Which Alaska Is Your Bag?

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Back in the far-out days of the 1960s, Alaska and Hawaii were brand new states.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower had signed them into law as states number 49 and 50, respectively, in 1959.

Both states have long since grown to be top vacation destinations.

Alaska lends itself especially well to cruising, but what kind of trip will suit your needs?

 

The easy choice is an “Inside Passage”cruise. These cruises go round trip, making it easy to fly or sometimes drive to a cruise.  Seattle is the most common embarkation port.  To satisfy US maritime law, cruises round trip from a US port must include a foreign port of call, which is usually Victoria, BC, on an Inside Passage cruise.

There are a couple of dozen longer cruises from San Francisco every summer —- usually 10 or 11 nights —-and an occasional 2-week, round trip offering from Los Angeles.

After Seattle, the most popular embarkation port is Vancouver, Canada.  Because you’re starting in a foreign country, no need for an international port of call.  This can translate into longer port stays.

There are also assorted 9 to 14.nights Inside Passage  cruises from Vancouver and Seattle that include more ports.

 

The most common alternative to the Inside Passage would be the alternating north and south bound cruises between Vancouver and a port for Anchorage (Seward or Whittier).

These cruises go about twice as far up the coast of Alaska as an Inside Passage cruise.  They usually include a second day of glacier cruising.  For example, a Princess cruise might have a combination of Glacier Bay and the more northern College Fjord.

Surprisingly, ports other than the port for Anchorage tend to be similar on a 7-night cruise, whether Inside Passage or one-way.  Any given departure will have variations on the theme, like Icy Strait Point instead of Ketchikan or Hubbard Glacer instead of Glacier Bay, regardless.

Because the one-way trips require a long flight one way to or from Anchorage, most people cruising one-way do so intending to spend extra time in Alaska.

Anchorage has lots of great activities in the region, but most travelers journeying that far north want to visit Denali, which has now need officially renamed as Mt. McKinley.

The best way to go is a cruise tour, and again there are .m.any variations.  Whichever cruise tour you choose, this is, as we used to say in the 1960s, the E-Ticket.

Will you journey inland to Denali, Fairbanks and other wilderness areas to see more of Alaska, or enjoy a cruise only itinerary, unpacking only once?

Letme help you sort through the possibilities to get you on the right trip for you!

Wes