Alaskan Cruise

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve done it twice—it’s great and here are my thoughts.
1. I think the one way trips from Vancouver to Alaska (or reverse) are best so I recommend that.
2. The Seward highway from anchorage to Seward is gorgeous with many great stops. Anchorage is also fabulous. I recommend renting a car one way to get from anchorage to port. But there are very few one way rentals so reserve that (hertz) as soon as you make cruise reservation. If you can’t get that, the train or bus tours are also good.
3. It’s a rain forest. There will be rain. August has shorter days but will have more bears because the salmon have started running.
4. Don’t expect the tricked out boats that cruise the caribbean—they can’t dock at Alaska ports. Smaller, older boats.
5. Only Holland and princess have permits to go into glacier bay. But Hubbard glacier (alternate used by rcl) is also awesome.
6. When budgeting, you may want to save money for some expensive excursions. Personally, I wouldn’t spend extra on disney for Alaska. I’d rather save the money for a helicopter trip to a glacier or a floatplane trip over misty fjords.
7. Check out cruise critic’s Alaska forum for more detailed info. Those folks know everything (often too much....).

I have also been twice and agree with PP. Definitely start and end in different ports or you miss a lot. We sailed Royal Caribbean both times and would recommend them. Their kids club is great. Disney Cruises and best value do not go together in the same sentence in my opinion They are all pretty expensive from the end of June through July since that's when you have the best weather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are going on Norwegian, leaving from Seattle round trip, with Glacier Bay. So, Norwegian also has glacier bay permits.

Sorry for the incorrect information in my previous post! Holland and Princess are the "historical" operators, which means they have more licenses for entry. The remaining licenses are given out by competitive bid, but now it appears that just about all the major cruise lines have at least some licenses. https://www.nps.gov/glba/learn/management/cruise-ships.htm.
Holland and Princess always have a park ranger come on board and do a presentation and a Junior Ranger badge program. I wonder if the other ships do as well?

[Anonymous]

We did a trip on Holland last summer that stopped ( you do not exit the boat) in Hubbard Glacier. It was pretty FANTASTIC. We have teens and had a suite so we had a nice amount of space. You spend a lot of time looking at the scenery so the balcony was ideal.

[Anonymous]

Also agree that balconies are a good bonus. Last cruise we had a group of orcas swimming along next to the ship that we watched from our balcony for about a half hour.

[Anonymous]

We did a trip on Holland last summer that stopped ( you do not exit the boat) in Hubbard Glacier. It was pretty FANTASTIC. We have teens and had a suite so we had a nice amount of space. You spend a lot of time looking at the scenery so the balcony was ideal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve done it twice—it’s great and here are my thoughts.
1. I think the one way trips from Vancouver to Alaska (or reverse) are best so I recommend that.
2. The Seward highway from anchorage to Seward is gorgeous with many great stops. Anchorage is also fabulous. I recommend renting a car one way to get from anchorage to port. But there are very few one way rentals so reserve that (hertz) as soon as you make cruise reservation. If you can’t get that, the train or bus tours are also good.
3. It’s a rain forest. There will be rain. August has shorter days but will have more bears because the salmon have started running.
4. Don’t expect the tricked out boats that cruise the caribbean—they can’t dock at Alaska ports. Smaller, older boats.
5. Only Holland and princess have permits to go into glacier bay. WRONG SO DOES NORWEGIAN But Hubbard glacier (alternate used by rcl) is also awesome.
6. When budgeting, you may want to save money for some expensive excursions. Personally, I wouldn’t spend extra on disney for Alaska. I’d rather save the money for a helicopter trip to a glacier or a floatplane trip over misty fjords.
7. Check out cruise critic’s Alaska forum for more detailed info. Those folks know everything (often too much....).

[Anonymous]

We did the 7 day Disney cruise last summer in early August. We had only 1 day of rain. It was a second Disney cruise so we knew what to expect on the boat. We spent 5 days in Vancouver before the cruise and then had a great time in Alaska. Sure we didn't get to see everything and it was only a day stop at some locations, but it was still amazing in many ways.

One thing to consider is how much time you get at each port. Some cruise ships have much longer stops than others.