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As Royal Caribbean kicks off the 2022 Alaska cruise season it's time to look North, all the way North... to the Southeast coast. The Southeast coast of Alaska that is. Serenade of the Seas sails from the Canadian port city of Vancouver, British Columbia heading North to Alaska and back, round trip to Vancouver. Itinerary Sun 01May2022 Vancouver, British Columbia - 5:00 PM Boarding Mon 02May2022 Inside Passage - - Cruising Tue 03May2022 Sitka, Alaska 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked Wed 04May2022 Tracy Arm Fjord, Alaska 5:00 AM 9:00 AM Cruising Wed 04May2022 Juneau, Alaska 12:00 PM 8:00 PM Docked Thu 05May2022 Hubbard Glacier (Cruising) 11:00 AM 2:00 PM Cruising Fri 06May2022 Ketchikan, Alaska 2:00 PM 10:00 PM Docked Sat 07May2022 Cruising - - Cruising Sun 08May2022 Vancouver, British Columbia 7:00 AM - Departure This is an unusual opportunity for Royal Caribbean International in a number of ways. First of all Vancouver roundtrip hasn't always been a Royal Caribbean International offering. Secondly an itinerary that includes sailing by two glaciers on Royal is not common. Thirdly, visiting Hubbard Glacier, the premiere tidewater glacier of Alaska, has traditionally meant sailing a one-way North or South itinerary on Royal. Lastly, sailing into Tracy Arm Fjord has not been offered by Royal in some time, even before the industry shutdown. Admittedly this thread may not be live at all times since the internet when sailing this far North can leave a lot to be desired. This year brings some additional requirements introduced since this cruise departs from another country (Canada) and that means satisfying both CDC requirements since we visit US ports and Canadian requirements since we sail from Canada. Despite the anticipated internet challenges as the cruise sails North I thought it would be helpful to discuss the additional requirements introduced by Canada this year due to the pandemic.

Hi Cruise Friends- We’re sailing out on Serenade on 9/6/21 with ports of call in Sitka, Icy Straight Point, Juneau and Ketchikan. This will be our first time experiencing Alaska. We’d really like to go whale watching, but was wondering if the experience would be better in Juneau or Icy Strait Point. It appears Juneau has a greater variety of whale watching adventures compared to Icy Strait. Are the whales more plentiful in Juneau? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

Departing from Jacksonville... ready for paperless boarding

Hi all! We’re down to the last two days of the Southern Caribbean cruise. I’m making myself available to answer questions and take photos around the ship for those sailing on the Serenade soon. I have a blog going on in the “Live Blog” section, if you’re interested.

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!! Disclaimer - @SaltyNavyCruiser15 started a live blog a few weeks ago but out of respect I'm trying to avoid taking over his post and starting this. I'm hoping they continue to blog as it will be an interesting comparison having different users providing perspective of the same sailing. Their blog is here: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/5849-30-mar-09-apr-southern-caribbean-cruise-on-serenade/ This week has been a busy week for me. Between business trips and my flight to reach Serenade there were four flights to her the day before sailing (an unexpected business trip had me flying over 6,000 miles this week). From my 3am ET start to the day to landing in Fort Lauderdale at 1:44am ET on the day of the cruise I would have been up for 24 hours by the time I reached my hotel if it were not for sleeping on the MD88, 767, 757 and 737 it took to arrive here. Someone today asked me what class of ship Serenade is and I drew a blank, I couldn't even remember half the classes. Yeah I'm tired. A cruise starting with two sea days is perfect right now. Itinerary Sea Day, Sea Day, St Thomas, St Croix, Martinique, St Kitts, St Maarten, Sea Day, Sea Day Excursions (booked during a recent sail event:) Skipping St. Croix excursion due to work requirements. I'm familiar with St. Croix from having done some work there so once conference calls are over I'll wander around a bit on my own. Fun fact - St Croix is home to the Eastern most point of the United States (excluding the main land). Fort Lauderdale - Port Everglades I called my hotel twice throughout the day to make sure they wouldn't give away my room as a no-show given my 2am arrival. It was nearly 3am when I crashed into the hotel bed. I woke at 8am to re-arrange my luggage and inventory what I missed since packing for the cruise a week ago. I did pretty good and double packed some items. Lyft was $12 and I arrived at terminal 19 at 10:10am. Apparently they were doing work on some terminals so we couldn't use terminal 18 or 29. I haven't used terminal 19 since a cruise on another line in 2013. It hasn't changed much (still small). The terminal contractors seemed to like it as much as I did. Suites/Pinnacle boarded at 10:30, Diamond Plus at 10:40-ish and a few minutes later they called Diamond - the escalator can only take so many at a time so they regulate flow. Not bad - just over 30 minutes from my early terminal arrival to boarding. Pretty painless. BTW - terminal 19 also has free wifi. Lunch in the WJ. Honey Stung Chicken and Curry and a few other things and before I knew I it my plate looked like food coma. I need a nap. Cabins opened right at 1pm as offered. Cabin and dinner pictures tomorrow once I've slept.

My wife & I are going on a Canada / New England cruise this fall on the Serenade with stops at Bar Harbor, Maine; Portland, Maine; St. John, New Brunswick & Halifax, Nova Scotia. Does the Serenade dock close enough to the city to allow exploring on our own? Or would we be better off booking a shore excursion to the port? Any port or Serenade suggestions welcome! We are Diamond Plus but it has been 10+ years since we've been on the Serenade or other Radiance class ships. Thanks!

We're on the May 29, 2016, Serenade cruise (Baltics). We have some OBC that I'm looking to use and looking at the RCCL excursion called Stockholm On Your Own. It's five hours, about $50 per person, and visits the Vasa museum and Old Town, both of which we want to see, plus a third place that I don't recall off the top of my head. Has anyone done this tour? The description is vague on details: do you get on a tour bus where the ship is docked? Is admission to the Vasa included? I'm thinking that due to the low cost of this excursion, it may be transportation only, and you have to pay your own admissions. Thanks for any insight.