Alaskan cruise with a four year old?

[Cruise Girly 88]

For my father's retirement "party" they are planning a family cruise to Alaska July 2024. In looking at the excursions, they are insanely expensive (kids are the same price as adults!) and everyone looks cold lol. Has anyone taken younger children on an Alaskan cruise? Yay or Nay? We have time to decide, but I'm completely on the fence on this one.

[Essiesmom]

Remember that you do not need to do an excursion.  You can get off the ship and DIY for nearly free.  Family time can be mealtimes.  And not everyone will have the same budget for excursions.  The cruise itself can be expensive.  Get a cruise guidebook for Alaska to see what else you can do.  Ask here on the Alaska board also.  EM

[INeedAMaiTai]

YES! Alaska is great for kids!  I agree with the pp about not having to do excursions.  There are plenty of places for your little one to run around and check out around the area, and neat things to see.  Depending when you go, the weather has always been good for me.  Actually, my last one in 2018, the weather was so warm, they cancelled the dogsled excursion because it was too hot for the dogs.  My favorite thing to do is to go see the Mendenhal glacier.  I have taken kids as young as 2 there, and it was great.  Besides the bus ride, there's fun little paths to walk on and they offer kid stuff in the building.

[kitkat343]

I cruised to Alaska when I was pregnant with my first.  If we lived on the west coast, I would absolutely do this cruise with my kids, but since we don't I can't justify flying across the country to take a cruise I've already done while my kids are small and hard to travel with.  But it was amazing and wonderful and had lots of stuff for kids.  We went in late May/early June and were quite lucky with the weather, and not cold at all.  But it can definitely get cold, so that's an important consideration and bringing layers is required. 

 

I booked 6 weeks out in the shoulder season of late May, so the prices for the cruise were dirt cheap, and then slowly my cheap last minute trip because a very expensive vacation once you factored in all the excursions and even a land tour ( we started to think hmmm.. we will have kids soon so maybe we should add on a land tour before it becomes impossible to travel.).  

 

If your dad is picking an expensive  cruise, then maybe you need to consider talking to your family about the finances of the trip?  The grandparents are obviously not required to help defray your family's costs, but in some families grandparents might prefer to know if finances are a reason for you to not go because they'd prefer to help pay for the vacation so you can come (and in other families discussing vacation finances with them this would cause lots of problems so only you know if it something you should discuss with them.)  And your dad might be like me - when I found the cruise and told my husband about it, I really thought it would be a cheap trip (airfare and cruise fare were quite low, but the excursions just kept going up and up.  I don't regret it at all, but it was unexpected because it was a spur of the minute last minute decision to go on this trip).  Your dad might honestly have no idea this cruise could be a hardship for your family because all he might have looked at was the cruise fare and airfare when booking. 

 

 

In terms of excursions, some children (like some adults) would love whale watching, but many will be bored after 10 minutes (there's a lot of waiting to see whales).  I found the Whittier railroad to be very overpriced and not at all worth it, although other people might love it so that would also be something else I'd vote for skipping with kids.  I was in Alaska a long time ago, but while wandering around the small towns there were cheap tours offered at the last minute for things like whale watching later in the day and we picked up tickets for a really cheap salmon bake at the last minute (the salmon wasn't great, but the rest of the food was quite good and the location was beautiful and they had panning for gold that kids would like and roasting marshmallows on the fire).  Hopefully people will have inexpensive tours available day of, but obviously you can't guarantee that.  

 

Kids might also like this which is expensive but not as expensive as other excursions on a scale of Alaskan prices:  https://www.alaska.org/detail/goldbelt-tram .  You ride the tram up and then can hike around a beautiful mountain.

 

I don't know your budget, but if it is financially possible for you to cut your vacation budget everywhere else and afford one ridiculously expensive excursion (or if the grandparents say they'll pay for one) then I'd recommend cutting back on everything else and going on the helicopter to dogsled camp on a mountain excursion.  This is an extraordinary experience if you are fairly certain your child wouldn't be scared on the helicopter.                 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by kitkat343

[tutumomickey]

Things will hopefully change by next season but currently 4 years olds can only leave a Princess ship on an approved ship excursion because they are unvaccinated. We cruise with our 4 year old granddaughters this June. Still hoping things change because we were not planning any excursions (this is our third Alaska cruise and we really wanted to just explore on our own). The cost of the excursions for children is really expensive but I don't want them stuck on the ship all week either.

[kitkat343]

15 hours ago, tutumomickey said:

Things will hopefully change by next season but currently 4 years olds can only leave a Princess ship on an approved ship excursion because they are unvaccinated. We cruise with our 4 year old granddaughters this June. Still hoping things change because we were not planning any excursions (this is our third Alaska cruise and we really wanted to just explore on our own). The cost of the excursions for children is really expensive but I don't want them stuck on the ship all week either.

RCI just dropped this requirement.  We're keeping an eye on it because we will need to cancel our August cruise if it is reinstated (our only shore excursion disaster was the one time we were required to take a ship tour).   I hope Princess drops it soon.

[schoolpsychcruiser]

What cruise line are  you thinking of? We booked NCL for Alaska this summer and they had a deal where the 3rd & 4th passenger were free in your room, so we just ended up having to pay port fees (about $300) for my son.