Hi! I am in the research phase for an August 2026 Alaska cruise. I’m hoping to book the minute the itineraries open for the best room and excursion selection. This would be me, DH, DS10 (omg) and DS7 (in 2026) and my parents.
I don’t think we will be doing Disney or my fave RCL for this because we’ve decided that Glacier Bay is an essential for us and neither of those lines go there. Right now we are looking at a 7 night one-way trip to/from Vancouver on Princess cruise lines. The itineraries have not been released yet so I do not know which ships will be sailing.
I have done TONS of research but still feel a tiny bit outside of my comfort zone. From the different lines to the different ships to the different ports, etc. I welcome any advice or mini-trip reports, etc. Others can please feel free to ask their questions here too! I will post some specific questions in a bit. Thanks for all the help!
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I’ve only done NCL Bliss roundtrip out of Seattle last July, and I’m doing the same again in October (same ship, slightly different itinerary… we get Glacier Bay this time!). My main advice is don’t worry too much about what room you get, because an Alaska itinerary is pretty busy, and you’re really not in the room that much. We had a super bougie Haven suite last year and while the bigger room was nice for my mom (who spent a lot more time in the room), we barely used any of the Haven perks. This cruise I’m in a 3 person interior (unless the price drops and I can get them to upgrade us… good chance of that because the ship seems to be at least 50% empty and were only 106 days out).
Be aware that the cruiselines have all just come to an agreement with the city of Juneau that will dramatically reduce port calls there starting next year (like, they will have reduced daily ships, and there’s also a ballot initiative to have no ships at all one day a week with no ships at all) so itineraries will look different going forward… I don’t think any of them have announced how they will be planning around that yet.
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Thanks! So interesting about Juneau. That is where a lot of the good excursions are. I will have to watch the itineraries.
Thanks for the confidence with the room! We originally were looking at two connecting balcony rooms for the 6 of us. But the Princess rooms seem to be significantly smaller than RCL rooms so the bunks come out of the ceiling on top of us even in a balcony room! So now we are planning to get two interior rooms for my family and a mini suite for my parents. Even if we pay for a portion of my parents room (so we can share their balcony) it comes out a lot cheaper!
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Northbound vs. Southbound: We would like to do 2-3 days in Vancouver and 4-5 in Alaska. But I can’t really decide the order. The flights are definitely a factor and I was leaning southbound just so that when we are all done in Vancouver it’s just a straightforward direct flight home. But that puts a ton of travel on the front end.
I welcome advice on this as it’s my biggest conundrum right now. @clonghurst do you have any thoughts? Sounds like you are somewhat familiar with flights.
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We did Golden Princess from Vancouver to Whittier (7 days) in August 2019 followed by a tour package where we took a train to one of the cruise lines lodges near Denali then bused to another lodge and then to Anchorage where we stayed overnight before flying home.
We did a forest hike in Ketchikan and walked around the town, took the train trip to the Yukon in Skagway and went on a whale watching trip in Juneau. Glacier Bay was incredible. We spent part of the time there on our balcony enjoying the views without the crowds on the upper deck.
As I mentioned earlier, I definitely recommend a balcony cabin for the chance to sit outside and enjoy the view. We also really liked the talks by the naturalist about what wildlife we could expect to see. She set up on deck as we went through certain areas to point things out.
There were a lot of forest fires happening during our trip that did impact the land portion of our package. If we’d been a day later we wouldn’t have been able to take the train at all and there was concern we might not be able to get to Anchorage by bus on our way back or that our flight might not be able to take off because of the smoke! Luckily for us everything worked out with no delays.
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Another thing about the balcony is that when the ship is underway it can be very windy on the balcony… this is less so during the scenic cruising portion, but we doing we wanted to be somewhere we could easily see the other side at those times, so we usually were in public areas at the front or back of the ship. We went on the balcony on embarkation day, and I had coffee there a couple of mornings but other than that we never used it even though we had great weather.
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Flying from Anchorage to Vancouver was super easy and I imagine the reverse would be as well.
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Thank you so much for the details! I wish they were still sailing the Golden Princess!
We definitely want at least one balcony and my parents would be fine with us wandering across the hall in PJs to take in some early morning glaciers.
I am looking deeply into the Princess Lodges. They look great and there is a Copper River (creek!!) one that reminds me of Disney. I’m very worried about the length of the train rides with the kids though. I was alternatively looking at Homer and Kadilak Island instead of going to Denali but I’m not sure it’s that much shorter.
My parents are actually planning to fly into Calgary/Banff and do the scenic railroad from there to Vancouver. That’s a bucket list item for them but I don’t think it’s family friendly.
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There are a few (like 4 I think) “family suites” that are basically 2 bedrooms that would work for us but they are located completely forward and so many reviews said that the balcony was huge but completely unusable! Plus you had to “call” for the price so we knew they weren’t for us!
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Surprisingly enough, the annoying flight for me on the one way itinerary is the one going between Vancouver and Detroit. There are no nonstops, so it’s nearly as long a travel day as the flight to or from Alaska!
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How old will the kids be? We left ours at home with the grandparents and had an adult only cruise with DH’s siblings. There was a lot to see on the train ride and I seem to remember food being available.
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When we were looking at trips last summer the Princess suites were surprisingly affordable compared to the ones in NCL or Celebrity, because they don’t come with the exclusive “ship in a ship” concept… I might still have the quote email.
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Interesting. This is one of the ports I want to visit. And Skagway.
I haven’t even considered this with the pre-trip and post-trip aspect. 
I’m always concerned with Forward because this could be a very rocky location in rough seas. Maybe that isn’t as much of an issue in Alaska- at least in the more protected areas. I’m looking at a Jr. Suite for the balcony and extra room space. The balcony rooms look small square footage wise and I though the jr (or mini, cant recall) suites were reasonably priced.
They will be 7 and 10 in 2026. I really think that they will enjoy Alaska but 8 hours on a train feels so long. They did 4 hours on a train without a seat in December at 5 and 8 and they were fine but it was only once during a two week trip, not like 2-3 times.
DS8 will be ending 4th in 2026 so will have a national park pass that I’m sure he would love to use in Denali!
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It really isn’t… even on the roundtrip out of Seattle we only had one day where you really felt the ship move at all (our sea day, going from. Seattle up to the first port) because we were going very fast. After that we were moving pretty slowly and within sight of shore the rest of the time.
Our room was almost all the way forward, and at the very top.
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Mini suite is what my parents are going to get. They are somewhat forward but not literally on the front of the ship like the family suites!
I’m very surprised how small the rooms are on Princess. DH and I had an interior on Freedom of the Seas (RCL) and it still had a couch! No couch in a regular balcony seems so weird. How would you even enjoy the balcony with the door shut!?
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Someone here posted photos of their Princess balcony cabin last year and I just assumed it was an interior based on the size and the 2 uppers!
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One reason we choose oceanview over balcony is for the additional square footage. I find the interior and balcony jave similar room sq footage. There are exception. Some are called deluxe or family stateroom. But not all ships have them.
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Rumor has it that the Star Princess will do Alaska in 2026 and there are much better staterooms on her, but I don’t think it’s worth missing the inside passage for that ship as cool as she sounds.
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