For our first cruise together we went all out and chose a Regent Seven Seas cruise to Alaska on the Seven Seas Explorer. It was nothing short of spectacular.
Our cabin was lovely, the food was delicious and the excursions were great. We even lucked out with blue skies and sun for almost all of the cruise.
The Explorer was built in 2015 and is a beautiful ship that holds up to 750 passengers. Everything on the ship is of the highest quality and exceptionally maintained. There are two original Picasso’s on the ship and even the dinnerware in Compass Rose, the main dining room is Versace.
The Explorer is an all suites ship and every suite has a balcony outfitted with comfy chairs and a table. Ours had two chairs, a chaise lounge and a nice table large enough to enjoy a meal outside. We chose a “Concierge Suite”. This is a mid-level option with a 332 square foot suite and a 83 to 132 square foot balcony. It was fantastic. Regent is all-inclusive (including multiple complimentary excursions at each port) and even includes free laundry service. The Concierge Suite allowed us to choose our excursions earlier than the suite levels below Concierge.
We tried each of the restaurants and all were delicious. Prime 7 is the steak house, Pacific Rim is Asian fusion, Chartruese is French, Sette Mari is Italian and Compass Rose is the main sit-down dining with a large variety of options. There is no traditional dinner buffet but La Verandah offers a buffet breakfast and lunch. Here are some pics of our meals…clockwise from the top…
Pacific Rim appetizer, crispy crackers with edamame and dipping sauce. Escargot from Chartreuse, enormous veal chop from Sette Mari. Filet and lobster tail offered at Prime 7 and nightly at Compass Rose. Divine chocolate souffle from Compass Rose. Filet with truffles and foie gras at Chartreuse. Petit fours before dessert at Pacific Rim.
Ok, enough about the ship….Alaska is filled with unbelievable natural beauty. We saw glaciers, icebergs, beautiful mountains, sea otters, bald eagles, seals, whales, whales and more whales. Our stops were in Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka. We did complimentary excursions at each port and our weather was near perfect.
We flew into Anchorage and spent the 4th of July there exploring. It was daylight until almost midnight so, needless to say, we did not stay up to see any fireworks. We walked around, checking out the local tourist shops, sampling some treats, and enjoying nature in the waterfront part. We passed on the reindeer sausage but did have some yummy pel’meni dumplings and Trey had his first of many fried fish dinners at the Glacier Brewhouse. The food was really good. I had king salmon and we enjoyed a slice of peanut butter pie for dessert.
The next morning Regent hosted a breakfast buffet in our hotel, the Hilton Anchorage. The hotel was a little run down, but adequate. After breakfast we boarded our charter bus toward Seward. The trip to Seward was about three hours. Our driver provided nice commentary and we enjoyed the scenery.
Upon arrival in Seward we were off the bus and onto the ship in 15 minutes. The onboarding was very smooth and fast. Our room wasn’t ready so we headed to La Verandah for a buffet lunch.
Our first day onboard was a sea day cruising the Hubbard Glacier. The views were fantastic. The glacier is 76 miles long, 7 miles wide, and 600 feet tall. We were amazed at how small it looked from the distance we were viewing. 350 is above the waterline and 250 feet is below.
We also enjoyed observing multiple ice bergs.
The next morning we arrived in Sitka. We were off the ship by 9:00 am for our “Sea Otter & Wildlife Quest” excursion. It was great! We saw sea otter, sea lions, bald eagles, a harbor seal and two humpback whales! After our excursion we had lunch at BEAK in Sitka. It was delicious! We had salmon chowder and a very yummy salmon pita. We also walked around Sitka National Park to see the totem poles.
The following morning we were docked in Skagway. We had breakfast on the boat and booked another cruise (lol) before heading out for our excursion on a train up White Pass Mountain. After the excursion we walked around Skagway. There were a lot of touristy shops that were not too exciting. We stopped at the Red Onion Saloon and Brothel for drinks and a snack and decided to take a tour of the brothel. It was interesting and entertaining. We learned that the brothel opened in 1898 during the gold rush.
The next day we arrived at Alaska’s capital city, Juneau. Fun fact about Juneau: there are no roads going into the city. People and goods arrive and depart Juneau by plane or boat only. Our Juneau excursion was a whale watching tour followed by a visit to Mendenhall Glacier. Wow did we see whales! We saw around 20 whales. We saw a rare “bubble net” which is when a group of whales form a circle, dive deep below schools of fish, and blow bubbles from their blowholes to stun and trap fish close to the surface. Our guide counted 14 whales in the bubble net. We even caught a picture of a whale breaching.
We departed the whale watching boat and jumped on the bus to Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls. When we arrived we booked it to Nugget Falls. It was a 2 mile round trip walk from the observation center and we wanted to make sure and get the closest possible view of the glacier and the falls. The views were fantastic!
The next morning we arrived in Ketchikan for our Wildlife & Seafood Feast excursion at Silver King Lodge. We boarded a small boat with around 30 people and headed to the island for our feast. On the way we got to see bald eagles swoop into the water to snag frozen fish thrown by our tour guides. Very cool. Upon arrival to the island, we embarked on a guided forest walk. The guides were very knowledgeable about the unique terrain and foliage.
After the walk we gathered in the lodge to eat. The feast was delicious. We sat at tables of 8 and they dumped a large pot of steamed goodies onto the newspaper covered tables We dined on crab legs, shrimp, sausage, clams, potatoes and corn. And drawn butter. Did I mention butter? We enjoyed chatting with our table-mates about their cruise experiences. They were veteran cruisers and were full of good advice. After returning to shore we hopped a bus to Creek Street to check out the shops built over the large creek. We bought some salmon jerky and some jade earrings (jade is the official Alaskan “state gem”). The salmon weren’t running up the creek but we saw an adorable seal floating along.
After Ketchikan we enjoyed a sea day before docking in Vancouver (more on that to come in the next post). We had a delightful cruise. Regent was fantastic and Alaska was magnificent! We can’t wait for our next cruising adventure….in 2025!