage to arrive, but this actually arrived pretty much at the same time as us and I don’t think this arrangement actually slowed us down, but you still have to wonder who thought this up.
London Heathrow Airport
I have never been a big fan of London Heathrow, but with a lot of the travel we have done post pandemic, going via Heathrow has been the best option. I can normally tolerate Terminal 5, but with a two-hour delay on top of an already long connection time, we definitely felt its limitations.
Arrival into London Heathrow was smooth. We were parked at the gate. We did not have to clear security but just had to go through biometric e-gates where we had to scan our boarding passes. Then we were in the departure lounge. This is where the limitations of the terminal became very obvious. If there is seating that is not linked to a gate, we never found it. That early, our gate was not listed, and we just sat down at a random gate. I was surprised that at a relatively modern terminal, there were no sockets or charging points near any of the seats. I did find a “fast charger” a little way away against the back wall. There was no seating anywhere near there. It was definitely not fast, and I actually wondered if it did anything at all. I soon gave up.
Because we had a significant delay, I had an email from British Airways that we would get a meal voucher and that we would get a text with the link to an app. I did have mobile phone reception and actually initially used mobile data to browse the internet. However, the text never came through. I ultimately found the app that was mentioned in the email on the App Store and downloaded it. However, it had to send me a verification code by text, which never came through either. In the end, I got both texts as soon as I had mobile phone reception in Vancouver.
We decided to get some lunch. I had a look at their website, and it looked like there was a Wagamama nearby. We headed over there only to find that it is closed for refurbishment. There was no indication of this online. We did ultimately find a restaurant nearby with great views over the runway and tasty food.
London Heathrow is another airport that likes to leave gate announcements very late. Terminal 5 is divided into three gate areas that are linked by a train. You are supposed to stay in the area of the A gates until your gate is announced. I had a strong suspicion that our flight would leave from the C gates. At some stage, the departure gate updated to proceed to the C gates, which we did promptly. This was a much more pleasant proposition. There was plenty of seating there and there were even chargers with seating. They still were not particularly fast, but they did the job. There are also a number of shops, a Starbucks, and a restaurant there. This would have been a much more pleasant area to while away a few hours.
Arrival back into Heathrow on the whole was a smooth experience. Some of the signage did not make a great deal of sense, but we worked it out. There was a minimum wait at passport control and the e-gates worked. Security was lightning fast as they finally have installed the new scanners. The whole process worked well.
Flights – British Airways
Once again, British Airways was the best option. After a bad experience with them all the way back in 1998, I am always somewhat nervous. Having said that, the flights we had taken with them over the last few years have always been fine and when something went wrong, they looked after us. We flew economy on a Dreamliner on the way out and premium economy on a Boeing 777 on the way back. The seats were comfortable and we had adequate room. Their entertainment system is not exactly state of the art, but it offers something for everybody. The cabin crew on both flights was great. I cannot really comment on the food as we did not have a main meal in either direction, but that was our choice. It definitely smelled good. We had some interesting turbulence in both directions, but that is of course out of the control of the airline. On the whole, all flights were smooth.
One thing that surprised me was something that I observed at the gate on the way back. I think they had a very bad day with delays and flights that were very full. There was a man in front of us whose inbound flight had been delayed and missed his connection to Manchester. He had been bumped off two previous flights to Manchester only to be bumped off our flight as well. When we made it to the gate, we had been upgraded to “Business class”. On a domestic flight it just means that you are closer to the front and the middle seat stays free. Normally they are actually physically blocked off, but this was not the case with that aircraft. We would not have minded at all if they had put that poor guy next to us as we had just paid for standard economy flights anyway.
Vancouver Airport
Vancouver Airport is one of my favourite airports. It is very pretty, has plenty of facilities and is frightfully efficient. We were parked at the furthest possible gate meaning we had a bit of a hike. When we got to immigration, there were plenty of kiosks and we could walk right up to one. As I had done all of our declarations ahead of time on the app, I just had to scan our passports, confirm everything was still correct and we had to have our photos taken. Then we got our receipts and were on our way. We had the receipts checked just around the corner, but that took seconds. When we get to the baggage hall, our luggage arrived pretty much the same time we did. The lines at customs can be pretty long, but that was not the case this time either. They were not in the slightest bit interested in us and just took the immigration receipt off us. Then we were free to leave.
On the way back, it was more of the same. Even though we got to the airport quite early, the check in was already open. Check in was lightning fast as was security. Again, they have the new kind of scanners in Vancouver now. Not having to take anything out of the bag definitely speeds things up. We were at the last possible gate, but that did not matter as we had plenty of time.
Transfers
Last year I said that I would not bother with transfers again. However, when I realised that we would arrive in the middle of the afternoon rush hour on a Monday, I changed my mind. I got a great rate through Booking.com. Before we even left the UK, I had the driver and car details along with contact details. As we were significantly delayed, I wondered if the transfer would be cancelled. I did not need to have worried. As soon as I had mobile phone reception, our driver, who had been monitoring the flight, tried to call me. I was in the process of getting of the plane and could not answer but called him straight back. After this, we communicated via Whats App at various way points and once we were through customs, he gave us meeting instructions. He was there two minutes later. This worked like clockwork. He also took us via a different route to Burnaby, which avoided most of the traffic. Based on this experience, I would definitely consider a transfer from the airport again.
Getting to the port, we decided on an Uber. We had originally planned to take the Skytrain to the port. However, the Skytrain was always very busy in the mornings, and this was not at all appealing with luggage. The downhill stretch from the hotel to the station did not appeal either. Initially, the Uber idea seemed to work great. The driver arrived quickly after I requested a ride and took to the motorway bypassing a lot of the traffic. It did not take long at all until we saw our ship. That is when it all came apart. Shortly after we had seen the ship, we headed underneath Canada Place. The roads there were absolutely gridlocked. I figured ultimately this route would take us directly to the port, but after we were stuck for considerable time, we headed back to the surface for some more gridlock leading up to the port. Things only started flowing smoothly again once we got inside the parking structure for the port. If we had to do this again, I think I would take an Uber to one of the Skytrain stations at the edge of downtown and take the Skytrain from there.
Best Western Plus Burnaby
Hotels in Vancouver are crazy expensive. As much as I loved the Hyatt Regency last year, I will not dream of paying this kind of price if I make our arrangements. I started looking at hotels early and one of the areas I looked at was Burnaby. We stayed in a guesthouse in Burnaby in 2024 and liked the location. Our room at the guesthouse was great, but it had a shared bathroom, and we both found that we have come to like our creature comforts. I came across the Best Western Plus Burnaby which seemed to be the perfect mix of price and location. It was one Skytrain station further from the centre than where we had stayed in 2024, but that only added about 2 minutes to the journey and as the hotel was slightly closer to the station, there was probably nothing in it. Our price included breakfast, which is always a bonus. We really liked this hotel. It did not look like much. It was just a typical motel. Our room was in a little garden area by the pool. The pool had not opened for the summer season yet and therefore it was nice and quiet. There were plenty of electric outlets and USB sockets, the bed was huge and comfortable, and the bathroom was nice even though it had the treaded tub shower combo. The staff where nice and breakfast hit the spot even if it was a bit limited. Having a self-service laundry also was an advantage. When we go back to Vancouver, this is definitely something I am looking at.
Vancouver
Vancouver has over the years found a special place in my heart and this visit did not disappoint either. We revisited a number of old favourites like False Creek, Canada Place and North Vancouver, but we also did some new stuff. We finally managed to visit the Anglican cathedral, did a whale watching tour and visited the UBC Botanical Garden. We find that for everything we do and experience, we either find that we want to explore somewhere we have previously been some more or we think up extra things we would like to visit. However often we visit Vancouver, it never seems to be quite enough.
North Vancouver Food Tour
This was the second food tour that we have done in Vancouver and both of them were with the same company. Last time round, we did a food tour of Gastown. This time round, we decided on North Vancouver. We got the sense during our last two visits to Vancouver that North Vancouver is a bit of a foodie heaven. It therefore seemed like a good idea to do a food tour there. It absolutely was. We met at Waterfront station and took the Waterbus across together. We then started at Lonsdale Quay where an old warehouse has been converted into a market that has a wide variety of food stalls. We also visited two restaurants, two shops and the tap room of a brewery. We had a wide variety of food and drink, and our guide entertained us with a lot of interesting facts and stories. Food tours are such a great way of getting to know a place better.
Whale Watching Excursion
I don’t know why this never was on our radar before, but we had never considered this previously. However, in the run up to our holiday, we became aware that there had been a lot of orca activity around Vancouver. Therefore, a whale watch tour made sense. The only slight drawback was that all whale watching tours leave from Granville Island which we are not too fond off. Still, everything worked out great and we were absolutely spoiled with what we saw including multiple humpback whales, a family of orcas as well as seals and bald eagles. The crew on board had a genuine passion for the animals and as an added bonus, they took photos of all the sightings, which they shared after the tour.
Harbour Air Float Plane Excursion
This has become a tradition, and this was my third consecutive year of doing this. This time I went by myself. They now have a separate check in counter for tours and charters. We also assembled in front of the terminal rather than heading straight to the boarding gate. Apart from this, everything was the same and once more, it was an amazing experience.
Cruise
Check in and embarkation
Even with being stuck in traffic, we got to the port earlier than our allocated check in time. We had booked the earliest possible check in time. However, check in was in full swing when we got there even though we were there early. As much as I love Canada Place, it is not exactly intuitive as it is not a dedicated cruise terminal, but part of the convention centre complex. There were however plenty of staff around at all points to direct people. Check in was a breeze. We were directed straight to somebody with an iPad. Security had a bit of a line, but this moved swiftly. The real surprise was US immigration where there was no line at all, but we were directed straight to an immigration official. The only weird thing was the actual embarkation, which was very disorganized. They were not ready for us yet on the ship, which was not surprising considering that check in had started really early. We were directed to a waiting area and sat down. Shortly afterwards, they started boarding row by row, which is also normal. At some stage, for some reason they told the back rows to get up. Graham was slightly ahead of me and had made a beeline for the photographers that took embarkation photos. I was stopped and asked to sit down in a different area. I was not in the mood to be separated from Graham and just told the person who had stopped me that my husband was ahead of me. She let me through. This really could have been communicated more clearly.
Ship
Ovation of the Seas is an old friend, and we have made so many memories on this ship. Because of this, I was a little nervous when I found out that the ship was going through some fairly significant changes. I actually ended up loving them. Sound Cellar works much better as a multipurpose venue than Music Hall ever did. The Bionic Bar was really a waste of space, but we both enjoyed the Pesky Parrot. I was really surprised how much bigger this was than the Bionic Bar. One aspect that I was delighted about was that Jamie’s Italian had been replaced with Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen, which is a much better concept. I was a little sad that Wonderland had gone as this was such a unique concept, but I also loved the addition of the Teppanyaki. I just wished that they had added Lime and Coconut and maybe replaced Fish and Ships with El Loco Fresh.
Cabin
We just had an interior cabin on this cruise. All interior cabins on this ship have a virtual balcony, which is a huge TV screen showing the video feed from the bridge. We have had this set up a number of times and I quite like it. However, this time was the first time that we noticed that the image became pixelated once the light started to fade. We did have a remote control for the virtual balcony and after the first night, we switched it off when we went to bed and then switched it on again in the morning.
We had been assigned a cabin in the same location , but one deck higher twice in the past when we let Royal Caribbean choose our cabin. We have really come to love this location, and this is what I tried to book this time. However, as we were doing a back-to-back cruise, I wanted the same cabin for both legs. The one I was after was only available for the first leg. I then checked if the same cabin was available a deck above or below and we got lucky on deck 10. We liked this location just as much and now have also booked it for a future cruise.
The cabin itself was great. We had plenty of storage. The shower is nice with adequate room and decent water pressure. I also really like the beds on this class of ships. I fund the bed really comfortable although a lot of people always complain that the beds on Ovation are as hard as a rock.
Muster Drill
This works like clockwork. You just have to watch a couple of short videos on the app and then check in at your muster station. That is literally job done. I will never understand why this is beyond so many people. It was better this time round, but there were still a staggering number of people who seemed not be able to do this in a timely manner.
Food
On the whole, the food on Royal Caribbean is good, reliable fare. I have a favourite or two on all of the menus. Sure, there have been times when we had something we did not particularly enjoy, but that was down to us making the wrong choices. This time round there were some things that were just not nice. The vast majority of the food was still very good though.
Buffet
We had multiple breakfast and lunches at the main Windjammer buffet and also a couple of breakfast at the smaller Solarium Bistro buffet. The choice and quality of the food were consistently good.
One thing that was new was that at lunch, they always had a themed section on the back counter, which changed on a daily basis. One day it was variations on Philly Cheese Steak, one day it was various churros and dips, one day it was tacos and nachos. I really enjoyed this.
Main Dining Room
This is where the food was a bit of a mixed bag. I was lucky and everything I what I had was great. Graham was not so lucky. He likes fish and tends to have this a lot on our cruises. Normally he really enjoys this. This time round, apparently the fish was pretty awful.
Casual Dining
This was for the most part very good. We had a number of grab and go breakfast at Café Promenade as well as lunch at Café Two70 and another lunch at Fish and Ships. There was a decent selection, and the food was nice at all of these places. The reason why said for the most part was that on the first cruise, I think they had a dodgy batch of soft serve ice cream that tasted like the sugar had been forgotten. I know, this is a first world problem, but as soft serve ice cream is my number one guilty pleasure on a cruise, I was not happy about this state of affairs.
Specialty Dining
This ranged from good to excellent. Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen and Teppanyaki were both a marked improvement on the restaurants they replaced. Chops Grille was one of the better experiences for this particular restaurant. I did really enjoy the brunch but would not dream to pay full price for this. The one that fell flat for me was Izumi, their Japanese concept. I can’t put my finger on it. The food was nice and the service was great, but I did not enjoy it as much as I normally do.
Bar Offerings
This was definitely a game of two halves. The selection was great with both bars and lounges now having unique menus for the most part rather than having a generic menu that is offered in every venue across the ship. That is a definite bonus. The drinks at Pesky Parrot, Sound Cellar and Schooner bar were amazing. The ones in the pub were perfectly drinkable, but the drinks near the pools were pretty horrible as were the ones I had at Izumi/ Teppanyaki. I was not fussed as we got the drinks for free as part of our loyalty perks, but if I had to pay for them, I would have been annoyed.
Merchandise
I was actually positively surprised by this. I am normally not too thrilled with cruise ship merchandise as luxury goods are not my thing. They had a large logo shop and a separate shop with Alaska merchandise including a wide range of Spirit Jerseys. There were definitely some things that I liked.
Photography Services
This was another coin with two sides. Some of the photos were spectacular and I liked that they electronically added some extra backdrops. For some reason we never really bonded with the photographers though.
Activities
There was a good range of activities and there was something for every taste. We mainly did trivia, which was often crazy difficult on this cruise, but still fun. I also had a go on the bumper cars and on the North Star and both of us joined in with the aqua aerobics. I noticed that they offered more arts and crafts activities, but we did not try any of those.
Entertainment
As per usual, I did not really bother with the entertainment, but I did watch one of the production shows, The Beautiful Dream, twice. This was excellent.
Crew
All the crew we have come across was amazing. They really helped to make the cruise special.
Extras
We get all kinds of perks due to our loyalty status and they are definitely welcome. Having 5 free drinks a day is nice as is a bottle of wine in the cabin. There are other nice touches, too.
Demography
The demography on this cruise was a lot different from the other Alaska cruises that we have done with Royal Caribbean. On the previous cruises, the vast majority of the cruisers were from the USA and on the more mature end of the spectrum. This time round, it was a good mix of nationalities and ages, I wonder if people from the USA were nervous to travel from or to Canada.
Itinerary
This was a really nice itinerary in that only one port duplicated between the northbound and the southbound cruise. On the northbound cruise we went to Ketchikan, Sitka and Skagway and on the southbound we went to Juneau, Skagway and Icy Strait Point. Sitka and Icy Strait Point have turned into firm favourites. On our first visit to Skagway, we stayed on the ship, but the scenery around there is really pretty and we were spoiled with wildlife viewings. In Ketchikan, we also stayed on the ship for the main part, but again, the wildlife viewing right from the ship was amazing.
Excursions
We did not do any shore excursions this time, but we booked an excursion to Mendenhall Glacier from one of the operators on the dock. It is a shame that all the excursions that are on offer that involve Mendenhall Glacier limit the time there so much. However, as we had been there twice previously, I did actually feel that we had enough time.
On our second visit to Skagway, we took the shuttle bus out to the Gold Rush Cemetery. This was a bit of a mess. The shuttle shares a bus stop with the cruise ship shuttles meaning that it often has to take a few laps of honour before it actually can pull up. It is also a complete free for all. It would work so much better if you could prebook the shuttle. Ultimately it was worth the hassle though.
Customer Service
I know different people felt different about this, but I felt the customer service was spot on. There were a number of changes to this cruise, with the first one happening the day before we got on the ship. The new dock at Seward had failed a technical inspection and therefore we were going to and from Whittier instead. From our point of view, it made no difference at all as we were staying on for the southbound journey. However, Royal Caribbean made a number of different arrangements to make sure that everybody got to where they needed to go. Linked to this was that we also had to miss the glacier viewing on the northbound cruise. In the end, there was no way we would have made this anyway due to poor visibility on the day. I was very impressed how quickly the guest services team jumped into action and got letters delivered to every cabin in record time. I also felt that they were very generous with a goodwill gesture. What really impressed me is when what can only be described as a mob with placards descended onto guest services and started chanting, the captain came down to answer questions and tried his best to calm the waves.
Final Verdict
We have been incredibly privileged that we were able to 8 Alaska cruises over the years. We enjoyed every one of them, but this back-to-back cruise was hands down the best of the set. We have always seen plenty of wildlife on our Alaska cruises, but this was next level. The weather was a bit of a mixed bag, but that is to be expected early in the season. We had some days of glorious weather though. The land-based part of the trip was amazing, too. Was everything perfect? No, but it was the perfect holiday for us.
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