Spirit to Alaska

[bacm]

We're thinking of doing the Spirit to Alaska on September 17th. Does anyone have any pros or cons of this trip? Any input would be appreciated as we have never been to Alaska before.

[MnKcruisers]

We were on the Spirit last Sept. and loved it. I've been to Alaska before on Clebrity and it was good , but the naturalist being on board to give all the info and let you know when someting great is sighted is worth a lot. Also the Spirit is a great ship, in fact we are on it May 2, next Thurs. for the 12 day Hawaii and going to Van Couver to start the Alaska season. I would try to get an itinerary that has Galcier Bay, it was my favorite on all places I've been in Alaska. I'm looking at our 2009 Alaska and narrowing it down to May and back on the Spirit, either northbound or southbound one way this time, and a few different ports. Also in my opinion a balcony is a must. Here is a link to some of the 3000 pictures I took last Sept

 

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560722257cGAcfe?vhost=good-times

 

Mike

[stolcamp]

We did the Spirit to Alaska last August. It was beautiful and the weather was great the whole time. We took so many pictures!

[bacm]

Thank you very much for your input. I always rely on the input from these boards before I book & the info has always been right on.

 

We're very limited on the days & times when we could go & this particular ship works very well for our schedules. It was either this or the Celebrity Mercury. I've never tried Celebrity, but want to. I know the Mercury is older, but has been redone. However, I know Carnival takes excellent care of their ships and would expect it to be in good condition. I usually like to take the "new" ships, but sometimes that doesn't always fit into our schedules. I'm booked on the Solstice in Feb 09, so I'll finally get to see what Celebrity is about. I'm weary of taking an older ship on celebrity. Sometimes I read things about their condition that makes me nervous. I know they have excellent service, but if my room isn't up to par I'll be unhappy.

 

Are there any tips that you can give us? Any advice?

[Michelle M]

So sorry to be the negative nelly but of all the cruises we have done on Carnival....we are platinum cruisers, The Spirit to Alaska was the most disappointing for us. We salmon fished in Ketchikan, (caught nothing,) went sled dog riding (mostly on muddy ground) and walked around the limited number of shops in Juno.....maybe it was that our expectations were too high but we didn't see as much of Alaska as we thought we would. The glaciers were beautiful but we saw them only once during dinner. We started in Vancouver and loved it there. I guess since we flew from Florida and spent a lot of extra time and money getting there, that added to our disappointment.

On a positive, The Spirit is a beautiful ship and rivals the newer Freedom and Liberty. For sure we received much better service and food quality on all the above ships mentioned than we did on Celebrity Millenium 2 Christmas' ago!!:)

[gazingm42]

We been on the CCL spirit 2 times and will be on her in June to Alaska.

 

We really enjoy this ship and Alaska! We really enjoy the naturalist which

is onboard the ship in Alaska. We have done the Northbound trips and

still continue to stick doing this trip.

 

September weather can be turning cold and more rain than summer months.

 

Check out the Alaska Forums as well....

[bacm]

Thanks. I'm loving the input. I don't mind any negative comments. I love them. That way I know what to expect. I have gone to the Alaska boards and will probably ask this question there also. But I hate sometimes when people get on the "don't do Carnival" bandwagon. I wanted to talk to the Carnival people 1st.

 

I understand what you are saying Michelle M. I know this choice of Alaska cruise is probably not going to get us the "Alaska Experience" of a lifetime. But until we can get a way for more than 7 days at a time and can leave any day of the week (which we can't now), I don't see that happening. I will check carefully into the excursion issue though. Sometimes I think that is where Carnival is not the best.

 

My DH and I have pretty stressful jobs and just kicking back and seeing the scenery sounds heavenly. Although a lot of the pictures I've seen are dark and overcast. But, I'm thinking of it as a "life experience", getting to see Alaska.

[jrmende63]

Bacm,

The Carnival Spirit to Alaska is what hooked us on cruising. ( And Alaska!) We loved her and will go back and do it again. The only thing we will add an interior trip in Alaska the next time. We love Carnival and Alaska! Go you will have a fabulous time. The ship is great. Highly recommend.

Julie

[djacobson]

We're thinking of doing the Spirit to Alaska on September 17th. Does anyone have any pros or cons of this trip? Any input would be appreciated as we have never been to Alaska before.

 

Pros: It is the vacation of a lifetime and the most beautiful place on earth.

Cons: You have to return to reality after a week.

 

Your sailing date is a round trip from Vancouver and does the itinerary differently from when Julie (hey QJ!) and her DH and I were on the Spirit.

 

You're going to have lots of options for excursions. I'm sure you're gong to see lots of suggestions on CC, but here are mine:

 

In Juneau, Mendenhall Glacier (there is a vendor called Big Blue Bus that will take you there for about $15 round trip), Alaskan Brewery Company (free beer tasting and a nice tour), DIPAC (the Salmon hatchery), and a visit to the Red Dog Saloon. The Salmon bake was nice also.

 

In Skagway, the Days of 98 show, the White Pass Railroad (or some tour that takes you by van or train across the Trail of 98) and the Red Onion Saloon.

 

In Ketchikan, Totem Bight Park and Saxman Village, walk around Creek Street. There is a restaurant in Ketchikan called Burger Queen that serves great fried haddock filets.

 

Shopping for souvenirs is best in Ketchikan, although since you're going at the end of the season, there may be lots of sales.

 

I'm confident that you are going to have a wonderful time in Alaska!

[lovesublime]

So sorry to be the negative nelly but of all the cruises we have done on Carnival....we are platinum cruisers, The Spirit to Alaska was the most disappointing for us. We salmon fished in Ketchikan, (caught nothing,) went sled dog riding (mostly on muddy ground) and walked around the limited number of shops in Juno.....maybe it was that our expectations were too high but we didn't see as much of Alaska as we thought we would. The glaciers were beautiful but we saw them only once during dinner. We started in Vancouver and loved it there. I guess since we flew from Florida and spent a lot of extra time and money getting there, that added to our disappointment.

On a positive, The Spirit is a beautiful ship and rivals the newer Freedom and Liberty. For sure we received much better service and food quality on all the above ships mentioned than we did on Celebrity Millenium 2 Christmas' ago!!:)

 

Let me chime in...we're on Spirit this June and are doing the southbound. We cruised Alaska last year on NCL Pearl and had the best time ever. We decided to go with Carnival because of the great reviews and the southbound itinerary is fantastic. We didn't want to duplicate what we did before. We have already booked our excursions and we booked all through Carnival-except for Skagway where we are renting a car.

 

I am 100% confident in our excursions being fun. However, to be fair to Carnival-it's not their fault you didn't catch any fish or got bogged down in mud. It's the nature of the beast when you cruise Alaska. Everything is unpredictable. As far as your bad experience in Juneau-did you go on a whale watching excursion? Or bear viewing? I can see how just walking around Juneau would be less than exciting. We went whale watching in Juneau and saw tons of humpbacks, bald eagles, and Stellar sea lions. The scenery in Auke Bay was magnificent. We drove from Skagway to Emerald Lake and pulled over when a black bear walked out in front of our car-unbelievable! Our entire trip was so fantastic that we're going back-two years in a row. That's not like us normally.

 

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your Alaskan cruise as much as you thought you would and I hope you'll give Alaska another chance. I just wanted to point out that I don't think a lot of your disappointment was Carnival's fault. ;)

[Michelle M]

Lovesublime....I wonder if you read my entire comments I made about how great The Spirit was and how Carnival was much better than Celebrity in our opinion??:confused:

 

I was only comparing our Alaska trip in comparison to our others which include many Caribbean and 1 Mediterranean cruise. I should have said for a little extra money, I would hands down choose the Mediterranaen or even the Caribbean if your are looking for something that includes some sun, pretty scenery and some really great things to do and see, I personally would not choose Alaska (again, absolutely no reflection on Carnival as we will always go on Carnival and are platinum members!!):) :)

[sarbah77]

Thanks. I'm loving the input. I don't mind any negative comments. I love them. That way I know what to expect. I have gone to the Alaska boards and will probably ask this question there also. But I hate sometimes when people get on the "don't do Carnival" bandwagon. I wanted to talk to the Carnival people 1st.

 

Actually, the Alaska board does NOT come down on Carnival at all! It's kind of a nice change but there is zero bashing there. :)

 

Looking forward to my first trip!

[PINEVIEW01]

Thanks. I'm loving the input. I don't mind any negative comments. I love them. That way I know what to expect. I have gone to the Alaska boards and will probably ask this question there also. But I hate sometimes when people get on the "don't do Carnival" bandwagon. I wanted to talk to the Carnival people 1st.

 

You can see from my sig I do mare Carnival than any other. I had the Spirt and Island Princess both booked for Alaska when I went a couple years back. After much research and find out the Island got to go into the Glacier Bay. I chose Princess, as much as I love Carnival when people ask, I recomend Princess for Alaska.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[bacm]

Thank you everyone. I'll keep checking back to see if there are any added comments and I'll head over to the Alaska boards. I appreciate every single one of your comments. It really helps me to get a more rounded view of what we're in for. Hopefully, this will be the 1st of many trips to Alaska.

[Crusin Karen]

I am loving this thread! Op, thanks for asking lol. We finally booked a B2B AK cruise for late Aug/early Sept. '09. NEVER in my life thought I would want to cruise to AK because I am a Caribbean beach cruiser! ;) But "the bug" got to me after reading so many threads about the beauty of AK. We chose the Spirit also because it has 2 different itins, so we can go Southbound, then stay on the ship and do the RT the following week. There was never a question that we would pick CCL because in MO, you get more "bang for your buck" and we just LOVE the Spirit. This will be our 4th and 5th time on her! I am a "bit concerned" about the financial burden of this one since we already had 3 other cruises stacked before this, so we are JUST doing the cruises and won't do any land tours (this time lol) Only thing we will probably do is the Prince Wm. Sound excursion before the cruise. I am wondering if I am going to get there and kick myself for "wasting so much time and $$ sitting on beaches in the Caribbean when I could have been in AK." :eek: OP, check out the itins as Spirit does the RT in May and Sept. and northbound or southbound during the summer.

[bacm]

Tks cruisin karen, for the input. I see you're from NJ, I'm from NY. As you say, there is a lot involved with even getting to the cruise depart port. I researched (from my perspective of very little time available) that the Spirit's Vancouver to Vancouver, would be the best overall use of our time. I can only dream of a B2B, maybe some day. As you stated, this a very diff cruise that Caribbean, which is what we usually do. We've been to Europe, but not on a cruise, our days off "in a row" restriction barely makes it seem worth it. My DH has his own business and there's no one to cover for him, so there will be no more than 7 days off "in a row" until he retires. As you said this is an expensive cruise, that's why I'm trying to get as much input as possible before we make the final decision.

[Crusin Karen]

bacm, we are very spoiled because the terminals in Brooklyn and Manhattan are so close to us. Takes less than 1/2 an hour from doorstep to gangway! :D So we usually book most of our cruises out of here. We do try to get away from the NJ winters and do a cruise that we have to fly to, but AK is a bit more than hopping on a plane in Newark! The reason we booked the B2B is that I figured if we are "all the way out there" we might as well do and see as much as we can, and the Aug and Sept have the different itins. But the "experts" say that the land part is even better than the cruising part, but there's no way we could afford that, and like you, 2 weeks away from work is about the ABSOLUTE LIMIT of my office's patience! All these excursions available just seem so overwhelming and quite expensive too. So I'm making a list and when the time draws closer, figure out which gets top priority. And I won't even have to pack my bathing suit for this cruise! :) :)

[jrmende63]

Pros: It is the vacation of a lifetime and the most beautiful place on earth.

Cons: You have to return to reality after a week.

 

Your sailing date is a round trip from Vancouver and does the itinerary differently from when Julie (hey QJ!) and her DH and I were on the Spirit.

 

You're going to have lots of options for excursions. I'm sure you're gong to see lots of suggestions on CC, but here are mine:

 

In Juneau, Mendenhall Glacier (there is a vendor called Big Blue Bus that will take you there for about $15 round trip), Alaskan Brewery Company (free beer tasting and a nice tour), DIPAC (the Salmon hatchery), and a visit to the Red Dog Saloon. The Salmon bake was nice also.

 

In Skagway, the Days of 98 show, the White Pass Railroad (or some tour that takes you by van or train across the Trail of 98) and the Red Onion Saloon.

 

In Ketchikan, Totem Bight Park and Saxman Village, walk around Creek Street. There is a restaurant in Ketchikan called Burger Queen that serves great fried haddock filets.

 

Shopping for souvenirs is best in Ketchikan, although since you're going at the end of the season, there may be lots of sales.

 

I'm confident that you are going to have a wonderful time in Alaska!

Hi there KD!

I must correct one statement...for us it not the once in a lifetime experience! We are going back...in 2011. Hopefully you will think about joining us too?

To OP...Book your trip, you won't be sorry!

[jrmende63]

Thanks. I'm loving the input. I don't mind any negative comments. I love them. That way I know what to expect. I have gone to the Alaska boards and will probably ask this question there also. But I hate sometimes when people get on the "don't do Carnival" bandwagon. I wanted to talk to the Carnival people 1st.

 

I understand what you are saying Michelle M. I know this choice of Alaska cruise is probably not going to get us the "Alaska Experience" of a lifetime. But until we can get a way for more than 7 days at a time and can leave any day of the week (which we can't now), I don't see that happening. I will check carefully into the excursion issue though. Sometimes I think that is where Carnival is not the best.

 

My DH and I have pretty stressful jobs and just kicking back and seeing the scenery sounds heavenly. Although a lot of the pictures I've seen are dark and overcast. But, I'm thinking of it as a "life experience", getting to see Alaska.

 

bacm,

I would be happy to show you my pics from Alaska. They are wonderfully sunny and bright. We had the best weather on our trip. Alaska can be unpredictable as far as the weather, but just come prepared for rain or shine and you will have a blast. If you want to see my Alaska pics send me an email at my user name @ yahoo dot com. Please put CC or Alaska or something in the title so I know it is not spam.

Julie

[lovesublime]

Lovesublime....I wonder if you read my entire comments I made about how great The Spirit was and how Carnival was much better than Celebrity in our opinion??:confused:

 

I was only comparing our Alaska trip in comparison to our others which include many Caribbean and 1 Mediterranean cruise. I should have said for a little extra money, I would hands down choose the Mediterranaen or even the Caribbean if your are looking for something that includes some sun, pretty scenery and some really great things to do and see, I personally would not choose Alaska (again, absolutely no reflection on Carnival as we will always go on Carnival and are platinum members!!):) :)

 

I agree. I know several people who don't like cruising Alaska. I guess it's not everyone's cup of tea-we love it though. We also love the Caribbean and Hawaii :)

[mr0315]

We sailed the Spirit to Alaska last August and had an incredible time. We chose the Southbound itinerary - Whittier to Vancouver. The scenery is breathtaking - make sure to book a balcony! The "flavor" of this cruise is decidedly more laid back than the other cruises we've taken with Carnival. This isn't bad, just different. I love the Spirit, btw - have sailed her twice now. Our excursions were incredible...Sitka=Sea Otter Quest, Juneau=Helicoptered to Mendenhall Glacier and went dogsledding (my favorite), Skagway=WhitePass Railroad/Red Onion Saloon, Ketchikan=privately booked floatplane to view the bears (incredible). Great trip, can't wait to go again!

[Crusin Karen]

If you sail on the Spirit, I have a tip. Our cruise in Feb. was our 3rd sailing on her and it was like "going home." We even had the same cabin on the 3 cruises :o I read the book about the building/designing of the ship that is in your cabin on the next to last day, and then I took a tour around the ship and it was amazing the things I saw that I had never noticed before! All the little details of the designs that I overlooked. It was the highlight of my cruise! Don't forget to check out The Jungle. It is really cool!

[emliss]

Hello All,

Am reading all the posts about the Spirit and still have some questions. Can anyone give me a comparison between RCI Radience of the Sea and Carival Spirit? DH and I cruised for the first time on the ROS in Sept '07 (Southbound). I had planned it as "the trip of a lifetime". Earlier in the planning, I had visions of all the wildlife and scenery we would see but as time and planning went on, I was able to just expect a wonderful trip no matter what the weather, the lack of wildlife sightings, the ship, etc., We had such a wonderful time, saw so much, were so awestruck by the vastness and beauty of Alaska that I'm planning (and budgeting) for another "trip of a lifetime" in September '09. I really like the Southbound itinerery of the Spirit. This time we are going for a balcony as we opted for an oceanview our first time out.

 

Have learned a lot from the posts thus far and hope to get more info.

Thanks

[bacm]

Wow, this post has grown and it's great! We're just about sold on the Spirit to Alaska. I'll be calling my TA tomorrow. Thanks everyone for all of your insight.

[Crusin Karen]

If anyone books the 9/2/09 Spirit Whittier-Vancouver, we already have a roll call! ;) bacm, we are also sailing on Caribbean Princess in October-the repo cruise from NY-SJ. Hope you find the time to do a review when you get back!