Carnival Miracle 10 day out of San Francisco or 7 day out of Seattle

[my kids mama]

Which to choose for mid to late May 2023.  The 10 day would be a stretch for our work schedules but we could swing it, if it was worth it. What do you think?  

 

For those of you that want to tell me we should pick a different cruise line to cruise to Alaska.  The thing is, Carnival is the cruise line that is offering me a free balcony cabin. (for which I am very grateful)  Carnival is the only cruise line that I am asking about in this post. Thank you for understanding.  Besides, I have already paid for this cruise in the casino on other cruises, lol. That is why I get free balcony offers. 

[don't-use-real-name]

10 days instead of 7 days is better - UNLESS they are 3 extra days are SEA DAYS.

Sailing out of Seattle will almost always have a SEA day in passage by the Pacific

Ocean side of Vancouver Island.

Having a port call at Sitka may result in an additional SEA day.

And for cruises ending at Seward or Whittier the final leg may be a SEA day.

 

Common for the 10 day Alaska cruises to be a ship positioning cruise early or late

in the season - after doing 7 days of Alaskan cruising the final port call at San Francisco

or Los Angeles (San Pedro) or Long Beach may have 2 or 3 SEA days.

 

SEA days are not all that bad - a chance to escape a few more days away from reality !

[Oakman58]

The 10 day cruise basically gives you three extra days that are sea days.  The 10 day cruise goes to Icy Point Strait while the 7 day cruise goes to Ketchikan.  It's your call.

[CruiserBruce]

"Worth it" is such a totally vague and subjective phrase, and totally a  personal decision. We can't calculate that for you, we don't know you.

 

Easy for us...we would almost always chose the longer cruise, and given the dock is less than an hour from our house, very easy to chose to cruise from SF.

[lobsternight]

We did a Vancouver to Hawaii a few years back, traveled down the coast to about SF then headed across.  The prevailing seas were broad side and we rolled quite a bit.  Why not spend some extra time in Seattle, wonderful city.

[my kids mama]

Thank you.  We have spent lots of time in Seattle.  I did enjoy it.  I used to go there once a year for a work trip.  Our daughter lived there until a few years back.  We used to visit her there.  I think we have decided to stick to the Caribbean until we can do Alaska right.  My husband had a really great point.  I am not a cold weather person (he is) he said "I know I am only going to get you to go to Alaska once.  I don't want to do it half arsed." He is probably right.  I really do want to be able to go a little later in the season, when we have a good shot at Icy Strait Point.  I would also love to see Hubbard and Sitka  These areas don't seem to be available on the carnival cruises that would work for our dates.  We own a bakery in Denver and we do many farmers markets in the summer, it's hard to take any time off then.  It won't always be this way though.  Thanks everyone for your help.  

[thesmiths]

We're on the 10 day from SFO, in May  I did it for the Extra Sea Days plus have not been to SFO,

we'll do a couple days prior touring.

 

 

 

[my kids mama]

Ok, so we changed our minds.  It was just too good of a deal from Carnival to pass up.  We are booked on the Luminosa leaving May 11th out of Seattle. Now I have some homework to do..