Alaska

[Sugar&Buddy]

Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out  quickly.

 

[neverbeenhere]

Yes. 
 

 

many cruises to Alaska on Princess(lots), Royal(5+) , Celebrity(lots), Holland(2), Norwegian(1)

All trips have been good to great. Yes, Princess does it the best, but I wouldn’t be afraid to take any line to Alaska. And we grew up in the NW. 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by neverbeenhere

[lynncarol]

Unless things have changed, RC does not go to Glacier Bay National Park.  So even though we have diamond status on RC, we chose Princess for our Alaskan cruise as it  DOES go there. Glacier Bay NP was one of the highlights on our trip.

[lenquixote66]

16 minutes ago, Sugar&Buddy said:

Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out  quickly.

 

Our second best cruise ever was an HAL Alaska cruise in 2008.At that time we had yet to do a RCI cruise.

[CynBeth6]

Our first cruise many years ago was on RC to Alaska out of Vancouver through the inside passage ending in Seward.  We also did a few day land tour and it was amazing!

Edited November 4, 2022 by CynBeth6

[time4u2go]

1 hour ago, lynncarol said:

Unless things have changed, RC does not go to Glacier Bay National Park.  So even though we have diamond status on RC, we chose Princess for our Alaskan cruise as it  DOES go there. Glacier Bay NP was one of the highlights on our trip.

Same here. I would definitely recommend Princess. 

[JeffT237]

We did our first Alaska and Princess cruise last May due to the itinerary that included Glacier Bay.  Glacier Bay was the highlight for our cruise as well.

[juanarcin]

I'm looking into cruising to Alaska, never been. I'm also about about 20 points from Diamond on RC and so I was considering doing my first B2B on the ovation when it moves to Seattle. My biggest thing is I want to see Glaciers! Is Glacier Bay the way to go? I may do princess or others that go to Glacier bay as half of the trip and RC the other half if I have to.

[firefly333]

Lol I did a carnival journey cruise, saw 2 glaciers. And thought it was my best ever cruise. Every line can be a great alaska cruise. 

[Nilbog]

We've done Alaska twice, once on NCL and once on Royal.  On Royal we went to Hubbard Glacier and on NCL we went to Glacier Bay (among other ports, of course).  NCL was round trip from Seattle and Royal was northbound from Vancouver.  We loved both cruises.  I'm not sure you can go wrong with an Alaska cruise.

[Smq123]

On 11/4/2022 at 4:12 PM, Sugar&Buddy said:

Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out  quickly.

 

Any cruise to Alaska is a great choice! If possible, definitely pick an itinerary with Glacier Bay. RCCL doesn’t go to Glacier Bay. For many, it’s the highlight of their Alaskan cruise. It’s truly beautiful. Also, pay close attention to the amount of time allotted to each port. We did a B2B on NCL Jewel in September & we had 6-8 hours at each port. The bigger NCL ships only spent a few hours at some of the ports which meant if they did an excursion there wasn’t much time for anything else. 

[ARandomTraveler]

1 hour ago, Smq123 said:

Any cruise to Alaska is a great choice! If possible, definitely pick an itinerary with Glacier Bay. RCCL doesn’t go to Glacier Bay. For many, it’s the highlight of their Alaskan cruise. It’s truly beautiful. Also, pay close attention to the amount of time allotted to each port. We did a B2B on NCL Jewel in September & we had 6-8 hours at each port. The bigger NCL ships only spent a few hours at some of the ports which meant if they did an excursion there wasn’t much time for anything else. 

It sounds like Glacier Bay is the "must see" of Alaska, I wonder why RC doesn't go there.

[CruisingWalter]

On 11/4/2022 at 4:12 PM, Sugar&Buddy said:

Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out  quickly.

 

 

Princess and Holland America are the best for Alaska, especially if you do a CruiseTour. We did a 14 days land/sea tour with Princess and will definitely do it again when we head back up to Alaska. The land portion was Fairbanks, Denali National Park and Copper River, then we met the ship in Whittier for 7 nights to Vancouver. 

 

That being said, if you want to go to Alaska on RC I would stick to the smaller ships. I believe Radiance and Enchantment are the two smaller ships slated for Alaska 2023. I see Radiance is doing the one way trips between Seward, Alaska and Vancouver. That is a great Itinerary and similar to the one we did on the Sapphire Princess. I have no idea how good the land tour portions are for Royal Caribbean. Princess owns their own hotels so the land portion is almost identical to the ship experience with the transfer of luggage and people from location to location. 

 

Alaska is less about what's on the ship and much more about the land itself. It's a breathtaking cruise. 

[CruisingWalter]

Oh and one more tip, if you go to Juneau on your trip, look up Harv and Marv for the whale watching expeditions. Very small boats and excellent captains.

 

In Skagway, Temsco Helicopter tours for the real dogsled expedition up in the mountains. BUT that tour can be cancelled often due to low hanging clouds. If it is they'll give you the option of a refund or a helicopter tour to a glacier, which is what we did. There are 'dogsled adventures' near the port of Skagway, but there's no snow and while the dogs are cute, it's not nearly the same as taking the helicopter up to where there is still snow and you can sled with the dogs. 

[time4u2go]

8 hours ago, juanarcin said:

Is Glacier Bay the way to go?

Yes, definitely! It was by far the highlight of the cruise. 

[OCSC Mike]

Long review of my 2018 18-day trip in my signature if you're interested. It started with 10 days on land (DIY) followed by Southbound to Vancouver on Radiance.

 

FWIW, traveling all the way from Fairbanks down to Seward before the cruise was the better part of the trip for us but all of it was amazing. Happy planning!

[linaka625]

9 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

It sounds like Glacier Bay is the "must see" of Alaska, I wonder why RC doesn't go there.

I think that RCI was banned from Glacier Bay many years ago.  Can anyone confirm?

 

I did a Princess cruise from Vancouver to Anchorage in June.  It was probably my favorite cruise.  The National Park rangers come onboard while you're cruising Glacier Bay.  Also, a giant piece of glacier ice was brought onboard so passengers could touch it and take pictures with it.  The whole cruise was incredible.

 

Definitely try to pick an itinerary that includes Glacier Bay, especially if this may your only Alaskan cruise.

[mek]

I've done Alaska 3X with Princess, 1X with Celebrity, and 1X with a line that no longer exists.

While I can't give you my opinion of Royal in Alaska, I can tell you that Princess wins hands down from my expreiences.

The last time I was up there was the end of September, 2019 and I'm not sure if things have changed, but the food was great with wonderful seafood selections including king crab legs in the MDR.

The Princess ships have always had an Alaskan vibe to them and the shore excursions and land extensions are excellent. IMO, the Princess lodges are the best.

Edited November 6, 2022 by mek

[latebuyer]

Just a comment that royal caribbean is good for the second time you go to alaska. The cruise i’m going on goes to sitka, hubbard glacier and tracy arm, all stops princess and holland don’t go to.

[TRUEBLUE66]

13 minutes ago, latebuyer said:

Just a comment that royal caribbean is good for the second time you go to alaska. The cruise i’m going on goes to sitka, hubbard glacier and tracy arm, all stops princess and holland don’t go to.

Going with Princess next summer. Hubbard Glacier is one of our scenic cruising days.

I've picked Princess as it might be our only time to Alaska and 6 nights at the 3 different lodges with Glacier Bay on the cruise swung it.  

[latebuyer]

Royal caribbean is the only one i know of that goes to all 3 on the same cruise. I’m going on brilliance of the seas.

[time4u2go]

44 minutes ago, latebuyer said:

Just a comment that royal caribbean is good for the second time you go to alaska. The cruise i’m going on goes to sitka, hubbard glacier and tracy arm, all stops princess and holland don’t go to.

Princess most definitely does go to Hubbard Glacier and to Sitka:

 

Holland America also goes to Sitka.

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by time4u2go

[latebuyer]

As i said, i challenge you to find a princess cruise that goes to sitka, tracy arm and hubbard glacier on the same cruise. I’m going to alaska for the second time and want to maximize new stops. Also, just a reminder this is a royal caribbean topic. I’m posting why you may want to take royal caribbean.

[latebuyer]

If anyone knows of a cruise that goes to those 3 spots-hubbard, tracy arm and sitka-on the same cruise then please post-i never found one. Royal caribbean is unique in that regard.

[latebuyer]

Time4u2go’s post reminds me that there is another reason to go royal caribbean-royal caribbean sails the scenic inside passage out of vancouver while princess has very few roundtrip vancouver cruises. Note i didn’t say none, just very few. For my first cruise i sailed holland america which sails glacier bay but also has more vancouver roundtrip sailings. Still i’m not familiar with northbound or southbound routes-princess sails those from vancouver.