Alaska Cruise - Recommendations Needed

[denisega]

Hello,

 

We are just back from a 12 day cruise in Europe and now the group consensus has been to try Alaska. Definitely closer to home and we would not have to endure a 14 hour flight across the states to Rome!

 

In researching, I found there are several options for Alaska. I thought I would just click on Alaska and there was one option but, there are glacier cruises and inside alaska cruises. How do I know which one to take? None of us have ever travelled to Alaska before. Our family does a cruise every 2 years. We range in age from 35-60 (kids who still love to travel with their parents) and various activity levels.

 

I would appreciate any insight or must sees in Alaska which would help narrow down our choices.

 

All of us are cruise veterans...no first timer cruisers.

[Toyz711]

any cruise that goes to juneau, ketichan, skagway ..is a inside passage cruise. a "true" inside passage will leave from vancouver...cruises that leaves from seattle are still inside passage, after they go around vancouver island.

round-trips leave from seattle...great if you don't have time or energy for landtours in the mainland alaska area.

1-ways are between whitter or seward in alaska and vancouver...you have south bound and north bound cruises. great for adding time for a landtour...but you need different arragnement in your flights, a 3way flight booking. the only thing about these is the transfers from anchorage airport and seward or whittier..not hard to do, just needs extra planning.

the biggest difference is the glacier they go to...they all do at least 1 glacier viewing. some of the 1-ways do 2.

when the cruiseline used "glacier cruise" or "inside passage"...they are describing all cruises, in alaska. look at the actual route they take..research the ports and see what is best for your group.

all the ports have websites..great as a research tool.

[NancyIL]

I'm not sure what a "3way flight booking" is - but you book your open-jaw flights using the "multi-city" option if you're doing a one-way cruise. For instance, you'd book San Francisco to Vancouver and Anchorage to San Francisco flights if you are on a northbound cruise.

 

We did a northbound cruise on the Coral Princess last year, followed by a 9-day land trip with a rental car. I'm going on another northbound cruise this Friday on HAL Veendam, followed by another land trip that's a bit less adventurous.