Is one side better than the other for northbound Alaska?

[terigo]

I went to a certain site to see what cabins were still available for our Alaska cruise on the Millennium.

Interestingly, almost all the starboard cabins with balconies were sold out, whereas there were plenty of port cabins still available, including the sweet 16.

Can I deduce from this that starboard is better heading up the coast?

Teri

[BCguy100]

Yes ... although you will have some views of islands, the 'mainland' is mostly on the starboard.

 

M

[sandyss]

Starboard is best. We were so glad that we were on the starboard side when the Millennium spent an unscheduled 4 days in Ketchikan.:D

[kathynorth]

We took a northbound Alaska cruise on the Millenium a few years back. It was one of our favorite vacations ever. Some people feel that starboard is best because of the consistent view of the mainland, so if there were lots of choices I'd go with starboard. However, there are lots of times when the ship was so far off shore that you can only see the outline of the shoreline, trees, and mountain tops. We had a portside balcony and had great scenery on that side too, which is an advantage to sailing through the inside passage out of Vancouver. If I found a sweet 16 on a date that worked for me then I'd grab it, even if it's portside. When you visit Hubbard Glacier the ship turns around, so you can see the glacier from both sides of the ship. You'll probably want to be topside for this anyway. Traveling in and out of Icy Strait Point and Juneau are your best chances for seeing whales. Whales can't tell which is the port or starboard sides of the ship, so there is no advantage in this respect. We were lucky and saw whales from our portside balcony.

[terigo]

Thanks for the info, everyone.

As it stands we apparently lucked out when we booked 4 months ago, cos we got one of the sweet 16 on the starboard side. It just worked out that way. Now those are all gone.

So looking forward to this cruise!

Teri

[stereo]

Hi all Please what or where is a suite 16---thanks

[terigo]

Hi all Please what or where is a suite 16---thanks

The first 8 balcony cabins on each side of Deck 6 on the Millennium class ships have much larger balconies than the others in the class of cabin (regular 2c). For this reason they are called the sweet 16 and are a virtually unknown bonus to Celebrity reservations and most travel agents.

We booked cabin 6028 on our upcoming cruise for this reason.

Google sweet 16 Millennium and then go to images....you will see what I mean

Teri

[Oz_Steve]

Reading this site some time ago I recall some posters waxing lyrical about aft cabins for Alaska itineraries. We have booked them on the Century in August next year so we are looking forward to that. We got the Century Suites so I hope they are ok.