Your experience as Canadians on an Alaskan cruise - what did you appreciate?

[peacefrogdog]

Looking at Alaskan cruises - no doubt the glaciers would be quite the sight but not sold on the other ports. Not that they are not beautiful stops or cities but from the pictures and blogs I've seen, I'm trying to see how much different it feels compared to ... living in Canada. For example, most trip reports comment on the nature perspective, the beautiful forestry etc. but from those descriptions I'm not convinced I would appreciate it beyond the beauty that I have luckily been able to see already in Canada (west coast, Rockies).

For fellow Canadians who have done an Alaskan cruise - what beyond being on the cruise ship itself, and seeing the glaciers, did you appreciate about it the most?

 

[Gigi22]

Looking at Alaskan cruises - no doubt the glaciers would be quite the sight but not sold on the other ports. Not that they are not beautiful stops or cities but from the pictures and blogs I've seen, I'm trying to see how much different it feels compared to ... living in Canada. For example, most trip reports comment on the nature perspective, the beautiful forestry etc. but from those descriptions I'm not convinced I would appreciate it beyond the beauty that I have luckily been able to see already in Canada (west coast, Rockies).

For fellow Canadians who have done an Alaskan cruise - what beyond being on the cruise ship itself, and seeing the glaciers, did you appreciate about it the most?

I was on an Alaska cruise pre-Covid on HAL. We were on a 14 day itinerary, out of Seattle. Following the advice of a friend who had previously done a 7 day cruise, we chose to cruise in July, more expensive, but better for wildlife sighting, which was part of our motivation for going. I would describe the weather on land as not very cold, but YMMV. At sea, always colder. Due to problems at one of the smaller ports (ship from another company had mechanical issues), we missed one stop. Skagway was not on our itinerary, so I can’t comment about it. I didn’t care for Anchorage, as I found it kind of anonymous. Scenery was great. Sailing up close to glaciers was fascinating. We felt that having a cabin with a balcony was very much to our advantage, as we could go out to view the scenery, and run back to the cabin to warm up. The outside decks became very crowded when there was interesting scenery, everyone trying to take pictures; with our own balcony, we didn’t have to compete for space. A friend very much enjoyed the flightseeing shore excursions she was on. Really enjoyed the shore excursion that offered a chance to observe bears and sea otters. My comment about the cost is that it is a comparatively expensive cruise, and the better shore excursions are also pricey. Having done the trip once, I doubt I would do it again.

 

[lilsonicfan]

We have done Alaska a couple of times and are going again this summer with the usual stops on a round trip inside passage cruise - Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway. Have seen all of them before. Agree that the scenery is nothing super exciting, especially as we live in the Vancouver area... the reason we are doing it again is because we found a cheap cruise (HAL - cannot say DCL is ever "cheap" for Alaska) and as we live here anyway, there are no flight or hotel costs to consider. I don't know that I would do it otherwise. I mean, it is beautiful, but it's not earth-shattering for us.

 

[bcwife76]

We also live in the Vancouver area and are also doing our 3rd Alaskan cruise this summer. There's just something about Alaska.....I don't know how to accurately describe it....yes a lot of it (most of it if I'm honest) reminds me of BC but still......I really do just love it. I know, super helpful, right?

 

[Chickinvic]

As a west coaster (Vancouver Island gal), I know it would be beautiful - but I live in that beauty every day. My mom and her friend (who also both live here on the Island) did the Alaska cruise and seemed to enjoy it (but they are both old, so make of that what you will lol).

 

[Adora]

We did the HAL Cruise - Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway. I'm from the East coast (Newfoundland), we have plenty of water, whales and iceburgs. We really enjoyed our trip. We did a helicopter trip in for a glacier walk. My mother and I put on wet suits to snorkel in cold water to see water wildlife that I would never have seen home. And loved that HAL went into Glacier Bay.
I honestly don't remember a lot about the "views" but I have to say the experiences made it one of my favorite cruises, and I've done a few.

 

[ronandannette]

Here's a bit of a different spin: What what we found ourselves enjoying most about our Alaska cruise was the other passengers. While the scenery was fairly routine for us, there were people on our sailing that had come from all across the world (most notably large numbers from the UK and Japan) who were in complete awe of every glimpse. One gleaned that this was the fulfillment of a dream for them and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That kind of joy is infectious and it was so lovely talking to them and listening to them recount their bucket-list "adventures" ashore. It was probably the friendliest and happiest cruise we've ever taken, even though the destination itself wasn't all that exotic or exciting to us.