Inside or outside passage?

[map92]

Hey Fellow Cruisers,

We are wanting to take an Alaska cruise in late April or early May 2016 but know nothing about it. What is the beat cruise line to use? Inside or outside passage? Any info will greatly be appreciated!

Thanks!

Edited March 14, 2015 by map92

[CruiserBruce]

If you read down the board you will see tons of info to answer your questions. Inside Passage is very desirable. A route that includes Glacier Bay is very desirable.

 

Which cruise is "best"? Chevy or Ford? McDonalds or Burger King. "Best" cruise is extremely subjective, but it is commonly discussed here that Princess and Holland America have the most permits to enter Glacier Bay, followed by NCL. That may impact your selection.

[Budget Queen]

I suggest you find out more about Alaska. It isn't as simple as "inside or outside" :). First your time is iffy. This is before some tours even start, and you have more likeliness, of cold damp weather.

 

Inside/outside isn't a fixed idea. All Alaska cruises sail "inside passage". Inside Vancouver Island is another route that only rarely does, round trip Seattle sailings do=- BUT that route has the advantage of more opportunity to catch the humpback migration- about the first three weeks of May.

 

IF you truly want the most "inside passage" sailing, then it won't be on one of the regular cruise ships.

 

Get familiar with the basic three different routes available, if you are sticking with the major cruise lines. Round trip Seattle, round trip Vancouver and one way Vancouver/Alaska (Seward on RCI, Celebrity, NCL Whittier - Princess)

 

head to your library and take out Alaska travel books. The more you know, the clearer the choices will be for you to make.

[Kamloops50]

Hey Fellow Cruisers,

We are wanting to take an Alaska cruise in late April or early May 2016 but know nothing about it. What is the beat cruise line to use? Inside or outside passage? Any info will greatly be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

Most cruises to Alaska don't start until the second week of May (12th) . All cruises do the Inside when they are in Alaskan waters . The difference is the cruises that leave from Seattle or Vancouver BC. From Seattle they go west of Vancouver Island . The cruises to/from Vancouver are east of Vancouver island . The cruise that is east of the island tend to be calmer and more scenic. West of the island you'll spend time in the open Pacific going to and from Alaska.

[mapleleaves]

There are books specific to Alaska cruises. Buy or borrow from your library, Ann Viponds 'Alaska by Cruiseship' and Fodors "Alaska Ports of Call".

The books, specifically Vipond's, provide info on cruiselines, ships, itiineraries, ports, excursions, activities.

Alaska requires research. Different ports offer different activities, and some activities like fishing or bear watching have very limited windows of time The more you know, the better your trip will be.

[Mercruiser]

You specifically asked, "Inside or outside passage?". Here is some information on the routes that may help with your decision. This is the cruise track I recorded on my GPS from our Vancouver to Seward cruise on Mercury back in 2001: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid...af1a3624&msa=0

This route follows the traditional Inside Passage between Vancouver and Ketchikan. You can zoom in on the Google map and see that this route winds its way up between Vancouver Island and the Canada mainland. This is a very scenic area and is completely sheltered from ocean waves. It's like cruising on a lake.

 

Here is a photo of the Grenville Channel, in Canada, one of the narrowest parts of the Inside Passage: 1800 feet wide at its narrowest point, with mountains rising from the water to heights of 1,000 to 3,000 feet.

 

 

Sadly, the Seattle cruises skip most of the inside passage and head out to open sea, west of Vancouver Island. From there, they cruise about 30 km off the western shore of Vancouver Island. For the first full day of the cruise, you will be able to see land in the distance but will be far off shore in the open ocean. On the second full day, the ship will re-enter the inside passage route for its first stop, typically Juneau or Ketchikan. Here is the cruise track I recorded on my GPS from our Seattle to Seattle cruise:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid...8755,39.506836

 

As you can tell, after having been on a Vancouver cruise, I felt a little disappointed with the Seattle cruise, having missed out on the Inside Passage part of the route from Vancouver to south east Alaska. Our next cruise will be on the Vancouver to Seward route again. It will interesting to see if Celebrity still sails through Grenville Channel.

 

Lastly, here is a blog I wrote about the Seattle - Alaska - Seattle cruise. Despite my preference for Vancouver, this was a great cruise:

https://goldenalaska.wordpress.com/

 

[xlxo]

If the cruise ships are not running... you can always cruise via ferry from Bellingham...

http://www.dot.state.ak.us/amhs/

[5waldos]

My suggestion, for what it is worth. We are sailing south from Whittier to Vancouver on one of the very few ships that stop at both Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay (have done Tracey Arm and although it is beautiful it can be iffy- especially at that time of year it is likely that you won't get in very far)- the Island Princess. Very small ship, and they have a naturalist on board which the other ship which stops at both (NCL) does not. And it does the inside passage which I thought was just wonderful and regretted not sailing on our second Alaska trip several years back.

 

So yes- many things to take into account but having looked carefully at many of them- I would suggest at least looking at this one. And that despite the fact that other than the naturalist and itinerary we were not all that taken with the one Prncess cruise we took.