We are counting down the days until our departure on our next great adventure - The Northwest Passage Cruise on the Crystal Serenity.  This cruise will take us from Seward, Alaska, through the Northwest Passage ending up in NYC.  This is a maiden voyage for the cruise ship industry, so we will be making history!

Our stops will be as follows:  Kodiak, AK; Dutch Harbor, AK; Nome, AK; Ulukhaktok, NW Territories, Canada; Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada; Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Canada; Ilulissat, Greenland; Sisimiut, Greenland; Nuuk, Greenland; Bar Harbor, Maine; Boston, Massachusetts, Newport, Rhode Island; and New York City, NY.  In between we will have many sea days during which we will be attending lectures and enrichment classes given by the many naturalists and experts on board.

We will be driving to Seward Alaska on Monday, August 15 and boarding the cruise ship the next day.  We depart at 9 p.m. on August 16th.  We have been planning this trip for 2 years.  We were waitlisted for 1 year, then were able to book in June, 2015.  We have been gathering gear and reading books in preparation for this trip for the last year! 

We are mostly packed already and we have 3 large suitcases, along with a couple of carry-ons.  We will take one extra large duffel bag to bring home any extras we will accumulate on the trip, along with our complimentary arctic parkas that we will be receiving once we are onboard.  The recommended cold weather gear list is long, but having lived in Alaska for 30 years we already had most of what we need.

We will be doing a lot of "wet water" landings, going ashore in zodiacs as most of the places we will be visiting have no docks for us to pull alongside.   Thus, we have to take insulated knee high rubber boots, rainproof pants and jackets, and waterproof gloves.

We are hoping to see an extensive list of wildlife on this cruise including polar bears, walrus, narwhals, muskox and many bird species that we haven't seen before. Hopefully we will be posting pictures of all of these!!