Why I like teardroping

[Reddiver]

Thanks for all the advice however I wont be taking it . I will forever pass on the Cruise ship thing

[citylights]

BTW, if you haven't done the inside passage cruise to Alaska, I highly recommend it. Go check out Taku Lodge...

Oh, man! Best dang BBQ king salmon, baked beans, and biscuits I have ever had! It has been 8 years and the thought still makes me hungry.

[BrianM]

Thanks for all the advice however I wont be taking it . I will forever pass on the Cruise ship thing

I've done it once (and did ALL of the things mentioned by those who've said they like it ~ including the $$$ balcony suite), never again. If it weren't for the fact that I was married (shore excursion, we paid $500 for what the cruise ship wanted $5000 to do) in the middle of the cruise, I'd have nothing positive to say about the experience. The 'every day at a different port' was more like 'every day, no where Near enough time to even begin to explore ONE interesting thing'. The food (we weren't on the cattle call type ship) all tasted Exactly the same by the 3rd day and by the 7th day I'd stopped eating ship food all together and brought groceries back with me from shore. *shuddering at the memories* You'd think a decade would make a dent in such a miserable experience...

There really are "cruise" people and the rest of the world. I'll gladly take 2 weeks of backpacking, mosketoes, sleeping on the ground in a tent and digging holes for my bodily waste over anything a "cruise" can offer.

[campmaster-k]

Just as I imagined. I have not cruised and now I will not for sure. Thanks.

[ssrjim]

That is why I do freestyle cruising. Eat when you want and where you want. No assigned times or tables. Same when getting off, freestyle do it when you want.

[ssrjim]

Yes glacier bay is outstanding. I was there a couple weeks ago. Enjoy the photos:

http://500px.com/SSRJim/sets/glacier_bay_national_park

If you poke around on my sets you will see the other ports as well.

[citylights]

Yes glacier bay is outstanding. I was there a couple weeks ago. Enjoy the photos:

http://500px.com/SSRJim/sets/glacier_bay_national_park

If you poke around on my sets you will see the other ports as well.

Great travels, great pictures. Now that is why I like to travel, weather it is camping or cruising, or any other form that gets you to see and explore new things.

[pchast]

Yes glacier bay is outstanding. I was there a couple weeks ago. Enjoy the photos:

http://500px.com/SSRJim/sets/glacier_bay_national_park

If you poke around on my sets you will see the other ports as well.

Wow, thanks for the pictures.
Its the only way I get to see things.

[ssrjim]

That is why I cruise to get me to places I otherwise would never go. I love to take pictures, thanks for the complements.

[wagondude]

Thanks for posting "the rules". I will print them out and take them with us as a reminder.

[grantstew8]

We did the Adriatic cruise with Thomsons and did just what citylights recommended. It was only for a week and we saw some of the most amazing places. Some of the comments about food and being ripped off are valid.With Thomsons it's not bad. With NCL I felt I was being fleeced every time I did a thing. As for the formal dress, I quite like getting into my kilt, there's not too many times I can, and the girls like getting dressed up.


I'd now like to do the same trip with a teardrop and spend a little longer exploring. From Edinburgh to Dubrovnik and back is about 3681 miles with an obvious ferry trip. I guess I'll need a few weeks off Perhaps I need a sabbatical.
Did you know, if you drive in France you need to carry your own breathalyzer....(the rules unsurprisingly are in chaos) http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/overseas/driving-abroad-whats-new-2012.html I'm driving from Nice to Lyon next month and I'll take one anyway.

These are rough driving times. To save some time needed to add tolls (rather than avoid them) when in Croatia.

[Glenn Butcher]

For us, a cruise ship is just a big hotel that moves from place to place; you only unpack once. They've helped us see a lot of places and things we'd never have made it to otherwise.

In '93, Sherry and I participated in a trip where my father-in-law traded frequent flyer miles for TEN round-trip tickets (he did way too much business flying) for a tour of Australia and New Zealand that he arranged over a three-week period: Brisbane -> Cairns -> Melbourne by air, then motor tour to Sydney by way of Canberra, then flew to Auckland, motored to Rotorua and back to Auckland, and flew back to the states. We each pitched in a per-person sum for hotels, airport transportation, and the motor tour, then did food a-la-carte. Marvelous trip, but we wore ourselves out packing, traveling, and unpacking every two days. Too old for that sort of traveling, now.

On ships, we've visited most of Western Europe, Alaska, Hawaii (where locals take the cruise to see the other islands, cheaper than flying to each one), an amount of travel we could never have done on our own. Sherry and I just finished a British Isles cruise, and now I'd love to go back "boots on the ground", so to speak. Would even consider renting a caravan, but I'm afraid we'd end up living in a traffic circle, Chevy Chase - style...


In a way, all that vagabonding has really brought me back to camping, and thus to teardropping, in a manner akin to beating your thumb with a hammer - it feels so good when you stop...

[S. Heisley]

I have been on a couple cruises, island hopping in Hawaii and the Caribbean, and hope to go on one more...to Alaska.
Cruises are excellent for going to places that you couldn't see while towing your trailer.

- It is usually pretty safe and you don't have to check every hotel for bed bugs, hidden human fluids, and gunk on the floor and in the shower because you're only in one room and can check that one once.

- Things usually work: No backed up showers with an unknown stranger's curly hair floating (a Marriott experience) or a bathroom sink with a missing drain pipe (a Hilton experience).

- Cruises have a lot of good excursions available so you can sign up to see the best sights, in most cases; and, like others have said, you tire yourself out so that you can go to sleep as soon as dinner is done.

- If you have dietary problems, be certain to not only sign up for the earliest meals; but also, introduce yourself to the chef and maitre-de/head waiter and your assigned waiter as soon as you are on board or can do that and you can be assured that he/she will take good care of you. You rarely get that kind of care from a cook, waiter, or maitre-de at a restaurant.

- You can pick and choose what you want to do. If you want to sit or recline with a drink and/or a good book or just watch the water, you can do that, too.

- In most cases, regardless of where you are, what your mode of transportation or whatever else, your happiness is up to you. Make the best of it and enjoy whatever you do, even if it is writing a satire, afterwards. Life is just too short not to make the best of all that you can.

[alaska teardrop]

and hope to go on one more...to Alaska.
Cruises are excellent for going to places that you couldn't see while towing your trailer.

Sharon, Never been on a cruise, but I have traveled on the Alaska state ferry system. Alaska Marine Highway System: http://www.dot.state.ak.us/amhs/ begins in Bellingham, Wa.

There are any number of approaches to making use of the ferry's to see the Inland Passage & to access other parts of Alaska and still have the freedom to explore or camp on your own. One can make concrete reservations for every step, but I think it would be more interesting to wing it, if one had the time.

One can travel as a backpacker, car/tent, pick-up camp or pull a trailer. While the boat is underway the rig is inexcessable (only in port), however, one can bring one's own food & gear up top. Camp on the stern deck, sleep in the forward lounge or rent a state room /bath.

One can debark in a port, camp, see the sights & pick up a ferry on another day. Eat your own food or buy in the cafeteria and drink at a small bar. The ferry doesn't do glacier tours & such, but any variety of local tours are available in ports.

From Haines you can drive into Interior Alaska through the Yukon Territory. At Valdez you can pick up the Richardson Highway. At Whittier or Seward you can enter South Central Alaska by road to Anchorage, the Kenai, Sarah (you bet) Palins' hometown, Denali, Fairbanks & all the way north to the Yukon & Prudoe Bay. The Alaska Railroad also runs north from Whittier & Seward to Fairbanks: http://www.alaskarailroad.com/ As with the ferry, one can make delayed stops to see the sights, such as riding the park bus into Denali for backpacking.

Anchorage & to some extent Fairbanks are the flight centers to bush Alaska in case you want to see the real thing.

IMO, Yakutat is the most special port on the ferry route.

Fred

[GuitarPhotog]

I've been wanting to take that inland passage ferry trip for a few years but just learned how expensive it is to have a stateroom, and I'm too old for camping on deck (that's why I got a teardrop).

It's very popular and has long lead times for reservations. Book early if you want to go.

<Chas>