I was on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship many years ago, with Jett and her son. It went from Boston to Bermuda and back again. A short trip, if I recall – probably 5 days. Not very exciting and not a great ship – very old. But many people speak highly of Norwegian and when Marlene and I saw the 25-night trip from Tampa to Anchorage, we jumped at it. It would knock two big items off of both our bucket lists – the Panama Canal and Alaska. And the many other ports were very attractive as well. So we dug deep and paid for what was, for Marlene, her most expensive cruise ever. And for me, the most expensive cruise since Jett and I took the ill-fated TC1 which ended in Spain rather than in Venice, as it was supposed to.
That first Norwegian cruise predated the start of this blog, so I can’t reference it. But because this will be my second Norwegian cruise I will designate the trip as NCL2.
NCL2 will start in Tampa FL and will end in Anchorage AK. It will have 14 ports of call, only 3 of which are in the continental US (LA, San Francisco and Astoria OR). There is one port in South America (Cartagena Columbia), 4 in Central America (Colon Panama, Puntarenas Costa Rica, San Juan del Sur Nicaragua, Puerto Quetzal Guatemala) plus the Panama Canal transit, 2 in Mexico (Cabo San Lucas and Acapulco) and 3 in Alaska (Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway) plus a transit of the Hubbard Glacier. That is 13 ports and 2 very interesting transits. We will also spend a few days in Anchorage before flying home. The entire trip, start to finish, will take exactly one month: April 3 to May 3.
It will be epic. Not as epic as the one to come later in 2025, but our most epic yet.