Over lunch recently with the foremost cruise writer in America, Fran Golden, her enthusiasm over the current state of cruising was infectious. You couldn\u2019t help but sense the excitement now that the world of cruising is finally back. It\u2019s been a tumultuous 2 \u00bd years that started with passengers and crew being stuck on boats during the early stages of COVID and no ports allowing them to enter. Then came the inevitable bankruptcies like high-end cruise line, Crystal, going belly up earlier this year. But now Fran is jumping from cruise line to cruise line to report on all the changes, heading first on an expedition cruise with Quark to Greenland<\/a>, then aboard the Paul Gauguin<\/em>, now owned by the French company, Ponant, to cruise French Polynesia\u2019s Society Islands<\/a>, and finally the long-awaited arrival of Ritz-Carlton\u2019s yacht on the Italian Mediterranean<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here at ActiveTravels<\/a>, we\u2019ve been busy booking cruises to Alaska and the European rivers for fall 2022 and summer 2023. Our family of four will soon be on an AmaWaterways cruise on the Danube River in early September. The entire river cruise is taken over by the biking outfitter, Backroads<\/a>, and each day we will have new cycling adventures in every port along the route from Prague to Vienna to Budapest. We\u2019ll report on that trip once we return home.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, we want to discuss the new cruises that gets us excited. First up, Viking Ocean\u2019s adult-only cruises is quickly expanding in North America from the Great Lakes to Alaska. But we really like the 15-day Iceland, Greenland, and Canada itinerary<\/a> that starts next summer in Reykjavik and ends in New York. You\u2019ll visit 4 countries and 11 ports, and along the way see stunning remote seacoast and sea life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over lunch recently with the foremost cruise writer in America, Fran Golden, her enthusiasm over the current state of cruising was infectious. You couldn\u2019t help but sense the excitement now that the world of cruising is finally back. It\u2019s been a tumultuous 2 \u00bd years that started with passengers and crew being stuck on boats…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[106,459,460],"class_list":["post-7891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cruises","tag-backroads","tag-cruises","tag-viking"],"yoast_head":"\n