Which line for an Alaska cruise if you like Windstar

My husband and I are looking for an Alaska cruise. We have cruised once on Celebrity and twice on Windstar (the sail ones). We much prefer the small ship and casual atmosphere on Windstar to the megaships.

I'm trying to figure out which lines that cruise Alaska would be a good fit for us and thought it might help to ask here to see which lines other Windstar fans liked.

We cruised Alaska way back in 2003 on Royal Caribbeans Legends of the Sea. I don't think it was a huge ship by any means. I enjoyed Royal Caribbean (I've done two cruises with them). I'm not sure what size ships cruises Alaska but I'd look for my itinerary first and then choose a smaller ship. We left from Vancouver and enjoyed a few days pre-cruise checking out that amazing city.

Well our favorite large cruise line is Celebrity (mostly because we have sailed enough times to get Elite status and the extra perks) and we did use them for an Alaska cruise a few years ago and it was terrific. Right now, Windstar is our absolute favorite! But we have been on ships even smaller than WS too... and there is simply just something about the small ship experience that keeps you thinking 'this is my own yacht.'

So I researched the smallest ships doing Alaska next season and came up with this: Silversea, Oceania, Seabourn, Regent, Crystal, and if you can wait a couple of years - rumor has it that Windstar will start doing the region.... and I will be on it for sure!!!

Good luck in your search. A small ship will make the area so much more appealing as you will have so much more time at the port w/o waiting for thousands of people to off-board each port... and how much closer you can get to the glaciers.

Rumor has it that 2018 WS is going to Alaska. The website is working on 2018 now, I assume in a few days the 2018 should be up. Happy Sailing

Be sure and check out Regent.

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So I researched the smallest ships doing Alaska next season and came up with this: Silversea, Oceania, Seabourn, Regent, Crystal, and if you can wait a couple of years - rumor has it that Windstar will start doing the region.... and I will be on it for sure!!!

We want to go in 2017 so Windstar won't be there yet.

Those are the lines I found that are roughly comparable to Windstar size too. There is quite a spread of prices there. Oceania and Regent are a lot better on price. I'm not thrilled with the itineraries. Crystal, Seabourn, and Silversea may be too formal for us - don't they all do formal nights? Regent seems closest to Windstar in dress code (though I wonder if they are a bit more formal in practice - the pictures on their website seem more dressed up to me).

I'm also considering some of the even smaller ships - like Lindblat or Uncruise. I like the idea of a ship that can get up close to the sights and that carries kayaks and such. Their itineraries look good. The cabins are pretty small - I think we would be fine with that but I'm not quite sure.

We are planning on going with another couple and I need to get an idea of what price point they are comfortable with.

Whichever line you choose, just make sure that Glacier Bay is on your itinerary.

Seabourn will be there in '17. Not sure they include Glacier Bay however - and - it will cost you plenty.

 

I'm trying to figure out which lines that cruise Alaska would be a good fit for us and thought it might help to ask here to see which lines other Windstar fans liked.

HI there new_cruiser. My wife and I decided to do the Alaskan cruise thing for our 25th. After talking to friends and looking at itineraries, it seemed clear that Holland America has carved out a specialty niche in that market. We did a round trip from Seattle and loved it.

Bear in mind that they tend to skew older in the demographic, but we saw younger families as well. As far as the big boats go, it provides a great fun time for the money. There is one formal night as I recall.

Our ship was the MS Westerdam, with about 2000 on board. Not a relaxing small boat experience by any means, but stellar entertainment. An Elton John impersonator was extraordinarily talented and funny as hell.

If you can tolerate the whole big boat experience again, try Holland America. But personally I'm eager to do a Windstar cruise up there someday because it'll get to all the less busy places. Have fun!

Bear in mind that they tend to skew older in the demographic, but we saw younger families as well.

We are in the older demographic ourselves. Actually this cruise might be a retirement celebration for one of us.

I think I would prefer an Alaska round trip or at least a cruise that starts or terminates in Alaska. That would fit with doing an Alaska land segment along with the cruise.

At this point, I'm thinking that if we do a high end or luxury line, it would be Oceania, Regent or Seabourn.

Also looking at smaller boat adventure type lines; mainly UnCruise or Lindblad.

And considering a mass market line like Celebrity or HAL. Both Celebrity and HAL have dropped Formal nights. HAL now has a "Gala night" where ties and jackets are not required.

Really need to narrow this list down. I'm looking at the itineraries and getting a list of prices.

As a native of the great Pacific Northwest, and having cruised to Alaska 3 times, twice from Seattle and once from Vancouver, I'd suggest considering these points:

1. Try a mid-week departure. On the F, Sa, Su departure dates you'd be one of 4-5 cruise ships following each other from port to port..and flooding same ports with 6-10,000 passengers in a single day. No joking. On one cruise, 6 ships were in port in Juneau...two tendered (Seabourne and Silversea)! Mid-week cruises cut the number of ships in half.

2. Choose Vancouver instead of Seattle. Gasp! Yes, I just suggested our rival to the north rather than my beloved city as your jumping off point, and I do not do so lightly. However, my Vancouver cruise was FAR more enjoyable for a number of reasons:

a) First and foremost, you cruise the inside of Vancouver Island which is absolutely gorgeous! When you leave from Seattle, you miss this amazing experience entirely and simply have much more time at sea.

b) Seattle is beautiful, but cruising out and returning under the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver is spectacular.

c) a more varied and international group of passengers. Bluntly, Seattle cruises are filled with 85+% Americans. Vancouver cruises have many many more folks from around the world. Our Vancouver cruise had a large (and joyously boisterous) Australian contingent, more than a few Europeans, a number of East Indians, plus the usual Canooks and Yanks.

3. Try a cruise that includes Skagway...and book the train tour with Chilkoot Tours. Informative, scenic, delicious, and most importantly, not crowded. Mom and I booked this while some friends went with the cruise line's tour. Their train car was filled cheek to jowl with 45+ people. Our private car had...wait for it...10 people. Spacious, relaxed, and convivial.

4. Consider HAL. All three of my Alaska cruises were on HAL, and for a specific reason; namely, they have the corner on AK. Because of their long-standing relationship with the various ports, they have prime docking rights. More importantly, they have seem to have first dibs on glacier access to Glacier Bay and other glaciers. And let's face it, the glaciers are the reason you're going to Alaska.

5. If #4 is acceptable, book a corner suite on one of the smaller HAL ships. These suites tend to be huge (500-700sqft) with accordingly wonderful balconies. And yes, you will use your deck in AK, even in the cloudy, rainy horrible weather. Nothing quite like ordering shrimp cocktail, clam chowder, toasted cheese sandwiches, and truffle cake to your balcony as you sip champagne and snuggle in to your wool tartan blanket to watch the glaciers calve 300 feet from your wrap-around aft deck. [happy sigh at the memory]

6. Regardless of which cruise line you book with, look at the lunar calendar and try to book during a full moon. Trust me. This was my mother's brilliant idea on our last cruise, and it was...did I say already...brilliant. Sipping that last night cap, wrapped again in your trusty wool tartan blanket, watching the moonlight dance off the glowing waters of Glacier Bay is, well, priceless.

Apparently Crystal Cruises doesn't have a formal (black-tie optional) night on cruises of 7 days or less. And they have a 7 day itinerary that ends in Alaska.

After 8 visits to Alaska I still have no interest in a cruise to Alaska that doesn't include some land time in Alaska. The only time I strayed from that was a Crystal Cruise from Japan to Vancouver that included some stops in Alaska.

Consider HAL's smaller ships, the Zaandam or the Volendam. They are in the range of about 1500 passengers, far from megaships. HAL does a fantastic job of packaging a land trip with a cruise into an integrated whole and I highly recommend it. Crystal has some 7-day cruises from Vancouver to Anchorage that would fit your bill. The 7-day cruises have no Black Tie Optional night so you could be completely casual. Crystal might have a pre or post land extension, or a good TA could find a package independently.

My final suggestion is out of the box. The Alaska Marine Highway http://ferryalaska.com has ferries with cabins that leave from Bellingham WA and go to Skagway weekly and Whittier (gateway to Anchorage) every 2 weeks. They are not a "cruise" line and don't do shore excursions, but you can get off at any port and spend a couple of days before getting on the next ferry.

My Alaska trip this year was on the Kennicott to Whitter, a 5-day package to Denali with Princess arranged by my TA, and a return to the lower 48 on the Crystal Serenity. It was awesome.

Roy

We are in the older demographic ourselves. Actually this cruise might be a retirement celebration for one of us.

 

I think I would prefer an Alaska round trip or at least a cruise that starts or terminates in Alaska. That would fit with doing an Alaska land segment along with the cruise.

 

At this point, I'm thinking that if we do a high end or luxury line, it would be Oceania, Regent or Seabourn.

Also looking at smaller boat adventure type lines; mainly UnCruise or Lindblad.

And considering a mass market line like Celebrity or HAL. Both Celebrity and HAL have dropped Formal nights. HAL now has a "Gala night" where ties and jackets are not required.

 

Really need to narrow this list down. I'm looking at the itineraries and getting a list of prices.

Hi new_cruiser. You are really in the weeds now, and I mean that in a good way. I imagine you encamped in your favorite comfy spot with a cup of coffee. You're pouring over brochures; you're checking out itineraries, prices, and excursions; and you're cross-checking recommendations on Trip Advisor. You know with certainty what you've GOT to fit into the schedule to make it a fabulous trip. You're consulting lunar schedules and calendars, and syncing arrivals and departures with available land tours. You're adding up competing scores on your spreadsheets, and before long you'll know which cruise you want so badly you can taste the Alaskan King Crab already. That isn't work at all, that's FUN.

Bravo to everyone for pitching in. Congrats on generating such a neat message thread, because many folks have some great ideas.

I think I see a slight consensus building about HAL. You were right about the fact that they no longer have a real formal night, that was true even back when we did our trip. But many folks did break out the tuxedos, gowns, and jewels. I didn't mind dressing up for one evening, and for me it was a chance to wear my Army Dress Mess uniform. One slightly confused (but very kind) senior passenger came over and breathlessly gushed about how wonderful the cruise was, and said I must be so proud of my crew. I thanked her for sailing on Holland America, and then confessed that I wasn't really the ship's captain at all. She seemed disappointed, but I found it charming and heart-warming. I figured at that point I should probably change clothes before heading to the lounge to participate in live band karaoke. True story.

I was so impressed with the commentary by sparkleplenty, and rafinmd also has great ideas. I wish I had known about Cruise Critic back then. We happened to pick out a nice HAL trip, but it was only by coincidence that we avoided a parade of ships in every port. I do like the notion of sailing out of Vancouver. I think we did stop there (or maybe it was just Victoria? - can't remember), but I left there wanting to explore so much more of British Columbia. We LOVED Sitka, and hope it still is available as an option. By the way, try fish and chips made with a honking slab of halibut ....oh my, was that delicious!

I think everyone is spot-on with suggestions to sail on one of HAL's smaller ships, and to splurge on a suite. The service and entertainment are really first rate. They have a wonderful steakhouse, but there is an up-charge for that specialty restaurant.

Never sailed on Crystal, Regent, Silversea, or Seabourn. I bet they would really be amazingly plush, but maybe too stuffy and formal? Expensive. That much I'm sure about.

Oceania has good pricing, the food is what everyone raves about, and maybe you'd like the size of their ships. I think they should be a solid contender based on your commentary, but maybe not. HAVE FUN figuring this out!!!

Having written what I just did about Alaska adventures, I must say the prospect of doing a future Windstar cruise up there sounds like fun. We have one cardinal rule, and that's a mandate to avoid repeating any exact cruise itinerary (no matter how much fun we had). But it has been awhile, and I think Windstar would do it justice. I think we'd end up seeing many smaller ports, some selections that most of the other cruise lines couldn't even consider. That would make it unique and special.

Just idle speculation, but I think we might see an itinerary or two aboard one of the motorized yachts. But just imagine, how cool would it be to see one of the sailing ships explore Alaska's Inside Passage? With the former, mark me as a "maybe". With the latter, I'd say absolutely "yes!"

But then there's the whole deal about re-positioning a ship. So which one is most logical? If Windstar is returning to the orient, would that ship do so by transiting the Panama Canal, sailing up the Pacific west coast of North America, spending some time doing Alaska cruises, and then continue to the Far East? We're starting to venture into the realm of around-the-world cruising. Hmmm.....

I would highly recommend you consider Regents. This past August we did the Anchorage (Seward) to Vancouver cruise on the Regent's Mariner. The ship holds approx. 700 passengers, so much smaller then the typical large ships in that area as well, so provides a Windstar type experience. That said, the cost is considerably more, but it is an all inclusive format which includes excursions, alcohol etc.

Having been on Wind Surf a few times, I can report that Regents is a step above in all areas, especially the food and cabins (all are suites with balconies). Definitely worth checking into Regents for consideration. BTW, we are booked on the Wind Surf (May 2017) for Venice to Rome cruise!

After our Alaska cruise out of Vancouver (loved the city) we had a limo pick us up (6 of us) in Seward and drove us to Anchorage where we rented a car and did our own interior tour of Alaska including Wasilla, Denali, Fairbanks and the Arctic Circle. It was a wonderful addition to our cruise and so simple to arrange (versus) some of our trips oversees.

We were lucky enough to be there at the end of June during the longest day of the year. It was breathtaking! And to have daylight at 10 pm and light at midnight was crazy!

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I will have to disagree with LTCDan on one thing; that's the comparison of HAL and Crystal. They are among the 2 lines I cruise on most. While Crystal tends to be more expensive than HAL, they are also much more egalitarian, much like on Windstar where the cabin you book doesn't make a lot of difference in your overall experience. I looked up some prices for Crystal and HAL (mostly Zaandam) on the 7-day Northbound in June.

Zaandam: Least expensive: 1,294

Oceanview: 1,494

Balcony: 2844

Suite: 3,749

Corner suite(Noordam) 3649

Crystal: Least expensive(OV) 3,089

Balcony: 4,011

Penthouse: 6,194

Prices are per-person double occupancy. Crystal pricing includes gratuities, drinks, and a daily hour of internet, narrowing the price gap somewhat.

I believe the corner suites are only on the larger (2000pax) Noordam on this route. I expect for most Windstar cruisers not having a balcony and with Crystal's all inclusives you can easily be on Crystal for about the price of a HAL balcony and a Crystal balcony for about the price of a HAL suite.

For me, it's a question of 700 square feet of luxury vs a whole luxury ship.

Roy

1. Try a mid-week departure. On the F, Sa, Su departure dates you'd be one of 4-5 cruise ships following each other from port to port..and flooding same ports with 6-10,000 passengers in a single day. No joking. On one cruise, 6 ships were in port in Juneau...two tendered (Seabourne and Silversea)! Mid-week cruises cut the number of ships in half

 

2. Choose Vancouver instead of Seattle. Gasp! Yes, I just suggested our rival to the north rather than my beloved city as your jumping off point, and I do not do so lightly. However, my Vancouver cruise was FAR more enjoyable for a number of reasons:...

I understand the advantage of being flexible about dates and/or departure point. When cruising in the Caribbean, we avoided a lot of crowds by embarking in Puerto Rico instead of from the US mainland. It meant that we had more time in the ports and we ports on different days from the masses so they were uncrowded.

3. Try a cruise that includes Skagway...and book the train tour with Chilkoot Tours. Informative, scenic, delicious, and most importantly, not crowded. Mom and I booked this while some friends went with the cruise line's tour. Their train car was filled cheek to jowl with 45+ people. Our private car had...wait for it...10 people. Spacious, relaxed, and convivial..

Great suggestion. We will follow it if we can. Looks like that will be the case if we take HAL

4. Consider HAL. ...Because of their long-standing relationship with the various ports, they have prime docking rights. More importantly, they have seem to have first dibs on glacier access to Glacier Bay and other glaciers. And let's face it, the glaciers are the reason you're going to Alaska. .

They have an unusually good itinerary with both Glacier Bay and Hubbard Glacier as well as well as Skagway. If we don't do a small ship, HAL looks like the best one for us.

5. If #4 is acceptable, book a corner suite on one of the smaller HAL ships. These suites tend to be huge (500-700sqft) with accordingly wonderful balconies...

Not sure what counts as a smaller HAL ship. It looks like the only choices for the itinerary we would use are ms Noordam and ms Zaandam and I don't' see any remarkable corner suites on the deck plan.

6. Regardless of which cruise line you book with, look at the lunar calendar and try to book during a full moon. Trust me. This was my mother's brilliant idea on our last cruise, and it was...did I say already...brilliant. Sipping that last night cap, wrapped again in your trusty wool tartan blanket, watching the moonlight dance off the glowing waters of Glacier Bay is, well, priceless.

I'll consult the calendar and see what works.

Seabourn.

No contest.

forget the others..

 

Never sailed on Crystal, Regent, Silversea, or Seabourn. I bet they would really be amazingly plush, but maybe too stuffy and formal?

Pure speculation. Possibly a bit of sour grapes?

Pure speculation. Possibly a bit of sour grapes?

What an odd thing to say. Not sure what you mean by sour grapes. Everyone has a different tolerance for formality. I know what I like, but the OP stated she had a liking for things low-key. And everyone else has a feeling about it one way or another. And that's good, because they're all just putting in their opinions and trying to help.

:confused:

Not sure what counts as a smaller HAL ship. It looks like the only choices for the itinerary we would use are ms Noordam and ms Zaandam and I don't' see any remarkable corner suites on the deck plan.

Right you are, the "smaller" HAL ships (Zaandam, Volendam) don't have the wrap-arounds, but their Neptune Suites are quite nice. The larger ships (Noordam, Westerdam) have the aforementioned wraparounds.

As you have never been on ANY of the lines you mentioned as "too stuffy and formal"and as most people tend share opinions about their actual experiences, particularly negative ones, I was surprised to read this part of your post.

We live in WA state and have cruised Alaska many times. We also worked up there for several summers.

Whatever cruise you take, make sure it does the true inside. Many ships (out of Seattle) are cruising the ocean for much of it.

We also prefer smaller ships. Oceania looks like something we might try out of Seattle - not a

true inside cruise. But easy for us.

Do look closely at the route.

We enjoy Holland America's smaller ships (Volendam, Maasdam). True... Food has gone down in quality, more nickel and diming. But they do Alaska right. We've enjoyed taking their back-to-back cruises. Vancouver to Seward; stay on the ship and cruise back to Vancouver. I feel you really need to get up that far to experience the true splendor of Alaska.

I have looked into Regent, but they are expensive and include tours. Much, much better to stay away from the ship tours and do it on your own.

Caroline