My girlfriend and I chose this cruise primarily for the itinerary. Unlike all of the other ships to Alaska from Seattle, this one did not swing wide into the pacific on the return trip. Remaining closer to Alaska provided great views throughout the cruise, lots of humpback whales swimming within view, and smoother sailing. We chose the end of August/ first of September as it looked like a great time of year to visit Alaska, and most children (including mine) were back in school.

I've sailed on a few other Carnival and Royal Caribbean ships in the Caribbean Sea, and on those trips the excursions didn't seem too important to me, but on this trip we realized we wanted to seize the opportunity to get out and experience as much of Alaska as we could in seven days, so we researched and booked excursions for all three port days (Skagway, Juneau & Ketchikan) in advance directly with the excursion companies. I will add more info on them at the end. Once we were on the ship, we discovered that there was also an opportunity to get off the ship onto a smaller catamaran in order to get closer to the Sawyer Glaciers in the Tracy Arm Fjord, and we jumped on it too.

We couldn't have been luckier with the weather! It was cold and rainy the first two days of the cruise, including the Tracy Arm Fjord, however I'm glad it was because the rest of the cruise was sunny and warm, so these days made bringing all the warm rain gear worth it! They also helped bring out the wildlife. We watched a black bear hanging out right by the water in Tracy Arm, as well as many sea lions floating on icebergs near the glacier. The Cruise ship did make it quite far into the fjord, but the $200/person was worth it on the excursion just to get so close to the glacier and wildlife. After this excursion we warmed up in the outdoor hot tub on the Lido deck, were there was still some light rain, but we could see the walls of the fjord moving along outside the ship. Read more