Sugar&Buddy Posted November 4, 2022 #1 Share Posted November 4, 2022 Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neverbeenhere Posted November 4, 2022 #2 Share Posted November 4, 2022 (edited) Yes. many cruises to Alaska on Princess(lots), Royal(5+) , Celebrity(lots), Holland(2), Norwegian(1) All trips have been good to great. Yes, Princess does it the best, but I wouldn’t be afraid to take any line to Alaska. And we grew up in the NW. Edited November 4, 2022 by neverbeenhere 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynncarol Posted November 4, 2022 #3 Share Posted November 4, 2022 Unless things have changed, RC does not go to Glacier Bay National Park. So even though we have diamond status on RC, we chose Princess for our Alaskan cruise as it DOES go there. Glacier Bay NP was one of the highlights on our trip. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lenquixote66 Posted November 4, 2022 #4 Share Posted November 4, 2022 16 minutes ago, Sugar&Buddy said: Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out quickly. Our second best cruise ever was an HAL Alaska cruise in 2008.At that time we had yet to do a RCI cruise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynBeth6 Posted November 4, 2022 #5 Share Posted November 4, 2022 (edited) Our first cruise many years ago was on RC to Alaska out of Vancouver through the inside passage ending in Seward. We also did a few day land tour and it was amazing! Edited November 4, 2022 by CynBeth6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
time4u2go Posted November 4, 2022 #6 Share Posted November 4, 2022 1 hour ago, lynncarol said: Unless things have changed, RC does not go to Glacier Bay National Park. So even though we have diamond status on RC, we chose Princess for our Alaskan cruise as it DOES go there. Glacier Bay NP was one of the highlights on our trip. Same here. I would definitely recommend Princess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffT237 Posted November 4, 2022 #7 Share Posted November 4, 2022 We did our first Alaska and Princess cruise last May due to the itinerary that included Glacier Bay. Glacier Bay was the highlight for our cruise as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juanarcin Posted November 6, 2022 #8 Share Posted November 6, 2022 I'm looking into cruising to Alaska, never been. I'm also about about 20 points from Diamond on RC and so I was considering doing my first B2B on the ovation when it moves to Seattle. My biggest thing is I want to see Glaciers! Is Glacier Bay the way to go? I may do princess or others that go to Glacier bay as half of the trip and RC the other half if I have to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefly333 Posted November 6, 2022 #9 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Lol I did a carnival journey cruise, saw 2 glaciers. And thought it was my best ever cruise. Every line can be a great alaska cruise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nilbog Posted November 6, 2022 #10 Share Posted November 6, 2022 We've done Alaska twice, once on NCL and once on Royal. On Royal we went to Hubbard Glacier and on NCL we went to Glacier Bay (among other ports, of course). NCL was round trip from Seattle and Royal was northbound from Vancouver. We loved both cruises. I'm not sure you can go wrong with an Alaska cruise. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smq123 Posted November 6, 2022 #11 Share Posted November 6, 2022 On 11/4/2022 at 4:12 PM, Sugar&Buddy said: Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out quickly. Any cruise to Alaska is a great choice! If possible, definitely pick an itinerary with Glacier Bay. RCCL doesn’t go to Glacier Bay. For many, it’s the highlight of their Alaskan cruise. It’s truly beautiful. Also, pay close attention to the amount of time allotted to each port. We did a B2B on NCL Jewel in September & we had 6-8 hours at each port. The bigger NCL ships only spent a few hours at some of the ports which meant if they did an excursion there wasn’t much time for anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARandomTraveler Posted November 6, 2022 #12 Share Posted November 6, 2022 1 hour ago, Smq123 said: Any cruise to Alaska is a great choice! If possible, definitely pick an itinerary with Glacier Bay. RCCL doesn’t go to Glacier Bay. For many, it’s the highlight of their Alaskan cruise. It’s truly beautiful. Also, pay close attention to the amount of time allotted to each port. We did a B2B on NCL Jewel in September & we had 6-8 hours at each port. The bigger NCL ships only spent a few hours at some of the ports which meant if they did an excursion there wasn’t much time for anything else. It sounds like Glacier Bay is the "must see" of Alaska, I wonder why RC doesn't go there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare CruisingWalter Posted November 6, 2022 #13 Share Posted November 6, 2022 On 11/4/2022 at 4:12 PM, Sugar&Buddy said: Is RC a good choice for Alaska cruise? Princess highly recommended for cruisetours they are selling out quickly. Princess and Holland America are the best for Alaska, especially if you do a CruiseTour. We did a 14 days land/sea tour with Princess and will definitely do it again when we head back up to Alaska. The land portion was Fairbanks, Denali National Park and Copper River, then we met the ship in Whittier for 7 nights to Vancouver. That being said, if you want to go to Alaska on RC I would stick to the smaller ships. I believe Radiance and Enchantment are the two smaller ships slated for Alaska 2023. I see Radiance is doing the one way trips between Seward, Alaska and Vancouver. That is a great Itinerary and similar to the one we did on the Sapphire Princess. I have no idea how good the land tour portions are for Royal Caribbean. Princess owns their own hotels so the land portion is almost identical to the ship experience with the transfer of luggage and people from location to location. Alaska is less about what's on the ship and much more about the land itself. It's a breathtaking cruise. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare CruisingWalter Posted November 6, 2022 #14 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Oh and one more tip, if you go to Juneau on your trip, look up Harv and Marv for the whale watching expeditions. Very small boats and excellent captains. In Skagway, Temsco Helicopter tours for the real dogsled expedition up in the mountains. BUT that tour can be cancelled often due to low hanging clouds. If it is they'll give you the option of a refund or a helicopter tour to a glacier, which is what we did. There are 'dogsled adventures' near the port of Skagway, but there's no snow and while the dogs are cute, it's not nearly the same as taking the helicopter up to where there is still snow and you can sled with the dogs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
time4u2go Posted November 6, 2022 #15 Share Posted November 6, 2022 8 hours ago, juanarcin said: Is Glacier Bay the way to go? Yes, definitely! It was by far the highlight of the cruise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare OCSC Mike Posted November 6, 2022 #16 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Long review of my 2018 18-day trip in my signature if you're interested. It started with 10 days on land (DIY) followed by Southbound to Vancouver on Radiance. FWIW, traveling all the way from Fairbanks down to Seward before the cruise was the better part of the trip for us but all of it was amazing. Happy planning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linaka625 Posted November 6, 2022 #17 Share Posted November 6, 2022 9 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said: It sounds like Glacier Bay is the "must see" of Alaska, I wonder why RC doesn't go there. I think that RCI was banned from Glacier Bay many years ago. Can anyone confirm? I did a Princess cruise from Vancouver to Anchorage in June. It was probably my favorite cruise. The National Park rangers come onboard while you're cruising Glacier Bay. Also, a giant piece of glacier ice was brought onboard so passengers could touch it and take pictures with it. The whole cruise was incredible. Definitely try to pick an itinerary that includes Glacier Bay, especially if this may your only Alaskan cruise. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mek Posted November 6, 2022 #18 Share Posted November 6, 2022 (edited) I've done Alaska 3X with Princess, 1X with Celebrity, and 1X with a line that no longer exists. While I can't give you my opinion of Royal in Alaska, I can tell you that Princess wins hands down from my expreiences. The last time I was up there was the end of September, 2019 and I'm not sure if things have changed, but the food was great with wonderful seafood selections including king crab legs in the MDR. The Princess ships have always had an Alaskan vibe to them and the shore excursions and land extensions are excellent. IMO, the Princess lodges are the best. Edited November 6, 2022 by mek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latebuyer Posted November 6, 2022 #19 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Just a comment that royal caribbean is good for the second time you go to alaska. The cruise i’m going on goes to sitka, hubbard glacier and tracy arm, all stops princess and holland don’t go to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRUEBLUE66 Posted November 6, 2022 #20 Share Posted November 6, 2022 13 minutes ago, latebuyer said: Just a comment that royal caribbean is good for the second time you go to alaska. The cruise i’m going on goes to sitka, hubbard glacier and tracy arm, all stops princess and holland don’t go to. Going with Princess next summer. Hubbard Glacier is one of our scenic cruising days. I've picked Princess as it might be our only time to Alaska and 6 nights at the 3 different lodges with Glacier Bay on the cruise swung it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latebuyer Posted November 6, 2022 #21 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Royal caribbean is the only one i know of that goes to all 3 on the same cruise. I’m going on brilliance of the seas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
time4u2go Posted November 6, 2022 #22 Share Posted November 6, 2022 (edited) 44 minutes ago, latebuyer said: Just a comment that royal caribbean is good for the second time you go to alaska. The cruise i’m going on goes to sitka, hubbard glacier and tracy arm, all stops princess and holland don’t go to. Princess most definitely does go to Hubbard Glacier and to Sitka: Holland America also goes to Sitka. Edited November 6, 2022 by time4u2go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latebuyer Posted November 6, 2022 #23 Share Posted November 6, 2022 As i said, i challenge you to find a princess cruise that goes to sitka, tracy arm and hubbard glacier on the same cruise. I’m going to alaska for the second time and want to maximize new stops. Also, just a reminder this is a royal caribbean topic. I’m posting why you may want to take royal caribbean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latebuyer Posted November 6, 2022 #24 Share Posted November 6, 2022 If anyone knows of a cruise that goes to those 3 spots-hubbard, tracy arm and sitka-on the same cruise then please post-i never found one. Royal caribbean is unique in that regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latebuyer Posted November 6, 2022 #25 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Time4u2go’s post reminds me that there is another reason to go royal caribbean-royal caribbean sails the scenic inside passage out of vancouver while princess has very few roundtrip vancouver cruises. Note i didn’t say none, just very few. For my first cruise i sailed holland america which sails glacier bay but also has more vancouver roundtrip sailings. Still i’m not familiar with northbound or southbound routes-princess sails those from vancouver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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