Alaska Cruise Advise

[luvmygirlz]

I am thinking about surprising my husband with an Alaskan cruise for our 30th Anniversary in 2016. I have looked at the itineraries for RCI, but would love to hear from you if you have sailed to Alaska. Which itinerary do you like and why? North, South, roundtrip, etc. Best place to fly into. All info much appreciated!!

[ace1zoe2]

I have done the Seattle to Vancouver 7 night and then the 13 night cruise tour from Fairbanks to Vancouver. We much preferred the cruise tour for the opportunity to see more of the land portion of Alaska.

 

If I was unable to do a land tour portion I would choose either the north or southbound cruise for 7 days. Most of the itineraries only have 1 or 2 sea days with more ports to see.

 

I would also pick a Radiance class ship for all the glass and opportunities to see the ocean.

 

If you are interested I did a very long detailed review of our cruise tour. The link is below in my signature. If you prefer to read in blog format without all the comments you can click the link to my blog and search for Alaska. I did it port by port and have lists of information on costs, excursions, DIY and packing.

 

Cindy

 

 

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[tahqa]

In my opinion Northbound is a better itinerary than Southbound. With Northbound the scenery and ports get a little bit better every day and with Southbound it kind of feels like you start with the best and go from there.

 

However, I much prefer Vancouver airport over Anchorage. Vancouver has easy access to the light rail service and Anchorage you're pretty much stuck with taxis, busses or car service. Also, Vancouver is a much more interesting city than Anchorage.

 

For getting between Anchorage and Seward the train was simply spectacular. We saw lots of wildlife (including eagles and moose) and a lot of awesome scenery.

[edjny]

We have our first Alaska cruise booked for next July. So I can not help you with any experience. But, I would suggest that you search for 'alaska review' on the forums and read about the good/bad. We chose a 13 day southbound 'cruisetour' that starts out in Fairbanks and ends in Vancouver. We will be flying into Fairbanks a few days before the landtour starts and staying over in Vancouver for a week or so after the cruise to take in some extra sightseeing on both ends of the cruise.

 

The Alaska booking schedules for 2016 should be announced toward the end of Feb to early March of 2015. You should decide what cabins you would want and what range of dates you want before that happens. Then when you call RCL to book, it will be very quick to make the decisions so you can get the cabin/date you want after the announcement.

[CRUISEBOY305]

I have done the Seattle to Vancouver 7 night and then the 13 night cruise tour from Fairbanks to Vancouver. We much preferred the cruise tour for the opportunity to see more of the land portion of Alaska.

 

If I was unable to do a land tour portion I would choose either the north or southbound cruise for 7 days. Most of the itineraries only have 1 or 2 sea days with more ports to see.

 

I would also pick a Radiance class ship for all the glass and opportunities to see the ocean.

 

If you are interested I did a very long detailed review of our cruise tour. The link is below in my signature. If you prefer to read in blog format without all the comments you can click the link to my blog and search for Alaska. I did it port by port and have lists of information on costs, excursions, DIY and packing.

 

Cindy

 

 

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great review Charile and Cindy. Read a little bit, look forward to reading more later. Doing 11 night cruisetour next may. can't wait.

 

To the OP, this will be my first trip to Alaska as well, everyone I spoke to about Alaska said to me, start with the cruisetour portions first and then do the cruise (southbound). What I'm looking forward to the most is Denali and I really wanted to save Denali for last (well almost last, cause tour ends in Faribanks) so I decided to Start in Vancouver and end in Alaska.

[PompeySailor]

We completed round trip on Serenade and will be doing round trip on Jewel

Convenience of flights in and out of 1 airport for us was a must to help keep costs down. Reducing transfer costs and other expenses incurred when doing

N-S or S-N

Our Itinerary Was

Vancouver

At Sea

Icy Strait point

Tracy / Endicott arm fjord

Skagway

Juneau

At Sea

Vancouver

On this itinerary we did see Hubard Glacier, truly amazing!

And one of the best cruises we have been on.

 

We have another Alaska cruise booked for 2015

Another round trip, this time out of Seattle.

Our Itinerary will be

Seattle

At Sea

Inside Passage

Tracy Arm Fjord

At Sea

Victoria BC

Seattle

 

Subjective, but we prefer round trips! And flying in and out of same airport.

 

You'll have a great cruise on which ever route you decide to take

I do have a lot of information on Alaska (DW keeps everything) so if can help will do so.

 

Happy Days!

[steveru621]

We did the 2014 southbound on Radiance and I would rank it second to our Venice Med cruise. The itinerary -- Seward, Alaska; Hubbard Glacier (Cruising); Juneau, Alaska; Skagway, Alaska; Icy Strait Point, Alaska; Ketchikan, Alaska; Inside Passage (Cruising); Vancouver, British Columbia

 

The major two reasons for this cruise; the Radiance OTS is the only RCI ship that currently visits the Hubbard Glacier, and allows you to visit Denali national park. Yes, the extra travel to Anchorage was difficult, but without the Park and Hubbard visit the whole cruise would not have been as gratifying. The current round trips out of Vancouver or Seattle do not offer same same depth of experience and do not visit the Hubbard Glacier.

 

Spend 2-3 days in Denali, take the train to Seward, then at the end of the cruise get a red-eye out of Vancouver and spend the day seeing the city.

 

It remains to be seen how the itineraries for 2016 will change, but you will get only half of the Alaska experience by not going to Anchorage/Seward. Heck the train ride from Anchorage to Seward was a major highlight.

Edited September 24, 2014 by steveru621

[Guest maddycat]

We did 2 Alaska cruises. We loved our 1st Alaska cruise so much that we had to go back and see more of Alaska. The 1st was a 7 night round trip cruise from Vancouver. The 2nd was a 12 night cruise tour - 5 night land tour followed by a 7 night southbound cruise ending in Vancouver.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

We did our first Alaska cruise in the beginning of June. Simply amazing.

 

We did a Northbound on the Radiance. Loved Vancouver and sailing out of it. The one-way isn't the most convenient, but we thought it was worth it. We loved our train ride from Seward to Anchorage. Basically another excursion and we saw two moose!! :)

[Trekker954]

Southbound or Northbound. Bottom line you must stop in Ketchikan and go to Anan Creek. The Seattle itinerary does not go there.

[Royal_Cruiser]

The Alaska booking schedules for 2016 should be announced toward the end of Feb to early March of 2015. You should decide what cabins you would want and what range of dates you want before that happens. Then when you call RCL to book, it will be very quick to make the decisions so you can get the cabin/date you want after the announcement.

 

Would you tell me more about this? My family is also planning a 2016 Alaska cruise, but we will be very limited in our choices of dates. How much time is there usually between when itineraries are announced and when they can be booked? Thank you.

[karen s]

Would you tell me more about this? My family is also planning a 2016 Alaska cruise, but we will be very limited in our choices of dates. How much time is there usually between when itineraries are announced and when they can be booked? Thank you.

 

I was able to book our July 2014 Alaska in March 2012. We had 9 folks in my group, ages 9-71 and my family had specific cabins/ship/itinerary (Radiance Southbound in GS 1060 and TFS 1054 with an interior for my college age daughters close by), so as soon as I was able to snag those cabins on a Radiance SB in the summer of 2014, I grabbed them!

 

We didn't want to be herded around like cattle on a cruise tour, so we made up our own. We all met in Anchorage, spent the night there and the next morning took the train to Denali. We stayed at the Denali Crow's Nest cabins for 2 nights during which we took the 8 hour Denali tour through the park (arranged with the Nat'l Park Service) and took the train back to Anchorage the next day. After spending another night in Anchorage (in the Embassy Suites), we took the "Coastal Friday" train to Seward. Overall, it was a great pre-cruise trip.

 

I saved a huge amount by going through Elmendorf AFB Tickets and Tours to pre-purchase our train tickets. Pre-purchase is a must!! We took Gold Star Class from Anchorage to Denali (Glass top cars, free bar service, outdoor viewing area) and Adventure Class (standard train car) back to Anchorage and the next day, from there to Seward. If I had to do it over again, I would have gotten the Gold Star Class for the Anchorage to Seward trip - breathtaking!!

 

What was great about the Anchorage to Seward leg (besides the views), is that anyone boarding the ship dropped their bags off (as long as they had RCI luggage tags) at a special loading area and they were loaded on a truck and driven to the ship. Voila! We didn't have to do the bag drag for the short walk from the train station to the pier. It's about a half-mile walk.

 

I booked all our excursions privately: Amazing...and I mean AMAZING...whale watching in Juneau, nothing in Skagway (we were done with trains by then so we just hiked to a lake close by, beautiful), nothing in Icy Strait Point (other than the zip line, there really isn't a whole lot there, a sea plane tour of the Misty Fjords in Ketchikan, and a 5 hour city tour of Vancouver for post-cruise. If you want specific companies we went through, just ask. They were all great. And other than rain in Juneau, the weather was fantastic!! The Misty Fjords weren't misty at all :D

 

A note on flying out of Vancouver airport - give yourselves plenty of time (at least 2 1/2-3 hrs) to make it through security/customs. We flew Delta, so the lines weren't too bad. But the United lines were super, super long. My mom and sister and her family flew United, and they barely made their flight at 6am after getting to the airport at 3:30.

 

We all preferred the SB because of the opportunity to see interior Alaska pre-cruise, make our way south through the interior passage, and then have a much shorter flight home. Long flights home make post-cruise blues so much more intense. :(

 

Our itinerary looked like this:

 

Mon - flew to Anchorage

Tues - 8 hr train to Denali

Wed - 8 hr bus tour of Denali Nat'l Park

Thur - 8 hr train ride back to Anchorage

Fri - 4 hr train to Seward, board ship

Sat - Hubbard Glacier (cruising)

Sun - Juneau

Mon - Skagway

Tues - Icy Strait Point

Wed - Ketchikan

Thur - At Sea

Fri - Vancouver

 

If we would have had more time, I would've spent a couple more days in Denali to be able to hike some of the trails.

 

Whatever you choose, you will certainly enjoy it, we all sure did!

 

Good luck!!

 

Karen

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

Speaking of excursions, I would HIGHLY recommend booking with independent operators. We did an amazing whale watching tour in Icy Strait Point, a Kayak excursion in Juneau, and a wonderful bus tour in Skagway into the Yukon. :)

[subtchr]

Be sure to visit the Alaska board here on CC. There are many experienced Alaska experts there who are willing to answer any questions you may have.

 

We did the Radiance southbound in June of 2013, after a few days touring on our own around Anchorage and Seward. I created a blog about our trip: SUMMER SOLSTICE IN THE LAST FRONTIER. I tried to include lots of photos, plus planning links and other general information. It was a fantastic trip!

[Funbobby68]

Have cruised Alaska many time , I would recommend if you can skipping the icy point stop , really not much to do there , but honestly does not much matter which itinerary you choose , it's all beautiful country , it does not disappoint

 

 

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[OfTheSeasCruiser]

Have cruised Alaska many time , I would recommend if you can skipping the icy point stop , really not much to do there , but honestly does not much matter which itinerary you choose , it's all beautiful country , it does not disappoint

 

 

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It seems that you either love or hate Icy Strait Point. We personally loved it, felt as if it was the "real" Alaska. Also, did an amazing whale watching tour there.

[ace1zoe2]

It seems that you either love or hate Icy Strait Point. We personally loved it, felt as if it was the "real" Alaska. Also, did an amazing whale watching tour there.

 

Also one of our favorites. Did a fantastic whale watching tour in ISP! Pictures and info in my cruise review. We did DIY in Skagway to Canada & in Juneau plus the flight tour in Ketchikan.

 

You won't really save any $ on private tours but they will be smaller groups. Excursions are expensive either way as the vendors only have a 5 month season to earn their income for the year.

 

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[WupperAV]

Deck 11 Balcony, midship, starboard side Northbound, Port side southbound. Bring very warm waterproof hooded jacket and gloves. It can be winter-spring mix anytime. Most of teh tours aren't worth the bucks except Denali and AK Railroad. The rest you can do yourself. You can walk through Juneau in 30 min.

[Cheryl H]

We did a north bound because we had heard about the scenery getting more beautiful on the way up. I suppose that is correct. However, I wanted to see more of the inside passage, specifically I was hoping to see the Seymour Narrows. But I think we went through them after dark. I always wondered if we would have going southbound, if we would have seen more in the inside passage.

 

We loved all the ports including Icy Strait. Our favorite tour was there. For our Anchorage to Seward transport, we hired a private tour company so that we could make stops all along the way. I think we were with them 6 or 8 hours that day and it was marvelous. We actually booked 2 tours with them that day since we had so much time to kill before our nighttime flight.

 

But if I had it to plan over again, I would have planned southbound and I would have arrived a few days early to get some touring in before the cruise.

 

We are booked to go again in 2015, but this time it's a Vancouver round trip on the Radiance. It's a tad cheaper due to round trip airfare. Now we just need the next 11 months to fly by so we can go. Have fun planning your trip.

[Funbobby68]

It seems that you either love or hate Icy Strait Point. We personally loved it, felt as if it was the "real" Alaska. Also, did an amazing whale watching tour there.

 

 

I was ok with the stop if u do go there u should visit the "office"

 

 

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[edjny]

Would you tell me more about this? My family is also planning a 2016 Alaska cruise, but we will be very limited in our choices of dates. How much time is there usually between when itineraries are announced and when they can be booked? Thank you.

 

IF you do not really care where your cabin is, you can book anytime. The prices do start rising a couple weeks after the schedules are announced though. The balcony cabins on the 'land' side tend to go the most quickly. That would be the Starboard on the north bound and the Port on the south bound.

 

We decided that we wanted the rear corner aft cabin on the south-bound cruise in July. The cabin on the 9th deck is a balcony class (D1). That is less expensive than the Junior Suite on the 10th deck. These cabins are very popular. If you want something like this, you have to get it booked within an hour or so of when the schedule is announced. I checked the RCL web site for the schedules being posted every couple hours during the week they were announced to be posted. On Feb 18th, 2014 (Tue), I saw the schedules around 7:00pm EST and was on the phone within 5 minutes. We got cabin 9256 for the July 17th cruise. We are going up earlier because we are also going on the land tour (#8B).

 

We don't know if we will ever be able to repeat the cruise. So we wanted the 'perfect' cabin in the month we wanted to go. That is why you want to decide ahead of time what you want and call in ASAP after the schedules are posted on the web site.

[edjny]

Deck 11 Balcony, midship, starboard side Northbound, Port side southbound.

 

Did you mean Deck 10? The WindJammer and pool is on Deck 11 on the Radiance.

[luvmygirlz]

Wow! Thank you all for the great info. What is a good time of year to go?

[Clarea]

Wow! Thank you all for the great info. What is a good time of year to go?

Late May to early September is the only time they cruise to Alaska. July/August being the peak prices. We went in early June to keep the cost down. It was a bit cool, but we still had a great cruise.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

Wow! Thank you all for the great info. What is a good time of year to go?

 

We went the first week of June due to costs and the timing we could go. The weather was amazing in every port except Juneau, where it rained. All others were up towards the 60s.