Cruise To Alaska

Actually this has been my only cruise, so that's cheating a little when I say it is my favorite. It's not your typical cruise ship. The World Explorer only has one ship, the SS Universe Explorer. It's a casual ship and designed for learning. During the school year it is used by the University of Pittsburgh for its Semester At Sea program. This is how they come by having the best library at sea, which is enhanced with hundreds of books on Alaska during the summer Alaskan cruises.

Being designed for a learning experience, the ship is smaller than the big cruise ships, so it is more intimate. A cruise lasts 2 weeks instead of the usual 1 week, thus visits more ports, and giving you more time at a port than others. Before each port, they provide information about it. There are professors of geology, biology, anthropology, and history on board giving 4 lectures each on Alaska. If you are keenly interested in any subject they also have enhanced learning with these professors, but that is expensive, rather than free.

As a casual dress ship, I found it quite relaxing. I understand you don't get the same high-class service of a luxury ship, but the service is excellent. The staff works extremely hard, and are very helpful and friendly. I always hear about ships not having staff that speaks English, but I never ran into anyone who did not. They seemed to be mostly from the Philippines and the Caribbean.

There are plenty of the usual activities, and the entertainment is first-rate. On my cruise we had Chie Nagatani, the best classical pianist I ever heard and she played a fun set of pieces. There was a Russian duo, Iryna Orlova and Vladimir Greenberg. Iryna plays the domra (similar to balalaika) and is fantastic and Vladimir plays the bayan (similar to the accordian). There were opera singers Patricia Prunty (soprano) and Bruce Rameker (Baritone) with their pianist/composer (Richard Pearson Thomas). Besides for some opera (which I actually enjoyed) they sang show music and songs written by their pianist. Excellent voices. The 4th person was Janey Smith, an exciting cabaret singer. Each did two shows, plus the opening and closing galas, and there were a few other very good shows too.

I don't know how it is on other cruises, but the lecturers and entertainers are just like other passengers during the cruise. You might be on excursions with them, walk in town with them, eat with them, or just chat. They, like all the passengers and crew we met, were friendly.

The other part of a cruise is the food. Some people seem to take cruises simply for the food. There is plenty to eat and the food is quite tasty. The buffet is not fancy, but the sit-down is very nice. There is usually not large portions at dinner, but it is enough to eat. For those who feel it is not enough, and I was not one of them, there is the pre-dinner snack, and the late-night snack. We also had a special chocolate buffet one day.

To top it all off, everything runs like clockwork. The only time they adjusted the schedule was when whales were spotted.

I took this cruise in 2002. There is a journal from another person who took the cruise in 1997. His few complaints were probably corrected, as I had none of them, nor heard of any such complaints during my trip.

An unforunate footnote is that the Semester at Sea program wanted to continue to use the ship all year, so World Explorer had to look for another ship. So far they have not found one.