Carnival to Alaska

[coffee39]

We are trying to plan our first cruisetour to Alaska. We have never cruised before. We have been told that Carnival tends to attract a younger/party crowd. Is this the case on the trip to Alaska too? We tend to go to bed early and get up at the break of dawn. HAL is a fair bit more expensive than Carnival. Would we be disappointed if we booked Carnival?

[gail811]

I cruised with my mom on the SB, from Whittier to Vancouver. I was 51 at the time, my mom 73. I was one of the "youngsters" on board! When I would go to get my coffee at 0530 I was NOT the first one up as is usual....there were plenty of older folks having coffee...dozens in fact! I think the cruisers that go to Alaska tend to be older. The Spirit was no party boat on our cruise! I think you will be pleased if you book with Carnival

[kellywhitehills]

We are trying to plan our first cruisetour to Alaska. We have never cruised before. We have been told that Carnival tends to attract a younger/party crowd. Is this the case on the trip to Alaska too? We tend to go to bed early and get up at the break of dawn. HAL is a fair bit more expensive than Carnival. Would we be disappointed if we booked Carnival?

We cruised on the Spirit this past July and found the crowd to be right about our age ..We are in our late 40s..and No I do not think you will be disappointed in Carnival..We had a wonderful time..

[mom23guys]

The Alaska cruise seems to be a more sedate crowd. All ages. I went on the Spirit last year. It was a fantastic trip. People tend to go to Alaska for the ports and scenery. Many of the excursions start early 6:30 or 7:00 AM. -not condusive to late night. Also those of us coming from the East Coast seem to be up at 5:00 or 5:30 AM so late nights were out. Midnight felt like 3 AM and later in the cruise 4 AM. (We went NB) It was funny that all my fellow cruisers up at 5:00AM on the Lido were from EDT.

 

We also planned our own post cruise tour, booked the train to Denali ourselves, stayed at McKinley Chalet which I also booked over the internet.

It was the best vacation we ever took.

[Traveling Fools]

Got back home from a Northbound Inside Passage Alaskan cruise on Carnical Spirit on Aug 20th. As was mentioned, there was a more sedate group aboard. My 29 year old duaghter and 29 year old niece were part of our group. My daugther works for the Ritz Carlton and got to know several of the hospitality staff. They told her passengers on the Alaskan cruises tend to roll up the decks early and are not big partiers. The only time I observed the bars crowded was between the dinning room's early and late seating. My guess most paxs were just sitting there waiting for the dinning room to open. The 1 or 2 nights DW and my sibilings prowled the ship's disco and dance bars were dead.