A mighty month’s cruising from Miami to Seattle aboard Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Pearl forms the heart of a great new holiday. It heads through the Panama Canal and visits Central America, US West Coast cities and Alaska.
The new fly-cruise-and-stay holiday from Worldwide Cruise Centres (worldwidecruisecentres.com.au), named ‘Panama Pictures and Alaskan Pearls’ also includes a night’s accommodation in Los Angeles, two nights in Miami, and airfares from Australia to Miami (via Los Angeles), returning from Seattle.
The 34-night holiday with its 31-night cruise costs from A$6299 per person twin share from Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne. That equates to less than A$186 for each night of the holiday. To make the value even more amazing, ship’s gratuities of A$418 per person are included, so you can forget about tipping while aboard. All shipboard main meals (excluding speciality restaurants) are included as well.
‘Panama Pictures and Alaskan Pearls’ gets underway on 13 April 2015 with a flight from Australia to Los Angeles. A night’s hotel stay near the airport lets you break your journey before jetting on to Miami, America’s great Latin metropolis.
Two nights at the Holiday Inn Express hotel Miami Airport Doral Area places you within easy reach of local attractions including the white sands of South Beach and Miami International Mall. Close at hand is the Port of Miami, which is where you’ll board Norwegian Pearl. Once aboard, take your pick from six complimentary dining options, entertainment day and night, stage shows, a fitness centre, Nintendo Wii on a two-storey screen, sports court, pools, a climbing wall and hot tubs.
Sailing out of Miami, first port of call is the old walled city of Cartagena, Colombia, with its cobbled streets. Here in 1741, Spanish Admiral Don Blas de Lezo, with only one eye, one leg and one hand, successfully defended the city against British attack.
Norwegian Pearl will take you through the Panama Canal, an engineering triumph, and on to tropical rainforests. To a seafront town in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala, gateway to Mayan ruins. In Mexico you’ll visit Puerto Chiapas (cobblestone streets lead to the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe) then Huatulco, Puerto Vallarta and the laid-back game fishing port of Cabo San Lucas.
Now for the USA! After visiting the Spanish influenced, Californian naval port city of San Diego for a day, you’ve full days to take in the sights of Los Angeles (don’t miss Hollywood) and San Francisco, with its cable cars and Fisherman’s Wharf precinct.
Cruise north along the US West Coast now to gracious Victoria, capital of Canada’s British Columbia province. Rudyard Kipling once described Victoria as “Brighton Pavilion with the Himalayas for a backdrop”. See thousands of varieties of flowers, trees and shrubs at Butchart Gardens. If you miss some, don’t worry; you’ll have another day here in a few days time.
Next stop: Vancouver, also scenically striking, before sailing in one of the world’s most dramatically beautiful expanses, Alaska’s Inside Passage. Seven nights of cruising in this region takes you to the frontier town of Juneau at the foot of grand mountain peaks. Explore the Klondike gold-rush settlement of Skagway and visit Sitka, where the onion domes of St. Michael’s Cathedral provide a reminder that the town was once a Russian settlement. Visit Icy Strait Point on Chichagof Island before sailing to incomparable Glacier Bay, a photographer’s dream. Rugged mountains, 16 vast tidewater glaciers, temperate rainforest, sheltered fjords – all are here. On land, brown and black beach forage for food along gravel beaches. Occasionally the rare glacier bear (with blue-tinted fur) is sighted. Over 200 bird species frequent this area.
You’ll also drop in on the quaint town of Ketchikan, founded as a fishing camp, just five kilometres long and three blocks wide.
Departing Alaska, you’ve another day to relax and sightsee in Victoria before farewelling Norwegian Pearl in the great northern US port city of Seattle and jetting back home to Australia.
To find your local Worldwide Cruise Centres agent go to: www.worldwidecruisecentres.com.au
Source: World Wide Cruising