Best Alaskan Cruise and month to go ?

Looking to spend around 2500-3000 (not counting airfare)

Early thirties , newlywed. Don't really like to party or drink much. Mainly just wanting to try something new and soak in some beautiful sights and relax. Would be interested in what excursions are out there. Just got back from an 8 day all inclusive honeymoon in negril Jamaica and my wife and I both agreed we wanted to do something we've both never done for our big trip next year.

We have only been on one cruise and it was to Alaska last year so don’t really have a frame of reference for “the best”.

But I can tell you about ours.

We did a 10 day land/sea trip the last two weeks of August last year. We had excellent weather; not a lot of rain and they get 120+ inches/year, so we lucked out.

We used Princess, started in Anchorage, then went went by bus to McKinley Princess Lodge (1 night), then Denali (1 night), then an all day train ride to Whitter to board the ship. Then we were on the ship for 7 days; 3 days cruising (saw glaciers), then Skagway, Juneau, Ketichan and finished in Vancouver.

Excursions: Skagway- took the narrow gauge train to White Pass. Recommend this.

Juneau- whale watching, saw about a dozen. Then went to a salmon bake. Recommend this.

Ketchikan - went to a state park to see some toteum poles. Do not recommend this. There was a better excursion where they saw bears & eagles.

In Denali some made a trip into the forest (I guess it is a National Forest, not a Park, not sure) and they saw grizzle bears. Tour busses, w/ restrooms, are not allowed into the forest so you have to go in a school bus.

One couple we met did two excursions to walk on glaciers and they highly recommended that.

I will post some pictures later w/ more comments.

Princess or Celebrity are the better lines of you want a luxury line with a younger crowd. Theres a ton of smaller lines (i.e., Viking) that do a good job too. I'd pick a ship that has a covered pool.

You are wise to do research this far ahead. These are some pluses and minus of our trip.

Scenery is spectacular. This is the McKinley Princess lodge, about 1/2 way, maybe 4 hours, between Anchorage and the town of Denali.
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That's the end of the lodge and one of the motor coaches. That is Mt. Denali, formerly McKinley, and other mountains in the background.
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Mt. Denali picture taken from the deck on the back of the lodge.
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We were told that due to cloud cover only about 30% of the visitor see any of the mountain and only 10% see the entire thing. The staff said the day we were there was the first time they had see it in 3 weeks. The next day we went to the town of Denali, saw some stuff, and then the next day took a train to Whitter where we got on the ship.

The Princess ship staff, especially our maid and wait staff were Excellent, and they work for months at a time without a day off. 10 out of 10

Food on the ship: 6/7 out of 10. Not bad but nothing really outstanding. We were on a plan where you could eat anytime you want and then there are special meals you had to pay extra for. We did a few of those and they were a little better.

Special events: Nightly shows were entertaining; the singers could sing and the dancers could dance but there is a reason they are on a cruise ship and not somewhere else. But considering they had done those same performances for months they did pretty good. 7 out of 10. There was one contract singer that was excellent. He left the ship when we did. 9 out of 10.

The on board naturalist was excellent. He did a few programs; one on bears and one on glaciers and would narrate over the intercom when we were approaching something interesting. at least a 9.

A photographer gave a presentation about the northern lights and that was very good. 8 or 9.

The ship is a floating mall. I could not care less about that. And when you get to the towns there are tons of jewelry shops, etc. but some are worth checking out.

There are a lot of other things to do; entertainment in the bars, lounge singers, gambling, and other on board activities all of which is ok. Most of it did not interest me much.

The online connection was expensive. I rarely used it.

If you want to see glaciers be sure to book on a cruise that goes to them. I believe we were told that they only let two ships a day in Glacier Bay.


This is not Glacier Bay. This is Hubbard Glacier at the end of Disenchantment Bay. In the lower center-right of the picture is a Holland (I think)Cruise ship. We were heading there.
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That picture was taken almost 11 miles from the glacier.
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This is the other ship just passing Haenke island. We were a lot close to the glacier at this point.
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We sailed to Glacier Bay the next day which was very cool and freezing cold.

In Skagway we took the narrow gauge rail to White Pass and a shuttle bus back down to town. This is the route the Klondike gold rush folks took in the late 1800's. I would recommend reading about that before you go.
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We took the train up and the shuttle back down. On the way back we stopped at an overlook to see the waterfall and the returning train passed by while we were there. That is the train going to Skagway.
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In Juneau we went whale watching. That was great. This is the type of boat we went in, it was designed for whale watching. There was a naturalist on board that talked about the whales and other wildlife. There were two times to go and we went at the later one (10:30)and saw more whales than 8:00 am one. Just lucky. Notice the sunshine. Apparently that is rare.
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Humpback whale.
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After the whale watching we stopped by a salmon bake on the way back to the ship.
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Our Ketchikan excursion was not very good.

Then we went through the Inland Passage to Vancouver and that was great. We saw killer whales but they were far away. Basically all we could see was their dorsal fin and some spray. This is sunset as we are going through the passage.
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Our biggest complaint was we did not have enough time in any of the locations. Everything is on a very tight schedule. If you book your excursions through the cruise line they will hold the ship if you are late getting back for some reason (or so they told us). But if you book through a 3rd party vendor and you get back late you might get left. And there are not any roads to some towns.

We also did not see as much wildlife as we expected. If you really want to see wildlife you need to pick the right excursions.

I have only heard of two people that did not like the Alaska cruise, everyone else loved it although some got more rain than others. I know someone that just got back and she said it was colder than they expected. I wore shorts most of the time but it was late August.

There are other trip configurations. We have friends that are going in July '19 and they are flying to Fairbanks, then to Denali where they are getting on the train to Whitter. From there they are doing the same cruise we did.

As RogerTheShrubber said, there are tons of excursions. And there were not a lot of kids or even teenagers on our cruise but I attributed that to it being almost time for school to start.

Good luck.

I have been twice, both times in May and both times on Holland America. Both were great trips. One time we took a land tour with a train ride to the Danali Park. The other time we went a week early and went to Victoria and Vancouver.

I will have to get the book. I didn't read it but I did go on the all day White Pass Railway tour out of Skagway. Highly recommended. The scenery is spectacular.

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My sis in law and nephews did the Nugget Falls hike

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I saw a wolf, sow and cubs and mountain goats there the other evening.

After doing 2 land trips, we went on a cruise with Princess last summer.

I was disappointed, much preferred the flight/rental car options.

You don't have enough time in Port to do much.

Understand about the limited time in port; we felt the same way on our summer of ‘17 Princess cruise.

But tells us more about your road trips. Many of the places the ship went can not be driven to so I’m wondering what an Alaskan road trip itinerary looks like.