Which itenerary would you recommend?

We were planning on cruising Alaska in 2007 but we think we could do it in late 2006 instead. We would like to stick to Royal Carribbean and we have to do a roundtrip to use credit card rewards for air. Which itenerary would be best? The Serenade ship sounds nicer, but the Vision is a couple hundred $$ cheaper.

Ship Name: Vision Of The Seas

Departure Port: Seattle, Washington

Ports of Call: Seattle, Washington; Tracy Arm Fjord, Alaska; Juneau, Alaska; Skagway, Alaska; Icy Strait Point, Alaska; Inside Passage (Cruising); Victoria, British Columbia; Vancouver, British Columbia

2006 Date(s): Sep 08

Ship Name: Serenade Of The Seas

Departure Port: Vancouver, British Columbia

Ports of Call: Vancouver, British Columbia; Inside Passage (Cruising); Hubbard Glacier (Cruising); Skagway, Alaska; Juneau, Alaska; Ketchikan, Alaska; Inside Passage (Cruising); Vancouver, British Columbia

2006 Date(s): Jul 02 , Jul 09 , Jul 16 , Jul 23 , Jul 30 , Aug 06 , Aug 13 , Aug 20 , Aug 27 , Sep 10 , Sep 17

I am just off the Vision, but I avoid round trip Seattle sailings due to too much outside open sailing for my priorities. I spoke to 2 ship naturalists who also agreed with me, but routing is only a small part of your choice and every sailing is a compromise. :) But I would choose a Vancouver sailing over a Seattle. Look at ports, route, glacier, time in ports, price- factor in plenty for tours- you get only half a trip without them. :)

Either way you go- Alaska is excellent.

I would look at your port times... the Vision has Icy Strait and Tracy Arm but IMHO of the two (depending on port times) the Vancouver ship definitely has the better glacier viewing at Hubbard Glacier????? RCI does a nice job in Alaska but it's unfortunate you are limited to just their ships as you can do Glacier Bay roundtrip from Seattle on NCL Star/HAL and roundtrip Vancouver on HAL as well.