Cruise West v Expedition Trips - comments?

[kboo]

We're considering an Alaska cruise and - in addition to the big ship/small ship dilemma that I asked about in the Alaska site, we've been looking at Cruise West or Expedition Trips if we go the small ship route. It looks like they use similar/same ships for the trips we want to go on, so is there really any difference, or should we be price-driven?

 

Also, we're still not sure whether to spend 4-5 days on an Inside Passage cruise and then the remainder of our time (5-6 days) at Denali and/or Fairbanks on a self-guided land trip, or whether we'll feel like the cruise portion was too short that way. (If we took an 8-9 day cruise we'd either spend more time @ Inside Passage, or try to take a trip that took us to Inside Passage and Prince William Sound, and save the land trip for another time). Any thoughts?

[kboo]

duhhhhh. :o never mind - in looking at the fine® print on expedition trips' website, the Tour operator for these tours is listed as "Cruise west"! But - on Expedition Trips, I can get a 10% discount whereas I can't seem to get that discount direct from Cruise West. What gives?