A DISer's Alaskan cruise on...Princess? *Gasp* Updated 6/24 with new pics

[Angrypenguin]

Thank you so much for sharing your sea otter photos! I love the ones on the iceberg.

Thanks!

 

[Angrypenguin]

I hope you don't mind, but I took a look at all of your Alaska pics on Flickr and they are just stunning. Probably the best pics I've seen of Alaska to date. Thanks for sharing!

Not at all, I'm glad you enjoyed them! Thanks so much for the comments.

 

[WanderlustNZ]

Not at all, I'm glad you enjoyed them! Thanks so much for the comments.

Credit given where credit is due. You have a great eye for landscape photography.

Can I ask, how long did it take you to master Lightroom? And also, roughly how long does it take you to touch up each photo? I bought the programme recently and so far have only had a chance to have a bit of a play around and watch a few online tutorials. I was wondering if it's a programme people pick up quickly or if it take months/years of practicing to get good at using it. I know everyone is different and there is probably no one answer, but I'm just trying to decide how often to shoot in RAW on my upcoming trip. I don't want to take hundreds of pics if it's then going to take me hundreds of hours to tweak them afterwards.

 

[Angrypenguin]

Credit given where credit is due. You have a great eye for landscape photography.

Can I ask, how long did it take you to master Lightroom? And also, roughly how long does it take you to touch up each photo? I bought the programme recently and so far have only had a chance to have a bit of a play around and watch a few online tutorials. I was wondering if it's a programme people pick up quickly or if it take months/years of practicing to get good at using it. I know everyone is different and there is probably no one answer, but I'm just trying to decide how often to shoot in RAW on my upcoming trip. I don't want to take hundreds of pics if it's then going to take me hundreds of hours to tweak them afterwards.

Lightroom is an excellent program in my opinion, one of those "easy to learn, hard to master" type deals. I personally picked up lightroom pretty quickly; I like how easy it is to organize your photos and to edit pictures quickly. The workflow is really streamlined.

I wasn't a RAW shooter to begin with; I always liked using JPEG because of the reduced file size. Additionally, RAW images always come out very "flat" out of the camera, since there's no automatic sharpening or white balance adjustment done by the camera. I think I converted to RAW because sometimes, when editing JPGs, portions of the image would come out grainy or saturated due to the loss of data.

I highly recommend checking out lightroomkillertips.com; they have great tips and TONS of presets that you can apply to your images. I highly recommend looking for the presets that are adjusted for Nikon/Canon cameras, respectively.

Have fun!

 

[WanderlustNZ]

Great advice. Thanks

 

[Nora94]

Was there smoking by passengers? If so how much? You said that there weren't many younger people - were there activities for teens/tweens? Things that were fun to do ? If there was swimming was it warm enough to do so? What was the room like?

We only have 14 more states for our kids to complete and Alaska is one of the last to get us to all 50 before the younger one is out of high school.
Thanks! Being able to do a longer cruise and therefore explore more of Alaska is very appealing, especially when combined with a lower price.

 

[Angrypenguin]

Was there smoking by passengers? If so how much? You said that there weren't many younger people - were there activities for teens/tweens? Things that were fun to do ? If there was swimming was it warm enough to do so? What was the room like?

We only have 14 more states for our kids to complete and Alaska is one of the last to get us to all 50 before the younger one is out of high school.
Thanks! Being able to do a longer cruise and therefore explore more of Alaska is very appealing, especially when combined with a lower price.

Great questions. I'll try attacking them one at a time!

Was there smoking by passengers? If so how much?
Yes, there was smoking, but it's contained in outside smoking areas on the upper deck(s). I hardly noticed them. No smoking on the balconies.

You said that there weren't many younger people - were there activities for teens/tweens?
We hardly saw any teens/tweens. And when I say hardly, I mean I saw maybe like 3-4 on the whole ship.

Activities tended to be more adult oriented; the bars and casino, and daytime activities (that I noticed) were geared for older adults, like shopping tips and Bingo and the like. We don't have any kids so we didn't pay as much attention, but I don't really recall any special events for children. They had ping pong tables and mini-golf and that sort of thing.

If there was swimming was it warm enough to do so?

It definitely was not warm enough to swim. The main pool and the adults pool remained empty the entire trip, although many people did enjoy the hot tubs. We went in May so it was still cool at the time; 40-55ish most of the time.

There are fun excursions in port, but mostly on the ship we spent a lot of time just looking at the landscape and looking for wildlife.

What was the room like?

The room was fine. A little older, but clean. Not very big, but it is a cruise ship, after all.


IMG_0204 by kevinkyen, on Flickr