The Best of Alaska Cruising

Alaska is one of the top cruise destinations in the world, and when you’re sailingthrough the calm waters of the Inside Passage or across the Gulf of Alaska, it’s easy tosee why: The scenery is simply breathtaking.

Much of the coastline is wilderness, with snowcapped mountain peaks, immenseglaciers that create a thunderous noise as chunks break off into the sea (a processknown as calving), emerald rainforests, fjords, icebergs, soaring eagles, lumberingbears, and majestic whales all easily visible from the comfort of your ship.

Visit the towns, and you’ll find people who retain the spirit of frontier independ-ence that brought them here in the first place. Add Alaska’s colorful history and her-itage, with its European influences, its spirit of discovery, and its rich Native cultures,and you have a destination that is utterly, endlessly fascinating.

The fact that a little over 700,000 cruise passengers—give or take a few—arriveannually in this last great frontier has had its impact, of course. In the summer, sometowns turn into tourist malls populated by seasonal vendors and imported souvenirs.However, the port towns you’ll visit—from Juneau, the most remote state capital inthe country, to Sitka, with its proud reminders of Native and Russian culture—retainmuch of their rustic charm and historical allure. Sure, you may have to jostle for a seatin Juneau’s popular Red Dog Saloon (a must-do beer stop) or ask other visitors to stepout of the way as you try to snap a picture of Skagway’s historic gold-rush buildingsor Ketchikan’s picturesque Creek Street, but these are minor hassles for cruise-shippassengers. And if you want to get away from the crowds by taking a small-ship cruiseor an organized shore excursion, or touring on your own, there’s opportunity for that,too. In addition, by signing up for the cruise lines’ pre- or post-cruise land-tour pack-ages (known as “cruisetours”), you can also visit such inland destinations as DenaliNational Park, Fairbanks, the Kenai Peninsula, the Yukon Territory, or the CanadianRockies.

Even before you cruise, we can predict you’ll want to visit again. (Jerry first visitedin 1973 and claims he’s never been the same—the place put such a spell on him thatover the years, he’s been back upward of 50 times. Fran’s first visit to the state wasn’tquite that long ago, but she also noticed that her view of the world was foreverchanged, and she quickly put the state at the top of her list of cruise destinations.)Alaska is like that. It grabs you by the scruff of the neck and won’t let you go.

Whether you’re looking for pampering and resort amenities or a you-and-the-seaadventure experience, you’ll find it offered by cruise ships in Alaska. Here are some ofour favorites, along with our picks of the best ports, shore excursions, and sights.

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C H A P T E R 1 . T H E B E S T O F A L A S K A C R U I S I N G10

1 The Best of Alaska’s Ships• The Best Ships for Luxury: With

Crystal and Silversea out of the mar-ket, luxury in Alaska is now definedby Regent Seven Seas, which offers acasual kind of luxury (a really niceship with a no-tie-required policy).Regent’s Seven Seas Mariner offersjust that, with plush all-suite cabins(most with private balconies) andexcellent cuisine (which, as of Jan 1,2007, includes liquor; wine is com-plimentary at all times). For the ulti-mate Alaska experience in a small-shipsetting, check out the yachts ofAmerican Safari Cruises, where softadventure comes with luxury accou-trements.

• The Best of the Mainstream Ships:Every line’s most recent ships arebeautiful, but Celebrity’s Infinity is atrue stunner, as is sister ship Summit.These modern vessels, with theirextensive art collections, cushy publicrooms, and expanded spa areas, giveCelebrity a formidable presence inAlaska. And the late-model SapphirePrincess and Diamond Princess (whichboth debuted in 2004) have raisedthe art of building big ships to newheights. Both of these vessels willagain be in Inside Passage service thisyear—from Vancouver.

• The Best of the Small Ships: Clip-per Cruise Line’s newest vessel, theClipper Odyssey, is a gorgeous littleship, offering a higher level of com-fort than most of the other small shipsin this category. Plus, it sails some ofAlaska’s most exotic itineraries.

• The Best Ships for Families: All themajor lines have well-establishedkids’ programs. Holland America andNorwegian Cruise Line win points inAlaska for their special shore excur-sions for kids and teens, and Carnivalgets a nod for offering shore excur-sions for teens.

• The Best Ships for Pampering: It’s atossup—Celebrity’s Infinity and Sum-mit offer wonderful AquaSpas com-plete with thalassotherapy pools anda wealth of soothing and beautifyingtreatments, and the solariums onRoyal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas,Serenade of the Seas, and Radiance ofthe Seas offer relaxing indoor-poolretreats. Luxury line Regent SevenSeas, of course, pampers all around.

• The Best Shipboard Cuisine:Regent Seven Seas is tops in this cat-egory. Of the mainstream lines,Celebrity is the best, with its cuisineoverseen by renowned French chefMichel Roux. Dinner in the reserva-tions-only specialty restaurants onboth the Infinity and the Summit($30 service charge per person) is aworld-class dining experience. Andthere are signs of a new and rathersurprising challenger for the cuisineaward: Carnival, which has upgradedboth its main dining room and buffetofferings. The line’s Carnival Spirit inAlaska boasts the Nouveau SupperClub ($30 service charge per person),where you can enjoy just about asfine a meal as you’re likely to findanywhere.

• The Best Ships for Onboard Activ-ities: The ships operated by Carnivaland Royal Caribbean offer rostersteeming with onboard activities thatrange from the sublime (such as lec-tures) to the ridiculous (such as con-tests designed to get passengers to door say outrageous things). Princess’sScholarShip@Sea program is a realwinner, with exciting packaged classesin such diverse subjects as photogra-phy, personal computers, cooking,and even pottery.

• The Best Ships for Entertainment:Look to the big ships here. Carnivaland Royal Caribbean are tops when it

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comes to an overall package of shows,nightclub acts, lounge performances,and audience-participation entertain-ment. Princess also offers particularlywell-done—if somewhat less lavishlystaged—shows.

• The Best Ship for Nostalgia: Nocontest. It’s Majestic America Line’s(formerly American West SteamboatCompany) Empress of the North, apaddle-wheeler, the likes of whichhasn’t been seen in Alaska in almost acentury. The vessel defies characteri-zation. It’s clearly not a mainstreamship, it’s not quite a luxury ship, andit really isn’t small (it holds 235 pas-sengers). Warmly decorated with richbrocade wall coverings and a fine col-lection of Western art memorabilia,the vessel features velvet booths in thedining room and a wonderful bar aftin which passengers can listen to livemusic while watching the paddlewheel throw spray against the floor-to-ceiling window. Sailing on theEmpress is to take a step back in timeto the golden age of steamboat travel.

• The Best Ships for Whale-Watch-ing: If the whales come close enough,you can see them from all the ships inAlaska. Smaller ships, though—suchas those operated by Clipper andCruise West—might actually change

course to follow a whale. Get yourcameras ready!

• The Best Ships for Cruisetours:Princess and Holland America are theentrenched market leaders in gettingyou into the Interior—of Alaska andthe Yukon—either before or afteryour cruise. They own their ownhotels, deluxe motorcoaches, and railcars; and after many years in the busi-ness, they both know what they’redoing. Some of the other lines actu-ally buy their land products fromPrincess or HAL. One of HollandAmerica’s strengths is its 3- and 4-night cruises combined with anAlaska/Yukon land package. Thecompany offers exclusive entry intothe Yukon’s Kluane National Park,and they’ve added another Yukongem—Tombstone Territorial Park,near Dawson City, a region of stagger-ing wilderness beauty, Native archi-tecture, stunning vistas, and wildlife.Princess is arguably stronger in 7-dayGulf of Alaska cruises in conjunctionwith Denali/Fairbanks or KenaiPeninsula land arrangements. In2002, Princess introduced its fifthwilderness lodge—the Copper RiverLodge, by the entrance to hithertodifficult-to-access Wrangell–St. EliasNational Park.

T H E B E S T P O R T S 11

2 The Best PortsJuneau and Skagway are our favorites.Juneau is one of the most visually pleas-ing small cities anywhere and certainlythe prettiest capital city in America. It’sfronted by the Gastineau Channel andbacked by Mount Juneau and MountRoberts, offers the very accessibleMendenhall Glacier, and is otherwise sur-rounded by wilderness—and it’s a reallyfun city to visit, too.

As for Skagway, no town in Alaska ismore historically significant, and the oldbuildings are so perfect you might think

you stepped into a Disney version of whata gold-rush town should look like. If, thatis, you can get over the decidedly turn-of-the-millennium Starbucks operation inthe Mercantile Center, the pizza parlor atthe bottom of Broadway, and all theupscale jewelry shops that have followedcruise passengers from the Caribbean.There are people who will tell you thatSkagway is hokey, touristy—and it is. Butif you can get yourself into the rightframe of mind, if you can recall the his-tory of the place, the gold-rush frenzy

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Personal Reminiscence

Photograph albums . . . old postcards that we bought and never sent . . .stateroom door key cards . . . brochures and faded newspapers . . . tacky sou-venirs . . . excellent Native arts . . . restaurant and ships’ dining room menus.Every so often, my wife and I (Jerry) like to browse through items like these,accumulated over 30-plus years of visiting Alaska. It happens every yeararound springtime when we start making our summer travel plans. Andwhen we do, the memories come flooding back: the fun times, awesomesights, nice people—and sometimes not-so-nice people—wonderfulweather, dreadful weather, and the occasional somber moment.

Alaska always provides more than enough positives to offset any badweather or not-so-perfect personal encounters.

In the end, it boils down to scenery, wildlife, and people. These are theessence of Alaska, and of our memories. Cruises and cruisetours offer a wayto experience all of these in abundance.

Let me tell you some of the events that Margaret and I recall most fondlywhen we dip into our Alaska memory bank. In no particular order . . . .

• There was the night we sat with our two sons, then in their early teens,in Kyoto Restaurant, on the magnificent Crystal Harmony, now, sadly,departed from the U.S. scene. We had just entered Alaskan waters enroute from Vancouver and were about to order dinner. Before we couldbegin, the waiter paused, pencil poised over his pad. We followed hisgaze out to sea and there, frolicking alongside the ship, were severaldozen porpoises. All activity in the room ceased. Diners mingled withwaiters, bus boys, and maitre d’s, all standing along the window side ofthe restaurant gaping as these delightful creatures entertained us. Theycrisscrossed one another, skimming the surface of the water at highspeed. They jumped and flipped. They paralleled our direction of traveland then turned toward us—as if on cue—and turned away again. It wassynchronized swimming at its best. Only when they peeled off did normalservice resume in the restaurant. My sons still speak of that Kyoto dinner!

• We were on the then new Island Princess, leaving Glacier Bay afteranother spectacular day of ice-wall watching when something caught myeye. It was a brown bear. Not positioned on the bank along the tree line,where you might expect to see it, but in the water—swimming across themouth of Johns Hopkins Inlet. In an instant, gawking passengers lined therails of the ship. I’d swear this creature knew it was the center of atten-tion! It rolled on its back, seemed to watch us watching it, and then, everso nonchalantly, turned and swam on. It wasn’t the most likely environ-ment in which to find bears, but that’s Alaska. Always expect the unex-pected.

• Joe and Janie were Floridians, warm-weather folks who enjoyedCaribbean and Mediterranean cruises every year. He had a hankering totry this popular, though somewhat cooler, destination that he’d heard his

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T H E B E S T P O R T S 13

friends rave about—Alaska. She reluctantly agreed to alter their normalvacation pattern to accommodate him. Margaret and I befriended themon a cruise on Radisson’s Seven Seas Mariner. Slowly at first, Janie beganto realize just what Alaska had to offer. By the time we entered YakutatBay, for Hubbard Glacier, about the middle of the cruise, she was hooked.Before we disembarked, she had committed to another Alaska cruise thefollowing year, never mind the weather. Alaska does that to people.

• Margaret and I often laugh over an incident during a Royal CaribbeanLegend of the Seas cruisetour we took through Denali Park. On our firstevening, after dinner, I went outside to the viewing deck and sat in thewarm night air, gazing on the incredible vista of the Alaska Range, withtowering Mount McKinley in the center. I was out there for an hour ormore, a little longer than most people sit, I suppose. It seems, at any rate,that it was long enough to concern the staff of the Talkeetna AlaskaLodge because, sometime after 11pm (it was still daylight), one of theyoung ladies at the front desk came out and asked me gently, “Sir, areyou okay?” I laughed and assured her I was enjoying the scenery and notin need of any help. Reverie-inducing scenery and a compassionate pop-ulace help make Alaska the destination it is.

• But not all of our Alaska memories evoke laughter. On another occasion,Margaret and I had enjoyed a northbound Gulf cruise on Celebrity’s Infin-ity. We were scheduled to fly home from Fairbanks. It was September 11,2001. Suffice it to say that we were grounded, as was the rest of thenation, and forced to spend the next week in Alaska’s second-largest city.It was then that the welcoming spirit of Alaskans became evident asnever before. Strangers went out of their way to make certain that wewere made to feel at home. Little things made the difference: invitationsto dine, offers of cellphones to call home, automobile rides downtownfrom our hotel. The residents—who clearly were feeling the pain everybit as much as the rest of the nation—strove to lessen our feelings of iso-lation. Because that’s what Alaskans do best.

We’ve seen breaching whales, grizzly bears up close, herds of caribou, anddelicate little beluga whales, the latter stranded in the mud in TurnagainArm by the powerful tides characteristic of the area. We’ve eaten reindeersausage and drunk locally brewed amber ale. We’ve roared with laughter atthe hilarious patter of the host in the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau and we’verisked frostbite on the shores of Tongass Narrows listening to the less-amus-ing commentary of a totem park guide. We’ve ridden the Haul Road toPrudhoe Bay and the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway to the Canadianborder from Skagway. We’ve seen and done a lot of things in Alaska overthe years and, such is the appeal of the 49th state in the union, we can—and do—relive the experiences in an instant. Every spring. Every year.

—Jerry Brown

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that literally put the town on the map, it’seasier to capture the true spirit of Skag-way. The residents have made every effortto retain as much as possible of the archi-tecture and historic significance of theircommunity, and they don’t mind sharingit with visitors during the cruise season.For a more low-key Alaska experience,

take the ferry from Skagway to Haines,which reminds us of the folksy, frontierAlaska depicted on the TV show North-ern Exposure, and is a great place to spoteagles and other wildlife. Some ships alsostop at Haines as a port of call, usually fora few hours after Skagway.

C H A P T E R 1 . T H E B E S T O F A L A S K A C R U I S I N G14

3 The Best Shore ExcursionsFlightseeing and helicopter trips in Alaskaare unforgettable ways to check out thescenery if you can afford them. But air-borne tours tend to be pretty pricey—some of them approaching $500 a head.A helicopter trip to a dog-sled camp atthe top of a glacier (usually the priciest ofthe offerings) affords both incrediblypretty views and a chance to try yourhand at the truly Alaskan sport of dogsledding. (Yes, even in summer: The sledsare fitted with wheels.) It’s a great way toearn bragging rights with the folks backhome. For a less extravagant excursion,nothing beats a ride on a clear day on theWhite Pass & Yukon Route Railway outof Skagway to the Canadian border atFraser—the route followed by the goldstampeders of ’98. While you’re ridingthe rails, try to imagine what it was likefor those gold seekers crossing the sametrack on foot!

And we also like to get active with kayakand mountain-biking excursions offeredby most lines at most ports. In additionto affording a chance to work off thoseshipboard calories, these excursions typi-cally provide optimum opportunities forspotting eagles, bears, seals, and otherwildlife.

Another, less hectic shore excursion thatgoes down well with many passengers is afloat ride down one of the more placidstretches of Alaska’s myriad rivers, such asthe Kenai, the Mendenhall, or the Chilkat.These outings don’t involve a lot of pad-dling—which can be hard work—butinstead use the natural flow of the river topropel the four- to six-person rubber raftdownstream. And they involve little or nowhite water. Generally, the group willstop for a picnic lunch en route andreturn to the staging area by motorcoachor automobile.

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