Cruising with Dad, 2006-2013
Cathy and I are flying to Vancouver on Saturday to board the cruise ship Nieuw Amsterdam for a 7-night cruise to Whittier, Alaska. So now that the dust has settled from Cathy’s retirement, I’m thinking a lot about cruising – not just the upcoming one, but some of the many previous ones. Last night I gathered a total of 25 photos from 3 very special cruises I took my Dad on, in 2006, 2010, and 2013.
Dad died on October 4, 2016, in a care home in West Kelowna, BC, four years almost to the day after Mom had died in the Kelowna hospital. I had planned to write a blog post about the life that Dad and I had together, but was never able to. Now those memories have largely been wiped out by a brain injury, so this post is mostly an attempt to rebuild what memories I can. However, it is also an attempt to show anyone who has elderly parents how wonderful a week or two on a luxurious ship can be.
Robert Lundberg was born at Sherbrooke, Quebec, on November 29, 1922, to Doris Wraight. He was given up by his single mother, and was adopted by Erik and Jentina Lundberg, a couple who had immigrated from Sweden. As a child he lived in several communities in Quebec, then Alberta, and finally British Columbia, the province he remained in for the rest of his life except during his air force service during WWII. Dad was a hard worker and had lots of imagination – he always had a side-line business, and he was passionate about BC’s gold rush history. In one of the businesses, and during old-mine exploring, he and I spent a lot of time together. His passion for history, and mining in particular, was contagious, and my first book, about mining in the area southeast of Carcross, Yukon, was dedicated to him.
Photographically, I’ll start this post off of with a photo of him and one of my brothers-in-law, on his placer gold claim on the Fraser River at Spuzzum, BC. This sums up beautifully who he was when he was in his happy place, sharing his passion.
After guiding land tours for cruise ship passengers for much of the previous 14 years, I got offered a gig in 2005 as Destination Speaker on a late May cruise to Alaska on Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I was allowed to bring a guest with me, and Cathy came with me on that one. In 2006 I got offered two more Alaska cruises with Royal Caribbean, and took Dad on the first one, a 7-night Seattle return on the Vision of the Seas. Both of the 2006 cruises are shown in detail on my YourAlaskaCruise website. The next photo was shot on May 23, 2006 in front of the Vision at Skagway by Cathy, who had come down to meet us for the day.
We drove up to our cabin at Carcross for the day and had a barbecue on the deck overlooking Lake Bennett – that’s where the next photo was shot.
The next one I took Dad on was in September 2010 – it didn’t get posted on my site, but was a 14-day from Vancouver to Alaska to San Francisco, on the Radiance of the Seas. We boarded in Vancouver on September 10th. We were assigned Inside cabin 3069, on Deck 3 in the centre of the ship.
On our second night heading north, we had one of the the ship photographers shoot some portraits for us.
Having lunch on an aft deck while anchored at Icy Strait Point (Hoonah, Alaska). A few minutes before, we had watched a pod of orca slowly cruise past very close to the ship. Dad was really embracing life on this cruise, and he was so proud of what I was doing – he seldom missed an opportunity to tell people that his son was the ship speaker 🙂
Dad considering one of the weird things that the kids drink, at the Lattetudes coffee bar.
At Skagway on Sept 15, 2010, Cathy again came down to see us – she brought Kayla and Monty, and we drove over to the beach at Dyea to spend part of the day. It’s sure great to see the pups in the middle of a cruise 🙂
On September 19th we spent the day docked at Victoria.
My eldest sister drove down from the Nanaimo area to see us.
On the 22nd we docked at San Francisco, a city that I think was important to Dad for some reason, but I don’t remember why. The next photo was shot on an upper deck, with the Golden Gate Bridge to the left and Alcatraz to the right.
We did a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour of the city and area, and it made a few long stops that made it perfect.
Dad in the Solarium after getting back from the bus tour. He had decided that this really was “the good life” he had read about. That makes me feel really good, being able to write that.
In September 2013 I booked another longer cruise for Dad and me, but it got cancelled at the last minute for some reason (mechanical problems, I think), and the only one I could replace it with was a 7-day on the Norwegian Sun from Vancouver to Los Angeles, that I wasn’t working on. To keep it a 2-week trip, we did land trips before and after. The first photo shows Dad looking at the grave location of Maria Wahlberg, his maternal grandmother, who had pretty much raised him for a few years when he was young and his parents were both working long hours running a restaurant. Within a few months, my great-grandmother, Maria Louisa Wahlberg (1879-1938) had a headstone.
We drove out the Fraser Valley to visit a couple who have been friends since I was in my teens (and Dad knew fairly well) and their daughter and her husband.
Then we drove up to Whistler, and came back to Vancouver to board the ship on September 16th.
I had booked a balcony cabin for this cruise – the next photo shows Dad watching departure preparations at our docking position at Canada Place.
Of all the cruise photos of Dad, this one of him in the Observation Lounge is my favourite. Cheers! 🙂 I sure miss him…
Our first port stop, the next day, was Nanaimo. We have lots of family living in that area, and about ten of them came in to spend time with us – it was a wonderful day!
We docked at Victoria on the 18th, then Astoria, Oregon, on the 19th.
It was the first visit to Astoria for both of us, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The next photo shows Dad in another of his happy places, an antique store. He pooped out at the Maritime Museum, so I took him back to the ship then returned to the museum and then did some further exploring.
At San Francisco on the 21st, Cathy and two girlfriends from Ontario met Dad and me – they were on a driving tour down the west coast, and the timing had been perfect 🙂
Back on our balcony on a rainy San Francisco afternoon.
Our cruise ended at Los Angeles, but our trip didn’t. My second-oldest sister and her husband drove down from their home at Santa Barbara, and we spent a few days with them. The final photo was shot on the pier at Santa Barbara on the 27th.
Now I’m even more excited about flying to Vancouver in 3 days. On this cruise we’re travelling with two of my sisters and their husbands, as well as meeting other family members for dinner in Vancouver, so there are going to be plenty of opportunities to make more special family memories. 🙂
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Also, this is a wonderful post! Enjoyed it a lot.
Thank you. I am so happy that I was able to follow it by blogging about a wonderful cruise with you 🙂
Family ties never lost , severed or broken is a tight knit platoon of love ❤️ A beautiful thing tripping and floating with pop’s 👍
SO great! I think SF was important to Dad because it was the first (and only) big trip for mom and him. They were seeing Shelly off to Australia.
Thanks! Yes, that was it 🙂
Not true. Mom didn’t come with Dad on that trip, Rob did. He was already in love with San Francisco then, and I think had been there once many years ago and was thrilled to go to Fisherman’s Wharf, but don’t know the circs. Also, New Zealand was the first destination. Lost in the mists of time, that trip!