Alaskan Cruises

[DukeFencer]

Looking to book a family cruise to Alaska for next summer - can anybody weigh in on specific cruise lines & length of their trip?

Thanks!

[Jim3k]

Looking to book a family cruise to Alaska for next summer - can anybody weigh in on specific cruise lines & length of their trip?

Thanks!

Not sure I can provide any information without knowing what your conveyance preferences are and what travel limitations might affect you, age of children or mobility of grandparents. How many days can they deal with? Alaska is not a foreign country, so things are relatively easy.

But are you speaking of cruising the Southeast and never getting off? Or are you looking for some kind of combination of cruise followed by train, plane, car or bus from Anchorage? Focus on National Parks? (If so, which ones?--Glacier Bay, Kenai Fjords, Denali, Wrangell-St. Elias?) Do you want to go to the extreme north, Fairbanks and beyond? Fishing? Camping?

Cruising the Southeast is absolutely beautiful--but, in a sense, the sights are the same. Plus, towns like Ketchikan, Sitka (well-known for its summer music programs and Russian dancing; amazing auditorium), and Juneau (Mendenhall Glacier and fun waterfront) are all relatively similar. Juneau has a Gray Line tour; the other two are walkable. And throughout the state, Gray Lines is a travel power behind the scenes, so you might start with their website. Westours and Holland-America all have connections to Gray Line.

Designing your own itinerary can be worthwhile if you take the time.

[wandalee]

Fly into Anchorage or Fairbanks, rent a car, and drive the state for a week. You'll see things you would never see on a ship. We did this last June; it was 1 of our best vacations ever.

[devildeac]

We flew into Seattle on a Friday in June, 2008 to celebrate our 30th anniversary and spent the entire day taking a self-guided (mostly) walking tour of the city, probably walking 8-10 miles in the process. Great city to visit. (Of course, DevilAlumna avoided us having "conveniently" arranged to be OOT that weekend) And Bob Green did not live there yet. Spent Saturday AM touring the Hendrix museum (for lack of a better term) and then boarded our Norwegian Cruise ship Sunday about noon and arrived back in Seattle the following Sunday about 8AM. Our stops were all along the Inner Passage and included Ketchikan on July 4, in addition to Juneau, Skagway and Victoria on Vancouver Island, BC. All our excursions were pre-arranged and more expensive but they guaranteed you to be back at the ship on time, too. The excursions included a 3-4 hour train ride, a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, a 2-3 hour whale watching boat tour and a tour of an old salmon cannery along with a lumberjack competition and totem pole carving village. We did spend and extra hour or two at each stop and walked around the towns, too, discovering other places of interest we had read about in our AAA guide. It was double attractive because I got to take it as a "business deduction" for a legitimate medical education meeting, too.

Other trips we considered were longer but included an additional 3-4 day train trip into the Yukon. The flight into Anchorage with a rental car, a map and a AAA travel guide sounds intriguing also. You may also wish to consider flying into Anchorage and embarking on your cruise from there. We have no experience with any other cruise lines and were satisfied with the Norwegian amenities and costs.

Hope that helps. Will there be a report after your journey?

[Genedoc]

Cruised the Inner Passage twice, and driven from Seward all the way around Kenai to Anchorage, Talkeetna, and Fairbanks. PM me for as much detail as you'd like.

In short, loved the cruise and loved the driving/self guided stuff. Different experiences, but both amazing. We did Royal Caribbean and would recommend it. Spend the $ and get a room on the top deck with a private balcony a least, suite if possible. Yes, the suite's more $. It's worth it IMO.

However long you think you want to go for, add more time. It's beyond breathtaking. See as much as you can and rest later.

If there is any way possible to get to Denali National Park, go.

Anchorage is a cool city; Fairbanks doesn't have nearly as much to offer.

My wife's traveled all around the world. She says Alaska is the most beautiful place she's ever seen. We're already planning trip #3.

[sue71, esq]

When you say family cruise, how many people and what is the age range? What are you looking for- upscale, activities for kids, nightlife, etc? How long are you looking to be gone (ie a week cruise or a cruise + land tour for 10 days)?

This should help narrow down cruise lines, at least. Oh, and one thing about the ships themselves, bigger isn't necessarily better in Alaska. Smaller (remember, smaller is relative in cruise ships, but important for itineraries in places like Alaska & the Panama Canal) ships can do more "maneuvering" through the ice & channels. However, because they're smaller, they don't necessarily offer everything that the bigger ships do (as in, there are bars, but maybe not a martini bar, for example).

[Turk]

We were lucky to go on an extended family trip a few years back (9 adults, 8 kids, age range 70's to a preschooler). Went Holland America for a week out of Vancouver, to Glacier Bay, Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan (a.k.a. "ketchup can" according to the youngest). Saw dolphins surfing on the ship's bow wave, salmon, eagles, orcas, more. Pre-planned side trips included helicopter tour and brief walkabout on Juneau glacier field (hurry before they all melt), Yukon train ride in Skagway to Canadian border (very kid-friendly), rain forest walking tour in Ketchup-can. All were excellent. Skagway is a bit of a tourist trap; we did find a hidden gem in the Skagway museum, and the guy who ran it gave us a personal mini-tour. He took a liking to us because we had the kids (and they didn't break or steal anything for a change). He said "You guys don't fit the usual profile: either newlywed or nearly dead." As for the ship, it was my first cruise, ever, and my spider senses were tingling - not sure I could tolerate all the stereotypical cruise ship nonsense. My goal was to spend as much time topsides as possible, in case the crew needed help navigating, or perhaps instinctive self-preservation inherited from elder Turks who had to cross oceans in steerage... Holland had lots of kid-friendly activities, and a place onboard where they could hang out under supervision... Despite my uninformed bias, I had a great time on board.

I would recommed a trip along those lines very highly for a first-time introduction to Alaska, especially if you have a wide age range. The key is to plan to go back again and plant the seeds for the return visit. No matter what length of cruise or form of transportation or itinerary you choose, you will by necessity have to leave something spectacular on the table. No way to do it all at once. When we go back, we'll go to Anchorage and drive around, including Denali.

P.S. Ship was ms Volendam, capacity 1400. Probably undersized by modern standards; but I thought it was the perfect size for our group.

[Mal]

We did the Inner Passage on Regent about 3 years ago, and loved it. Neither my wife nor I had ever had any desire to do a cruise of any sort, but loved the trip and ship. The boat was relatively small; I don't know how many passengers, but when we were in port next to the Holland and Royal Caribbean boats they absolutely dwarfed us. That smallness made Regent feel intimate. I know it bills itself as that - it's undoubtedly more expensive, generally older and more foreign, and has a higher staff/passenger ratio than the other lines. This was a no kid trip for us, and it was nice, frankly, to have few kids on board. We didn't notice the lack of a 20-foot slide for the swimming pool or three different nightclubs. The smaller ship, as someone else mentioned, can get a lot closer to Mendenhall and other glaciers, steer through different routes on the Passage, etc., which was nice, too. Every room had a balcony, as well, if I recall. Which was great, because that's where we spent 80% of our awake in the room time (which still wasn't much). There's something pretty awesome about sitting on a private balcony with a fresh cup of really good room service coffee and watching humpback whales at breakfast time. Off-boat excursion options were plentiful and ran the gamut from short and cheap to pretty pricey.

I've also been to Alaska on fishing trips. There is, as others have mentioned, a lot more to it than glaciers and killer whales along the southern coast, of course. That said, if you're going to do something not cruisey, I'd suggest for the most part skipping the cities. Anchorage is nice but can be seen in two hours and there are only 2-3 restaurants I'd recommend. Get out to Kodiak, down to Seward or a coastal fishing town, and up to Denali. You need to see the interior to really know the beauty. If you can take a puddle jumper into a mountain lake and plop down at a cabin for a few days to wet a fly line in a glacial lake for huge rainbow trout, DO IT!!!