Alaskan Cruise in June

I posted this in request-a-deal, but forgot about the travel section (whoops)

I am looking for a online site or some agency in GTA or london that deals with alaskan cruises. Any suggestions?

Also, post your experiences with the various lines.

Thanks!

I have used vacationstogo.com (based in Houston, TX) for my cruises. You might want to search around on the net to get an idea of how much they cost, and then take it in to a B&M TA to see if they'll match or come close to it.

I've been on these lines and have observed the following:

Carnival - younger crowd
Princess/Royal Caribbean - middle aged/mixed
Celebrity/Holland America - older crowd

I tend to stick with Princess and Royal Caribbean. I found Carnival cruises to be too rowdy.

Have heard good things about both Bob's Cruises (located in Oakville), and also Cruiseshipcenters. (I'm not affiliated with nor have used either one).

For Alaska, most prefer either Holland America or Princess.

Check out rec.travel.cruises on USENet.

Stephan

Originally Posted by PennyArcade

I posted this in request-a-deal, but forgot about the travel section (whoops)

I am looking for a online site or some agency in GTA or london that deals with alaskan cruises. Any suggestions?

Also, post your experiences with the various lines.

Thanks!

Check out cruisecritic.com... makes for some good reading.

Originally Posted by UncleSteve

...
For Alaska, most prefer either Holland America or Princess....
Stephan

The reason being they are the only two with access to some of the best (restricted) areas, happen to be two of the top larger cruise lines as well. I would not consider any other line for an Alaskan cruise.

thanks for all the replies!

Question: is 12 days a good number for the cruise? I see a lot of 7 day deals, but that seems a bit short.

Originally Posted by PennyArcade

thanks for all the replies!

Question: is 12 days a good number for the cruise? I see a lot of 7 day deals, but that seems a bit short.

I'd say both are good. Once you've been there a few days, the scenery starts to look the same.

Also depends on which age demographic you're in. On 12 day cruises, you are more likely to see a senior crowd as it is more difficult for the younger, working crowd to get that much vacation time at once. The 7 day cruises would see more younger passengers.

Scenery-wise, I know that many folks prefer their Alaska cruises to be one-way either northbound or southbound, as opposed to 7-day round-trips, but this does involve an open-jaw air ticket. The one-ways have more ports, and also more scenery (ie - more cruising the Inner Passage, etc.)

Stephan

Oneway cruises are more costly as you have to pay to fly to Anchorage ($1000 or so), but yes the cruise is some better. 7 days is long enough, if you want to do longer you could look at the cruisetours that include some land, Alaska maybe Yukon. They are a lot more money but make for a worthy vacation.

one way to get around the expensive flight from ANC is to book an open jaw FF ticket. most FF programs will allow you to fly into YVR and back from ANC for the same amount of points as a regular NA ticket.