Aalaska round trip voyage from Seattle/Vancouver with 4/7 days in the mountains?

[sseibert3]

We have this question out with our PA but thought I'd post here.

 

We have not found an easy way to cruise to Ancorage/Whittier, spend a number of days in the mountains and sail back again to Vancouver/Seattle.  14 to 21 days.

 

Guesssing we'll have to b2b - a North Bound then a South Bound.  

 

3 Star HA but open to any options.

 

Wondering what others have found.

 

We are thinking May 2025.

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

 

Scott

[visagrunt]

One way voyages cannot involve Seattle/Anchorage because of the PVSA (there's no "distant" foreign port between Seattle and Anchorage).  They only operated to/from Vancouver.

There are only two ships doing Vancouver-Anchorage this summer (Noordam and Nieuw Amsterdam) and they alternate on Sundays.  If you're going to stay on HAL, you need to put the voyages a week apart.  Princess has similar cruises on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so you could put Princess together with HAL (or up and back on Princess) with a three or four day stay in Anchorage.

[cruisingrob21]

To make it a legal Seattle to Whittier/Anchorage, you need to do the cruise between Vancouver and Anchorage, and you'd use the cruise line transfer service from Seattle to get to vancouver.  It's about a 4-5 hour bus ride.  There is a train you can take (Amtrak Cascades) also which takes about the same time, or less than driving if border traffic is bad for road traffic.  Highly recommend the train routing, but I think there is only a 7am and evening train, so you are realistically looking at either a hotel in Seattle the night before, or a hotel in Vancouver.

[Mercruiser]

I really like your approach of spending 4 - 7 days in Alaska between cruises. Alaska is really easy to see on your own with a rental car. When cruising to/from Alaska, we normally get a one way car rental between Whittier/Seward and Anchorage (flying to/from Anchorage). There is a huge number of things to see on the Kenai Peninsula, including lots of mountains and glaciers. With a rental car, you can pull over any time to watch bears, elk, eagles, etc. In your case, you could probably return the car to the same location in Whittier/Seward.

 

Mixing cruise lines provides the most options, as Visagrunt points out: HAL one way, Princess/Celebrity/etc. the other way. Personally, I'd prefer to mix cruise lines for the variety of food and entertainment.

 

One more suggestion, May might be a bit early, depending on what you want to do in the mountains. A lot of trails would still be snowy/muddy. I'd wait until June.

 

I meet a lot of Texans in Alaska, getting away from the summer heat. Maybe you should come in August - the hottest month in Houston.

 

BTW - We will be spending the whole summer in Alaska camping with the truck and trailer. As part of that trip, we will spend a week at a waterfront camping spot in Seward, watching the ships come and go.

Edited April 2 by Mercruiser

[vicd1969]

Maybe an alternative - just take one cruise and spend more days on land in Alaska. As @Mercruiser mentioned, Alaska is really easy to see with a rental car. I would recommend flying into Anchorage or Fairbanks, then travelling to Denali, Homer, Seward, and then returning the car at Anchorage. Then take train to Whittier for your HAL cruise, or go earlier and stay one night in Whittier to do the boat tour of College Fjord. The northbound and southbound HAL cruises from/to Vancouver cover the same stops, except one different glacier (Hubbard southbound, College Fjord northbound). Plus, if you go southbound, you'll avoid the pleasure of 1.5 Hours+ standing in line at the US Border and Customs process outbound from Vancouver.

 

If you do want to do two cruises, I would recommend either HAL or Princess - Celebrity and Royal Caribbean get the further docks in the Alaska ports.

[Mercruiser]

On 4/2/2024 at 10:20 AM, vicd1969 said:

If you do want to do two cruises, I would recommend either HAL or Princess - Celebrity and Royal Caribbean get the further docks in the Alaska ports.

I agree with everything in your post, except I have a different outlook on the ports.

 

HAL and Princess dock in Whittier. All other cruise lines dock in Seward. Yes, Seward is farther away from Anchorage than Whittier. But Seward has a lot more to see than Whittier. Even if cruising in/out of Whittier, I recommend spending a day or more in Seward. (I'll be spending a week there this summer!)

 

Either way you go, the scenery between Seward, Whittier, and Anchorage is spectacular. The whole Kenai Peninsula is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

 

Here are some of the Seward attractions:

 

Kenai Fjords National Park - Access by Tour Boat. See whales, sea lions, tidewater glaciers

https://www.nps.gov/kefj/index.htm

 

Alaska Sea Life Center - aquarium

https://www.alaskasealife.org/

 

Seavey's Sled Dogs - 3 time winner of the Iditarod race

https://ididaride.com/

 

Exit Glacier Trailhead - You can walk to this glacier from the parking lot

https://www.nps.gov/kefj/planyourvisit/exit-glacier-area.htm

Edited April 4 by Mercruiser

[vicd1969]

3 minutes ago, Mercruiser said:

I agree with everything in your post, except I have a different outlook on the ports.

 

HAL and Princess dock in Whittier. All other cruise lines dock in Seward. Yes, Seward is farther away from Anchorage than Whittier. But Seward has a lot more to see than Whittier. Even if cruising in/out of Whittier, Seward is on my must see list for Alaska. It's worth spending a day or two in Seward. (I'll be spending a week there this summer!)

 

 

Sorry, wasn't clear on what I meant on further docks - i mean the pier/dock locations in ports like Juneau and Ketchikan. I do agree Seward has more things to do, hence preferably getting there by land and spending a few days there.

Edited April 4 by vicd1969

[Mercruiser]

6 minutes ago, vicd1969 said:

Sorry, wasn't clear on what I meant on further docks - i mean the pier/dock locations in ports like Juneau and Ketchikan. I do agree Seward has more things to do, hence preferably getting there by land and spending a few days there.

That makes sense. Another thing to add to your suggestion. HAL and Princess visit Glacier Bay way more than other cruise lines. You will want to cruise through Glacier Bay on one of your Alaska cruises.

https://www.nps.gov/glba/index.htm