Anyone do a cruise to Alaska?

[khalloc]

Best cruise lines to go with? We'd probably be going with kids. Either next year or the 2017. If next year, they'd be 10 and 8 years old. My father has Parkinson's. He's always wanted to do a cruise to Alaska. I'm thinking it would be a nice trip to do with him while he can still get around. He's turning 69 next month.

I've only been on 1 cruise before from Boston - Bermuda about 20 years ago. Parents have only done that same cruise, but about 3 times.

What are things to think about when you are cruising with kids? What upgrades are worth paying for? Who will have the best price? Cruises arent really my thing, but would like to do something my dad would love. How cold is it when you are on a cruise to Alaska in say, mid-June?

[smilequeen]

We did Disney and everyone loved it. Ours was in July and it was apparently abnormally warm and sunny and dry when we went. Like 60s and we didn't get much rain. The weather there we were told to expect 50ish and drizzle...typical NW kind of wetness.

-On boat, my kids don't swim when it's cold like that, so they only swam when we were in Vancouver the first day. My oldest was 9.5 and spent most of his time on the boat playing soccer on the roof with other kids. He was in heaven. My other two enjoyed the kids club, especially my middle who was 7 at the time. They also loved the arcades, playing ping pong on the roof, shuffleboard, the movies and shows.
-The best excursion we did was the whale watching in Juneau. We lucked out and got to follow around a group that was bubble net feeding that day. Awesome. You get to be close, although I am glad we were not THIS close


-We did one of the milder dog sled excursions too and my kids loved that and it was good for my then 3 year old and both sets of grandparents that were with us.
-There was a day where we spent the whole day going out to a glacier. Having a room with a balcony made that day so much more enjoyable. The roof was pretty crowded with people taking pictures and we got a great view from our own room.

[rlu]

If you do a search, I think you can find where I listed out the excursions we did both with and without DS. I've been on several lines - Regency (out of business), Princess and Royal Caribbean. I definitely prefer RC. DS was 5ish when we went on RC. He did two of the kid club things but overall we just kept him with us - he loved shuffleboard and ping pong so there were never any "bored" moments. Your kids are old enough I wouldn't worry about entertaining them on the ship.

If you allow soda, getting the soda pass (not sure what it's called) is the only upgrade we got. We had a standard interior room for 3. We spent little time in it. Excursions are where we spent our money.

Alaska is much hotter than one would think. The first trip my sis and I left the ship with our long johns and sweaters and we're stripping in the first public restroom we could find (take layers and a backpack). It is cold on deck due to the breeze.

If there is any way you can get to Sitka, I highly recommend it - St. Michaels; the fort; and the ARRC (Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center) were all interesting and I really liked the peace and quiet of the Russian cemetery as a way to end the day. I don't know that the main cruise lines go there any more.

For both RC and Princess I have done the cruise/landtour combo. I found it worthwhile and wish we had done that with DS. If you go to the interior, DH and I enjoyed Husky Homestead (puppies!) but you don't get an actual sled ride, so if you want that (and I would for DS) look around. PP mentioned one.

Cruisecritic might point you to pricing guides - I know this last one we booked around Valentine's Day for a summer cruise.

eta: not as much info as I remember writing - maybe I was sending an email to a friend, some days I wonder where my mind has gone. http://windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/sho...ghlight=alaska

[echoesofspring]

I worked on a Princess boat about 20 years ago for about 6 weeks doing just inside passage trips, DH and I did another cruise to alaska about 6 years ago on HA. My biggest gripe about the HA trip was the itinerary, there was a lot of open water time and it was a much rougher cruise than the ones I had done with Princess. If you can get an itinerary that sticks mostly to the inside passage and just goes into open water at the end or the beginning do that. One of the issues is whether the cruise begins and ends at the same port (more open water for a 1 week cruise), vs. going just up or down the IP. It may be that the boats are too big these days to do much traveling in the IP, I'm not sure. In hindsight I wish DH and I had splurged on excursions, we didn't buy any ahead of time due to sticker shock and then they were mostly sold out by the time we got into port. Juneau was the only place we did something. Sitka, Skagway, Victoria, even Juneau are pretty on their own, especially if you like hiking, etc. Not so much to do in Ketchican or Seward if you haven't signed up for a tour/excursion.

We were there in late July and I ended up buying a thermal shirt and hat in Juneau. You just don't know what the weather will be.

We did have a balcony for the HA cruise and it was incredible to sit there during our time in Glacier Bay and the inside passage.

[Momit]

We did a Princess cruise last August and loved it. We had done the exact same itinerary with our parents about 10 years ago, this time we went with DS and our friends. The shore excursions in Alaska are awesome. You have so many to choose from at every port. It's hard to decide what to do. We also added the land tour to Denali. You do pretty much need to take a long bus excursion to get far enough into the park to see elk, moose, bears etc.

We did the helicopter glacier tour, Mendenhall glacier float, whitewater rafting near Denali, Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve raft trip (awesome), White Pass Railway, lumberjack show (kind of cheesy but kids enjoy it). I also highly recommend one of the day cruises operated by Kenai Fjords tours out of Seward. You get to see puffins and orcas plus lots of other wildlife.

[teresah00]

DH and I went 11 years ago (early July) for our honeymoon. We went on Norwegian cruise line inner passage. It was worth it for us to upgrade to the balcony. We spent a lot of time just standing out there. There weren't really many kids on the cruise, but we didn't have any at the time. We were significantly younger than most people on the ship. We had a fantastic time. Took a helicopter ride to dogsled on a glacier. It was $$$ but totally worth it.

[suzi]

Did Disney Cruise Lines with DH's parents and my kids this summer. I've done NCL and RCI lines for Caribbean routes in the past. Itinerary with Disney worked well on our trip, so we chose them. Like that they do not have casinos and there are limited # smokers on board. Pricey, but there is less nickel and dime-ing on Disney vs others, and it is always very well done. RCI has great activities on board, and may be better for us as the kids age.

[khalloc]

Did Disney Cruise Lines with DH's parents and my kids this summer. I've done NCL and RCI lines for Caribbean routes in the past. Itinerary with Disney worked well on our trip, so we chose them. Like that they do not have casinos and there are limited # smokers on board. Pricey, but there is less nickel and dime-ing on Disney vs others, and it is always very well done. RCI has great activities on board, and may be better for us as the kids age.

The Disney ones do look nice but the lack of casinos would be a deal breaker I think. None of us are big gamblers, but I think all of us would enjoy being able to go to the casino for a half hour or so every now and then.