Alaskan Cruise recs

I have been onPrincess cruises and have taken two Viking cruises in the past two years with another one scheduled for next April.
Princess is nice but Viking is a step above.

I have been on two Alaskan cruises, both on Holland America.

I would rank them
Viking
HAL
Princess

All were fun.
Can’t go wrong with any of them.

Check out Celebrity, too

We did the Princess Discovery the last week of May, 2024 and loved it. I’ll break down some considerations for you:

1. We did a 7 night RT Seattle b/c of Southwest points and because of limited time off. You only get a taste of Alaska with a 7 night that stays down South, and we knew once we retire we would do a long 10 to 14 night cruise tour that includes the land portion at Denali. If you have the time and the money and are only going to do one Alaskan cruise, then I’d do a longer cruise tour that starts with the land portion then goes southbound so easier flight home at the end.

2. Cruise line: Only some cruise lines have permits to go into Glacier Bay [holland, princess, disney off the top of my head] Check for others. On our GB day, you sail into pristine wilderness for several hours with no other ships. You sail up to several glaciers and do the 360 spin a few times. We had a balcony and binoculars and sat there all day drinking bloody Mary’s, then champagne, [delivered to our room] enjoying the views. Favorite day of the trip. We love Celebrity but picked Princess solely because it went to GB.

3. Ports times and dock locations: Pay attention to time in ports on the itineraries — even though the ship may stop there, it could be wonky hours — you want the longest, optimal times. Many people don’t look at this and get screwed. Also, do some research on where your ship docks. HAL and Princess have the best dock locations b/c they’ve been there the longest — for some other brands, you get a less optimum location and have to bus to town.

4. Ports themselves: We loved Skagway — such a cute, tiny town. We walked to the Skagway Brewing Co for lunch, toured the free Gold Rush museum in town, then did the White Pass Railway which I highly recommend. In Juneau, we did a combo whale watching/Mendenhall glacier tour which was nice. If you treat the whale watching part like a “pretty trip on a boat in nature” you won’t be disappointed when you don’t really see the whales up close — it’s hit or miss and out of the control of the boat captains really. In Ketchikan, it rained like it always does and made for a miserable day. There is a FREE town shuttle that we hopped on and did a round-trip just to see the town.

5. Princess Discovery: there were many things Princess did right … a naturalist gave talks every day, they had Alaskan beer tables and Bloody Mary bars set up in atrium most of the trip, an Iditarod champion came on board with his puppies and gave a talk, etc… the entertainment was really good and I really appreciated all the live music everywhere. The food in the MDR and the buffet was not good at all. Specialty restaurants were very good to excellent — Rudi’s Catch especially. [I had made reservations on the app months before.]. I also loved the medallion you get which is basically a gps locator. Using that and the app, you could order a drink including specialty coffees anywhere on the ship and it would be delivered to you.

6. Timing — we picked last week of May b/c we wanted to see snow on the mountains, less rain, and fewer kids. First week of June would be good too. You see more animals as the summer goes along, but lose the snow, gain more crowds and kids, and it gets rainier and rainier.

Bump. Wife wants to do the same trip this summer for our 30th anniversary.

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would the left/port side of the boat be more desirable due to the southern traverse??

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Most likely. Thats the "mainland" side.

June, the best month to cruise Alaska.

Bookmarked

Booking dilemma.... Leaving Seattle and then returning to Seattle trip (7 day) would the rear facing premium balcony rooms be a better option then a premium balcony room on the port or starboard side.


Travel agent couldn't recommend one way or the other.

Opinions?

Tia

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rear facing premium balcony

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This is what we booked for our 7 day north to south from Vancouver.
The agent we spoke to, as well as reviews I have read, does agree that you can hear the wake when underway, but that it is widely considered to be a soothing sound.
The aft rooms are slightly larger than the same rooms on the sides of the ships and while you won’t see what’s coming like you could on the side, it gives a nice panorama view and can see both sides on the back.

One of our party gets motion sickness and we were concerned about him staying at the aft of the ship… cruise advisor said the rear stabilizers actually help with that immensely and suggested the only real area that she would avoid would be the very front of the ship.

*this will be our first cruise, so I have no personal experience with it