We disembarked from our Wilderness Discoverer cruise in Ketchikan. While some people on the ship were flying back home that day, we decided to stay an extra night to check out the city.Ketchikan is a mega ship Mecca. We witnessed four huge cruise ships go in and out of port in a single day. But when...

I had only kayaked once before my expedition cruise on the Wilderness Discoverer – and I hadn’t particularly cared for it. My husband and I had gone sea kayaking on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast – and I felt that we were going to be flipped into the water at every second. Not...

Our InnerSea Discoveries cruise on the Wilderness Discoverer was more about outdoor activities than port stops. The ship’s Eastern Coves itinerary does stop in one town along the Inside Passage, the outdoor activity haven of Wrangell.Unfortunately, InnerSea Discoveries told us that there weren’t...

The day after we viewed Sawyer Glacier from a respectable distance, the expedition leaders on the Wilderness Discoverer told us that we’d get a chance to get up close and personal with our next glacier, called Baird, on a glacier trek. I signed up for the slow hike so I’d have time to take...

My InnerSea Discoveries expedition cruise on the Wilderness Explorer embarked in Juneau and went south toward Ketchikan. Which meant that we’d be missing Glacier Bay in the northern section of the Inside Passage. But that’s OK, as the ship’s itinerary took us to Sawyer Glacier in the...

  I’ll be continuing coverage this week of my Alaska small ship cruise on the Wilderness Discoverer, an expedition cruise run by InnerSea Discoveries.The company bills itself as “the Uncruise,” with the ability to adjust its itinerary depending on the weather and wildlife. I found that...

Juneau has always struck me as one of the more intriguing state capitols. Accessible only by plane or boat, the city is ringed by mountains and sodden by the weather; Juneau receives between 55 to 90 inches of rain per year (even with its rainy rep, Seattle averages only 38 inches). Add in the fact...

On my Carnival Magic tour, the ship stopped in Naples, Italy. There’s plenty to do in this port – you could choose to spend time in Capri, or the towns on the Amalfi Coast. But I decided to go to Pompeii, because I had always been fascinated by the doomed city in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius.  The...

There are no shortages of places to drink on the Carnival Magic, the cruise line’s newest ship. You can hang at the piano bar, go to the nightclub or grab drinks poolside whenever you want. But no on-board drinking hole approached the popularity of the RedFrog Pub, Carnival’s first pub,...

Last week, I wrote about my first impressions of the Carnival Magic rooms and other public spaces of the new ship. Today I’m going to review the outdoor activity spaces, including the WaterWorks park, with the line’s longest Twister slide yet.The rope course at sea, which hangs over part...