One trip we’ve been wanting to take for quite a while was an Alaskan cruise and we finally managed to take it. Spoiler alert: the state is even more beautiful than we thought it would be.

This trip occurred in August 2024.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Cruising the Last Frontier (this post)
• Review: WestJet 737-800MAX Economy Class LAX-YVR
• Superb Service and Surprisingly Good Food: The Hyatt Regency Vancouver
• Vancouver with Kids: Fun in the Great Outdoors
• Family Dining in Vancouver: The Best of What We Ate
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 1 – Booking and Room
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 2 – Dining
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 3 – Onboard Entertainment
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 4 – Ship Features
• Disappointing Wi-Fi on Celebrity Solstice
• PSA: Do Not Waste Money on Celebrity Cruises Drink Packages
• Pro Tip: Celebrity Cruises Gives Free Parking at MGM Resorts
• Icy Strait Point: A Simple Alaskan Port Town
• Skagway: A Small But Enjoyable Port
• A Brief Encounter at Dawes Glacier
• Juneau: Full of Outdoors Experiences
• Ketchikan: Home to Salmon and Lumberjacks
• Review: Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge YVR (Transborder / US Flights)
• Review: Air Canada 737-800MAX Business Class YVR-LAX

Reason for the trip

I always like to spend a moment to discuss my thoughts for taking these trips, as the thought process might help others plan their own experiences. In this case, many years ago I had promised my parents that I would eventually take them on a cruise to Alaska. It’s also something Jenn and I have discussed seeing, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to check everyone’s box. Between the kids, Alex has been on a short cruise before–though he remembers nothing of it–while Char never had been on one.

When I began looking for a cruise ship to take us, I didn’t focus on the ships allegedly geared more towards families (Disney, Carnival, Royal Caribbean). Why? Because to me, the focus of the trip was to get off the ship at each stop and explore the towns, go on excursions, and… eat, of course. The on-board activities during daylight hours don’t matter to me as we wouldn’t be on the ship except during at-sea days. The ships that have those fancy activities also tend to be larger ships, and I expected long lines for those activities during at-sea days given the lack of an alternative to being on the ship. Additionally, since one child hasn’t been on a cruise before and the other doesn’t remember, I don’t have to compete against any other preference they might have, making it easier to choose a ship that emphasizes what I was looking for at a pretty decent price.

Many cruises to Alaska tend to be in the range of a week, and that’s exactly how long this one lasted (seven nights).

Flights

Our cruise was a round-trip out of Vancouver. I debated flying into Seattle and driving across the border (similar to what we did a year earlier) but instead settled on flying into and out of Vancouver. Given I brought along my parents, I wanted to emphasize non-stop options out of Los Angeles. I ended up booking WestJet for the flight up to Vancouver and Air Canada for the flight home. We got the royal sampler of Canadian airlines.

Why did I choose these airlines, aside from the fact that they operated non-stops? Well, as I’ll talk about separately, with WestJet being as close of a Delta partner as they are, I was able to book it as a Delta codeshare and use my Delta travel credits that otherwise would have expired. Along those same lines, I appreciated that even though WestJet is not an alliance member, my Delta status does count for something when flying WestJet. I also found decent award pricing on Air Canada for the flight home, plus the timing of the flight seemed to work a bit better.

Hotels

While you certainly could fly in the day you depart for the cruise, I’ve never wanted to take that risk. I find it’s much safer to plan at least an overnight stay prior to your cruise just in case of significant flight delays. With our cruise departing on a Sunday, we chose instead to fly up to Vancouver on the Friday before and spend two nights in the city. I wanted to choose a hotel that was in easy walking distance of the cruise terminal (Canada Place). Ideally, I wanted something that would be bookable with points, and so I settled on the Hyatt Regency Vancouver. I had some hesitancy on booking the hotel as it played some games with me on suite availability using a Hyatt suite upgrade award a year earlier (I had plans to stay there during our prior trip to Vancouver) and ultimately canceled that stay with them. But I’m happy to say that the stay was near perfect, with surprisingly impeccable service.

I debated staying a night or two after the cruise ended, but ultimately settled on getting back as quickly as possible. So the day we arrived back in Vancouver, we left for Los Angeles later that same day.

Cruise ship and destinations

I had done a lot of research trying to work out the pricing between each major cruise line operating an Alaska cruise. Aside from finding dates that would work, the other major constraint is making sure I book a balcony. After all, it’s far better to enjoy an Alaskan cruise from the convenience and comfort of your room. The cheapest cruise at the time I booked ended up being on the Celebrity Solstice, which surprised me a bit. Celebrity Cruises is supposed to be a higher-end option over Royal Caribbean, but sometimes pricing doesn’t always make sense. The food was mostly fairly good (I’ll comment more on that later) and the entertainment was also good. The service onboard the ship was also better than expected.

Our itinerary involved four ports over seven nights (no, I don’t count the start/end points as real stops):

• Day 1: Leave Vancouver, BC
• Day 2: At-sea day
• Day 3: Icy Strait Point, AK
• Day 4: Skagway, AK
• Day 5: Dawes Glacier and Juneau, AK
• Day 6: Ketchikan, AK
• Day 7: At-sea day
• Day 8: Arrive at Vancouver, BC

I’ll dive much more into each of these ports, but if you want a real quick guide to my preference of these ports, I enjoyed Skagway and Juneau the most with Ketchikan running a close third. Icy Strait Point is likely a port I don’t need to repeat, though I will say we were extremely fortuitous with our whale-watching cruise being able to see humpback whales perform their bubble-net feeding tactics right near our boat. Even the tour operators commented on how extremely rare it was. I’m going to call it now–I never want to do another whale-watching cruise again as it’s going to be hard to top this one. But if the cruise were more average, I do think I would have been a bit bored with the options available at Icy Strait Point.

Thanks for reading along

If you read along and this inspires you to book your own Alaskan cruise with your family, please let me know. In addition to just making these memories available to myself, I appreciate you all for taking part in the experience as I do feel that trips are best shared with others. I’ll be sure to share both our positive experiences as well as anything we noticed that didn’t work well.

Thank you!