cruise control: life at sea

I've never thought of us as "cruise people". It's such a commercial way to travel and Tom and I normally go out of our way to avoid crowds and plan unique adventures. But we were pleasantly surprised by how easily we settled to life and sea and loved living and traveling by cruise ship. 

This was our first cruise and probably more on the unique side because...

1.) we cruised through Alaska 

2.) days at sea often involved passing through fjords with epic mountain views and ice glaciers. See what I mean? 

3.) Alaskan Cruises tend to have less families and kiddos around. It's mainly just couples, which worked out perfectly for us 

First off, I cannot get over how many mountain views we got from the ship itself. I adore the mountains and these were the kind of killer views that you would normally have to work for with a ridiculously long and strenuous hike. 

Instead we got to take in these views from deck...while in a hot-tub

Summer Cruising in Alaska actually meant cold and windy and rainy weather everyday,

but as you can see, we didn't mind it one bit 

no big deal, just sailing through the mountains

Alaska Cruising with this handsome guy...I'm one lucky girl 

We packed autumn/winter clothing for our cruise and almost left our swimsuits at home. I would have been devastated if we had because my favorite place to be was in the hot-tub. Stopped by daily, sometimes more than once a day. 

a cold beer in a hot tub

our one sunny day at sea...Ha! Still wearing pants though to fight off the chill 

reading for pleasure and painting my nails..such simple things, but neither of which has happened in months 

part of why we loved cruising is because it forced us to relax more than we normally would on our typical adventures 

so excited to be pulling into our first port!

more to come on our port stops, but for now, let's enjoy a bit more of life at sea, shall we? 

our cruise passed through Alaska's inside passage, which is what afforded us such great views. Our favorite day at sea was sailing through the Tracy Arm Fjord in the Tongass National Forest...this whole area was craved out by glaciers 

can you spy the ice glacier? hint..it's that bright blue patch on the horizon

Wasn't kidding about hitting the hot-tub daily, can you blame us?

early foggy mornings on the ship 

no better views to wake-up too

Basically, no reason to ever get off the ship ever. We were definitely missing life at sea even when we were at port. 

I think our Alaskan Cruise was so unique because it gave us a taste of that mountain life we love while being at sea. It's definitely changed our minds about cruises and made us willing to try another. But best of all, we loved how it gave us the best introduction to Alaska and are already planning a big trip back there to do on our own. Not sure when our schedule (or our budget for that matter) will allow it, but we're planning it just the same. But until we make it back, we will always have this amazing cruise to look back on and remember how we fell in love it living life at sea.