Alaska for 1st cruise

[wrg11]

DH and I are hoping to finally take our first vacation since our honeymoon 12 years ago. This will also be our first cruise and we're considering Alaska. Should we do a 7 or 10 day? Which tours would you recommend? Any suggestions will be great. Thanks!

[Pam in CA]

DH and I are hoping to finally take our first vacation since our honeymoon 12 years ago. This will also be our first cruise and we're considering Alaska. Should we do a 7 or 10 day? Which tours would you recommend? Any suggestions will be great. Thanks!

Everyone's different which is why so many cruise options are available. :) I'd recommend a cruise that goes to Glacier Bay as that is the most spectacular scenery. If you want to see Alaska, I'd do a 3- or 4-day pre-cruise tour and then a 7-day cruise. The majestic beauty of McKinley and wildlife is better seen inland than in ports.

[wrg11]

Would you recommend a land package through Princess? If not, where should we look?

 

Mina

[TLC535]

Totally agree with Pam...Glacier Bay is a must, pre- cruise tour would be a wonderful addition & I think being your first cruise,

7 days would be plenty of time to find out if you LOVE cruising like the rest of us;)...hard to believe for me, but some people out there just don't....

If one of your ports is Juneau, I would highly recommend a helicopter flight to Mendenhall Glacier...it was magical :D

Whatever you decide, have a wonderful cruise !

[shepp]

This is one of those "Well, what do you enjoy?" questions, though Alaska actually offers less of a variety of things to do than some other itineraries. But still...you enjoy historical sites? You big on the outdoors? Have money to burn on a glacier flight? Want to shop for souvenir T-shirts in Ketchikan?

 

The absolutely most spectacular thing I've done on an Alaska cruise was hike the West Glacier Trail at Mendenhall, a fairly grueling ascent that took us to a viewpoint looking far down at the tourist helicopters that had landed on the glacier. But you'd have to be into pretty intensive hiking to do that.

[msmoger]

Would you recommend a land package through Princess? If not, where should we look?

 

Mina

 

The answer to that question depends on you and your husband.

 

First, our first cruise was Alaska and it was fantastic!!

 

Second, we did a one week land portion on our own which was equally fantastic. It's not at all difficult to do and gives you the freedom to see what you want and for how long you want. The Alaska boards on Cruise Critic are an incredible source of useful information.

 

On the other hand if you feel more comfortable having a guided tour nobody is going to do it better than Princess.

 

One last point. We've taken three more cruises since Alaska and are leaving for out fifth in October. We really like the cruise experience. However, in my opinion an Alaska cruise is all about the ports. It's great to be on the ship and experience everything it has to offer but the vacation is mostly about Alaska.

 

Have a great adventure!!

[sassyredhat]

We have done 2 AK cruises, both Inside Passage/Glacier Bay.

I can't fly so the first one was a repo cruise, the 2nd was a 10 dayer RT San Francisco. For me, it's all about the wildlife, and for DH is it the photo ops.

Two of my favorite ships tours were in Haines, to the wildlife preserve, and in Ketchican, to another preserve.

Of course, seeing the glaciers is a must, for me anyway.

I have to go back- :D-so the next cruise will include Sitka. I have wanted to see the raptor center for a long time.

IMO, choose as long a cruise as you can afford. There is never enough time to see it all. For health reasons, the land tours aren't for me, but DH would love to take them.

Again, IMO, I would take PCL tours. They have been doing them a long time and from what I've heard, do a pretty good job.

Enjoy. ;)

Pat

[bonvoyagie]

We did our first cruise and to AK for our 25th and again on our 35th - so congrats on getting one earlier. We were not sure about crusing but we found a good Travel Agent who had been there several times. He started by providing us the brouchures for all the major lines. I did not know of CC back then so we picked our cruise line based on what we thought would make for a comfortable cruise - that line was NCL.

 

Today you now have at least four lines offering one way cruises with land tours and many more ships doing RT out of either Seattle or Vancouver. Most all of these are 7 days - the only 10 day one I know of is a Princess ship out of San Fransisco. I think that 7 days is just right to decide if you enjoy crusing or not.

 

I don't think that AK is something you can see in one trip - however if you only have one trip then seeing Glacier Bay is probably more important than Tracy Arm. This limits your cruise lines to Princess, HAL, or NCL.

 

If you have more than 7 days then do a one way that includes GB and add a land tour to see the interior of AK. - this one is still on my bucket list:D

[Fletch1]

We just love Alaska.....so much so, we would fly from the other side of world (25 hours) to do a 7 day cruise there.

 

And an absolute MUST......Glacier Bay.....one of my favourite places in the whole wide world.

[Keith1010]

I would base your decision on the itinerary.

 

Whatever you choose, I highly recommend flying in one or more days prior to the cruise. This way a flight cancellation or delay will not cause you to miss the ship.

 

Keith

[UpcountryTravelers]

We have now done two Alaska cruises. Both northbound from the beautiful city of Vancouver - both on Coral Princess (which is, along with her twin Island, my favorite ships by far). The first one included a 5 day post cruise land tour with Princess (their lodges are fantastic!), we liked it so much we did an 8 day land tour this time. Wonderful! And be sure to do the extended Denali tour......

 

"Princess does it best" is right. And, of course Glacier Bay and College Fjord are not to be missed! And Keith is right - fly in early. In fact, three days in Vancouver is well worth your time! We did it twice and love Vancouver even more.

[cruisequeen4ever]

The most comprehensive option would be to do the 7 day Northbound or Southbound Voyage of the Glaciers coupled with a Land package to Denali.

[hollon]

This is just my opinion! Alaska is very different than the caribbeans, Alaska is beautiful and you'll want to go back. But for my first cruise I'm glad Alaska wasn't my first cruise. The crowd is older, the atmosphere is calm, and I'm not a party person, etc. I would not rule out the new Allure/Oasis or Freedom/Oasis going to the caribbean. But if you're heart is set on Alaska. Save lots of money and do the excursions. Enjoy :)

[WarmWaters]

I would say a cruise is what you make of it.

 

Alaska does have an older crowd, but we found that we were tired at night earlish ( 11 pm ish) and went to bed to be up next morning early to see the fantastic scenery from the ship..so the older crowd did not bother me at all as we did our own thing almost all the time.

 

Also you can spend a ton of money on a cruise and might only have enough saved up again in a few years to cruise again, or you can do the excursions yourself and not buy a lot of stuff on the ship and on land and have very soon again enough money to do it all over again perhaps in the Caribbean.

 

I did find that the ships excursions were very pricey.. eg Zip line $ 186 pp. Is it just me or have they hiked their prices lately big time ?

[Krazy Kruizers]

We have done quite a few Alaskan cruises.

We book for itinerary.

We prefer Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay. Tracy Arm is an iffy deal as so many times we were not able to get close because of all the ice. We have seen more calving at Hubbard Glacier than in Glacier Bay.

If you decide to do a land tour and a cruise -- I strongly suggest that you do the land portion first as you do spend a lot of time on the buses and trains -- those can be long days. The cruise after the land portion gives you a chance to rest up before you head home.

[RobMA]

Just returned from my first cruise, which was to Alaska. We did a RC cruisetour from Fairbanks to Seward, then south bound on Radiance of the Seas from Seward to Vancouver. The whole trip was fantastic, and I would go with RC again. RC had about 10 land tours to chose from, all followed by passage on the Radiance. I liked doing the land portion first as there was lots travel time (bus and train) between the various land destinations (Alaska is just a huge state) so we were in a different hotel every night or two. Being on the ship for the second week was nice because all the unpacking, packing, moving, etc was done with for the trip. We also flew into Faribanks a few days early before the tour started in order to get adjusted to the AK time zone.

 

I can't say that "you must see this particular place" or "only chose an itenerary that includes a particular excursion", but I can tell you that all of Alaska that I did see was very beatiful and interesting to learn about. I'm sure that no matter where you go you will be impressed with what you see and do.