Alaska

[boopuff]

Looking into some Alaska cruises.  I'm very hesitant to look at Carnival for several reasons, the main being the crazy stuff I've seen on line.  I know that those incidents are few (maybe) and far between.  I'm also hopeful that they are contained to the shorter Caribbean cruises.  Anyone taken a Carnival ship to Alaska? We're considering a 7 day trip.  I'm hoping that it would be "smooth sailing"  

[mz-s]

You mean fights and what not? That's not typically affecting the Alaskan cruises as those tend to be longer and more expensive (the Alaska port fees alone can be more than some caribbean cruises). But it's still Carnival so you're still getting the Carnival product and clientele.

[cmichael1221]

We found some good deals on Princess to Alaska last summer, but ended up not booking due to crazy-expensive flights!

[boopuff]

10 minutes ago, mz-s said:

You mean fights and what not? That's not typically affecting the Alaskan cruises as those tend to be longer and more expensive (the Alaska port fees alone can be more than some caribbean cruises). But it's still Carnival so you're still getting the Carnival product and clientele.

Yes! exactly that.  I am hoping that longer/pricier cruises deter the crazy stuff.  

[mz-s]

Just now, boopuff said:

Yes! exactly that.  I am hoping that longer/pricier cruises deter the crazy stuff.  

 

Have not been on an Alaskan cruise on Carnival since the COVID restart, so hopefully someone may chime in with more recent experience. But I haven't heard of any issues either, certainly not on the level of the short cruises out of NOLA or NYC.

[cmichael1221]

1 minute ago, boopuff said:

Yes! exactly that.  I am hoping that longer/pricier cruises deter the crazy stuff.  

It's not as bad as the stuff you see online...  I haven't had any major problems on Carnival and sail 3 or 4 times a year...  It seems the videos all go viral, since so many people seem to have an agenda AGAINST Carnival

 

[csm5986142]

Seattle is our closest port, so we've done several Alaska cruises (both NCL and Carnival).  It's a very tame crowd (similar to the Hawaii itenerary).  You are not likely to see bachelor/bachelorette parties and things like that. We have found it to be a crowd who is interested in seeing Alaska and not so much looking for a partying vacation.  Also in our experience, it's an older crowd than Caribbean/Mexico.  Even though we had a day or two where the weather was warm enough for hot tubs/water slides, just a few people used them.  And even when they closed the retractable roof over the pool, not a lot of people swam either.  Honestly, I really didn't notice much of a difference between NCL and Carnival when going to Alaska, pretty much the same experience.  I would choose the one with the best itenerary (in our case Carnival didn't do Glacier Bay and we wanted to see it at least once).

[Elaine5715]

2 hours ago, boopuff said:

Looking into some Alaska cruises.  I'm very hesitant to look at Carnival for several reasons, the main being the crazy stuff I've seen on line.  I know that those incidents are few (maybe) and far between.  I'm also hopeful that they are contained to the shorter Caribbean cruises.  Anyone taken a Carnival ship to Alaska? We're considering a 7 day trip.  I'm hoping that it would be "smooth sailing"  

In 30 plus cruises on Carnival, I have yet to see any of the UTube type incidents onboard.  Also, ships are pretty big, easy to avoid the crowds 

[Guest BasicSailor]

5 minutes ago, Elaine5715 said:

In 30 plus cruises on Carnival, I have yet to see any of the UTube type incidents onboard.  Also, ships are pretty big, easy to avoid the crowds 

You've been lucky 😉

[cmichael1221]

30 minutes ago, Elaine5715 said:

In 30 plus cruises on Carnival, I have yet to see any of the UTube type incidents onboard.  Also, ships are pretty big, easy to avoid the crowds 

Same here... The people who like to bash Carnival seem to find them and repost, when its really not that big of an issue...

[Luckysll]

I've done 3 cruises to Alaska on Carnival and I have yet to see any rowdiness.

[gtouch]

We have taken Carnival twice to Alaska and both were the best cruises we have done. One being Alaska is so different than the caribbean and the smaller ships were great. I can't say they are better than other lines but we enjoyed the trips immensely.

[kona_wahine]

I did NCL and Carnival Spirit last year to Alaska. They were both absolutely wonderful cruises, different but equal. 

[RockHoundTX]

2 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

In 30 plus cruises on Carnival, I have yet to see any of the UTube type incidents onboard.  Also, ships are pretty big, easy to avoid the crowds 

Wow. Then you are lucky. I have only been on about half that many Carnival cruises (all 7 day cruises) and seen some pretty wild things that I have not seen on other cruise lines. I have absolutely no desire to ever go on one of Carnival's shorter (3-4 day) cruises. 

 

That being said, I have been on 2 Alaska Carnival cruises and they were extremely mellow. On most carribean cruises I feel a little old but on the Alaska cruises I was definitely on the younger side. I would not worry about an Alaska cruise at all. Carnival usually has a naturalist on these cruises that is very informative. Only down-side to the Alaska cruises is the price (usually 2x or more of a carribean cruise).  

[sfaaa]

Rowdies don't dig scenic glaciers, Alaska nature talks and cold weather. They want to hit the beach, party down hard and drink themselves silly. Alaska cruise is not for them.

[dbrucern]

11 hours ago, boopuff said:

Looking into some Alaska cruises.  I'm very hesitant to look at Carnival for several reasons, the main being the crazy stuff I've seen on line.  I know that those incidents are few (maybe) and far between.  I'm also hopeful that they are contained to the shorter Caribbean cruises.  Anyone taken a Carnival ship to Alaska? We're considering a 7 day trip.  I'm hoping that it would be "smooth sailing"  

 

We have been three times including last June and about to take our 4th next year a two week on the Spirit and have never had a problem. The cruise is laid back and a lot of jeans and sweatshirts. But we have been on more that 40 Carnival cruises and never seen any of the issues you are worried about.

[WhiteOptima]

We did the Spirit in May 2010 and was a tame cruise.  Just booked 14 day on Spirit for September 24 because of the ports and with the way air travel is we won’t do less than 10-14 days.

[Mic101680]

A group of friends and I did Alaska on Carnival Legend back in 2018 or 2019 and it was by far the best cruise we ever went on. Those cruises, on any line, tend to bring in more of the older, more mellow crowds due to the higher price points. It's highly unlikely you'll run into any of the rowdy party people who cause the fights you see.

And I'm going to pipe in too - even on the shorter cruises, I've never seen a fight break out and I've been on around a dozen or so cruises, with the majority being on Carnival and the majority being 4-5 day cruises.

[nwcruiselover]

I have been on 9 Alaska cruises, mostly on Carnival but also Royal and HAL.  I have not found the passengers to be rowdy at all.  Not as many kids, and generally an older crowd.  For someone doing a once in a lifetime Alaska cruise I highly recommend an itinerary that includes Glacier Bay.  It’s absolutely magnificent, much larger and more impressive than Tracy Arm Fjord.  Carnival doesn’t go to Glacier Bay, at least not this year.

[Elaine5715]

To be honest, the craziest behavior I have ever seen on a cruise was an Alaskan cruise though.  Some kid in a regular swimsuit looping the waterslide as we cruised the Tracey Arm Fjords.  

[BlerkOne]

17 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

In 30 plus cruises on Carnival, I have yet to see any of the UTube type incidents onboard.  Also, ships are pretty big, easy to avoid the crowds 

More than double that number on Carnival and not once, as in never, have I seen any of these incidents. I suspect they may be staged.

 

The rowdiest people I have run into have been on casino cruises. Two characters on a January cruise were drunk before they got on the ship and Carnival promptly cut them off for the rest of the day, confined them to their cabin, and even removed the balcony door handle. At least that is what they told me the next day when they were drinking again.

 

But back to Alaska, been a number of times on Carnival and other cruise lines. The water and wildlife are the same.

 

Have Alaska cruises on Carnival booked for this year and next. No worries. Already booked the Tracy Arm excursion for the first one and a third party whale watching excursion in Juneau.

 

 

[Elaine5715]

20 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

More than double that number on Carnival and not once, as in never, have I seen any of these incidents. I suspect they may be staged.

 

The rowdiest people I have run into have been on casino cruises. Two characters on a January cruise were drunk before they got on the ship and Carnival promptly cut them off for the rest of the day, confined them to their cabin, and even removed the balcony door handle. At least that is what they told me the next day when they were drinking again.

 

But back to Alaska, been a number of times on Carnival and other cruise lines. The water and wildlife are the same.

 

Have Alaska cruises on Carnival booked for this year and next. No worries. Already booked the Tracy Arm excursion for the first one and a third party whale watching excursion in Juneau.

 

 

The most popular viewed videos seem to be all family members, more like a home movie and I would bet that behavior happens whenever they are together.  

[kctwinmommy]

We had a great time on our Carnival Alaska cruise. We even had a very large school group (this amazing long summer trip they were doing through a school), and with those probably 100 kids, on top of the normal families with kids, we still had no problems. It's typically more expensive than Caribbean ones, along with the higher prices excursions, it limits the things you might see on those.

[txcruiser1234]

We've been on 9 Carnival cruises since the restart (of variable lengths - 4,4,6,7,7,8,8,10 and 14 day cruises). All great cruises. The crowds on all were what I'd call 'typical' cruise crowds and much more similar than dissimilar. The only generalization I would make is that the longer cruises tend to skew older with more folks not tied to work schedules or tending to younger families. The only really abnormal things witnessed in this lot of cruises was a diversion to an unscheduled port for a medical emergency, one unfortunate death at sea and a stop in the middle of the ocean to render aid to a boat full of Cuban refugees. To Carnival's credit, none of these incidents affected the originally scheduled itineraries. Although we have not witnessed any rowdiness (we duck our heads into most venues including the nightclubs and casinos), we have noticed a more visible security presence on our last two cruises with personnel wearing brightly marked 'SECURITY' jerseys constantly posted in the nightclub and casino and others randomly seen roaming throughout the ship.

 

Our 10 day was to Alaska on the Miracle and was a fantastic cruise with the only 'issue' I can remember being the ship's inability to dock at one port and requiring a tender instead. No crowd issues whatsoever.

 

Stuff has happened and will continue to happen.. as always, YMMV on any particular cruise. I'm sure we will come across an 'incident' at some point if we keep cruising, but, in our view, the likelihood of that happening on any particular cruise going forward is so low that it does not impact our decision to cruise Carnival in the immediate future.

Edited March 12, 2023 by txcruiser1234

[Cruising_Addict]

My husband and I have done 2 cruises to Alaska on Carnival.  We had a fabulous time both times.  Alaska is about the itinerary, not the ship.  That said, we have done many, many cruises on Carnival, to many, many different places.  We have always had a wonderful, relaxing vacation.  If you are not a party person (we are not), then there is no reason why you can't have a wonderful cruise on Carnival.  Book a nice room to relax in.  No one is making you hang out in clubs or bars at night.  You don't need to hang out in the packed lido deck during the day (though it won't be the same atmosphere in Alaska anyway).  Bottom line, a cruise is what you make of it.