OT: Alaskan cruise

[RogueBooster4you]

Need some advice on Alaskan cruises. My wife and I are thinking about booking one for next spring/summer. Any advice on cruise lines, which trip (inside passage or the other, glacier maybe?), how long we should stay (I was thinking a 7 day cruise).

 

[doggystyle]

Fly to Anchorage and depart from Seward.
End in Vancouver. It’s amazing. We were on the Millennium.

 

[Bill Shankly]

Need some advice on Alaskan cruises. My wife and I are thinking about booking one for next spring/summer. Any advice on cruise lines, which trip (inside passage or the other, glacier maybe?), how long we should stay (I was thinking a 7 day cruise).

We did one a few years ago. We went with Holland America. We did a pre-cruise tour with the cruise line as well. We flew into Fairbanks, had couple of nights there. Then we went on the Alaska Railroad to Denali Park where we had 3 nights. That was AWESOME. We went back on the Railroad to Anchorage and spent the night, then on the railroad again to Seward where we caught the ship. The rail journey is something I HIGHLY recommend. You go through some really remote places. The stretch from Anchorage to Seward was stunning. The cruise itself spent one day in Glacier Bay (I wouldn't do one that didn't do that) and stopped in Haines, Juneau, and Ketchikan. It ended up in Vancouver. It was all spectacular stuff. Holland America is not a party line and there aren't over the top activities on sea days. The crowd is older and quieter. I think that hold true for most of the Alaska cruises though.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

Pre-covid

There were only a certain number of permits sold for major cruise ships to enter Glacier Bay, and Holland America/Princess (same parent company) bought all of those. I do not know if that has changed. All lines will go through the inside passage and hit most of the same ports. Glacier Bay is what sets those two lines apart. Celebrity as a line, is supposed to be nicer/more luxurious than other major lines. There are other smaller, nicer lines, such as Regent, that I cannot give first hand details of, but Cruise Critic forums are a good place to research and there are a ton of helpful people there. As Bill said, take a one way trip, either North or South. I recommend starting in Seward (or Whittier) like he said and ending in Vancouver. That way the flight time home is less.

 

[Mjoelner]

Check your pm.

We started in Vancouver and ended up in Seward on a 7 day cruise. We then bused to Denali and stayed a couple of days before taking the Alaskan railroad back to Anchorage and flying home. AWESOME trip!

Skagway was my favorite stop on the cruise. It was also my favorite excursion. The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad. As we were walking around Skagway before our train departed, I had on my MSU baseball cap. A tour bus pulled up and let people off on the corner across the intersection from us. The driver looked over, saw me and yelled "Go dogs! Class of '93 baby!"

 

[ZombieKissinger]

I didn’t do a cruise. I flew into Anchorage, hung out there for a couple days, had drinks with a Russian spy, took the double decker train to Fairbanks, met a person who drove me an hour away then thirty minutes downriver, handed me fishing poles, and left me at a cabin for three days. Had a brother, not a wife, though