Alaska by Land or Sea? What I Wish I Knew Before Booking Our Cruise

Glacier Bay

We took a seven-day cruise to Alaska. We spent less than 24 hours with our feet actually on the ground in Alaska.

Somehow, those two facts had never really connected in my brain before we went.

When you book a seven-day Alaska cruise, it feels like you’re booking a week in Alaska. And a week sounds like plenty of time to see the highlights, right?

Except a seven-day Alaska cruise isn’t seven days in Alaska. It’s seven days traveling by ship, with a few relatively short windows to actually get off and experience it.

I knew this, technically. I had seen the itinerary. I knew our port times. But apparently I had never done the very complicated math of adding them together.

Alaska was Bryan’s pick. He has exactly two bucket-list destinations—or at least he did before this trip: Alaska and Australia. I have roughly two dozen, which probably tells you something about both of us.

Alaska was considerably easier to get to, all three kids wanted to go, and another family we knew happened to be on the same sailing. A cruise seemed like an easy way to see Alaska without planning every hotel, drive and stop ourselves.

The ship was fun with plenty of activities for the entire family. And of course the scenery was beautiful. We sailed past mountains, forests and Dawes Glacier, and there’s something pretty remarkable about waking up, pulling back the curtains and finding Alaska outside your window.

By the end of the trip, though, I understood that seeing Alaska and experiencing Alaska weren’t quite the same thing for me.

That’s the part I wish I’d understood before we booked.

We Had Three Alaska Adventures Planned

Before we left, I had planned one big adventure for each of our three Alaska ports.

In Ketchikan, we’d go fishing. In Juneau, we’d take a helicopter to a glacier. And in Skagway, we’d ride the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway through the mountains and into Gold Rush country.

Three ports. Three adventures. It seemed pretty straightforward. Then Alaska started editing the itinerary.

Ketchikan: An Unexpected Catch

Salmon fishing had been our original plan for Ketchikan. There was just one problem: it wasn’t salmon season.

Our guide strongly recommended halibut fishing instead, so we changed course. We were not disappointed.

We spent the day out on the water, caught halibut and had our fish packed and shipped home on dry ice. Weeks later, we were eating something we had caught ourselves in Alaska. There is something particularly satisfying about being able to say, “We caught this in Alaska.”

Ketchikan was an easy adjustment. Plan A became Plan B, and Plan B turned out to be pretty great.

Juneau: Alaska Made a Few More Edits

Juneau required a little more improvising. We had booked a helicopter tour that would land on a glacier—one of the excursions I was most excited about. We arrived at the reservations desk only to learn that our tour was canceled due to inclement weather at their glacier landing zone.

Had this been a land trip, we might have tried again the next day. On a cruise, there is no next day. The ship is leaving with or without your helicopter tour.

So we spoke with other tour operators set up near the port and found a company whose helicopters were still flying. Great. Problem solved—except they only had three seats. There were five of us.

Our only option was to split up. Callan, Jake and I were giddy with excitement as we boarded the helicopter destined for the Mendenhall Glacier, where a glacier hike and airboat ride awaited us. Meanwhile, Bryan and Max took a floatplane over the glaciers en route to Taku Glacier Lodge. There they enjoyed an outdoor Alaskan salmon feast at Juneau’s only glacier-view dining spot.

Not what we had planned, but crisis averted. Everyone got an Alaska adventure.

Later, we wandered around Juneau and stumbled into the Red Dog Saloon—a wonderfully rowdy, old-school Alaska bar with live music and enough character to make you want to stay awhile. We tried a Duck Fart, a very unfortunately named shot made with Kahlúa, Baileys and Crown Royal. When in Rome. Or Juneau. It was delicious. We would have happily stayed, ordered food and listened to the music. Instead, we looked at the time.

Back to the ship. That was one of the first moments when the limits of cruising really registered for me. We had found somewhere we genuinely wanted to linger. And we couldn’t.

Jake, Callan, and I on Mendenhall Glacier.

Sitka: The Port We Hadn’t Planned On

Skagway was supposed to be our third Alaska port, and I was especially excited about riding the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway through the mountains along the historic Klondike Gold Rush route.

But before our trip, Skagway disappeared from the itinerary. Our ship was rerouted to Sitka because of ongoing concerns at the Skagway dock following the previous year’s rockslides. It was a completely understandable safety decision. It was also disappointing. We hadn’t just lost a port. We’d lost one of the three Alaska experiences we had specifically planned.

Sitka hadn’t been on our itinerary. So we regrouped, considered our options, and figured out how to make the most of the change.

We visited Sitka National Historical Park, walked the Totem Trail through the rainforest and saw its collection of Tlingit and Haida totem poles. We also stopped at Fortress of the Bear, where we got surprisingly close views of rescued Alaskan brown bears.

We enjoyed Sitka. We were still disappointed about missing Skagway. Both things can be true.

And that was the bigger problem I hadn’t considered when I booked the cruise. We had planned three Alaska adventures. One required a small adjustment. One required some serious scrambling. And one disappeared altogether.

On a trip where you have weeks—or even several days—in one place, that might not feel like such a big deal.

When you have three Alaska port days, it does.

Port Time Goes Faster Than You Think

This is the part I understood on paper but not in practice.

When I saw six- and eight-hour port stops on our itinerary, they sounded like plenty of time. We could get off the ship, do an excursion, explore a little and get back onboard. And technically, we could.

But if the thing you want to see is an hour or two from the port, remember: you still have to get back. Add transportation, meeting times and a reasonable cushion before the ship leaves, and that eight-hour day starts shrinking pretty quickly.

Suddenly, you aren’t asking, “What else should we do while we’re here?” You’re asking, “What time do we need to head back?” For me, those are two very different ways to travel.

I’m not particularly good at sitting beside a pool when there is something I could be climbing, hiking, exploring or possibly falling off of nearby. If we find a trail we want to hike, I want to hike it. If we stumble across a bar with live music and a ridiculously named shot, I want to stay for another one.

And if weather cancels something I’ve been waiting months to do, I want a tomorrow. On a cruise, every adventure has an expiration time.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some people may read this and think, Six hours is plenty. I’ll see the glacier, eat some crab and be back onboard in time for a cocktail. Those people may be very good at cruising.

I am beginning to suspect I am not.

Our Kids Loved

this Cruise

Our three teenage kids truly enjoyed the cruise.

Another family we knew happened to be on the same sailing, which meant they had friends to hang out with onboard. We went on different excursions and did plenty of our own things—but having friends on the ship was definitely a bonus.

There was plenty to keep the kids entertained. Between the pool, bumper cars, sports, the teen club and everything else happening onboard, they were perfectly capable of entertaining themselves.

For parents, there is a lot to love about that. No one is asking how much longer until you get there. No one needs to be entertained in the back seat. And you don’t have to find a restaurant every night that five people can agree on, which might actually be Royal Caribbean’s greatest achievement.

But there was a tradeoff I hadn’t expected. On our land trips, we spend most of the day together. We’re in the same car, hiking the same trail, and eating at the same restaurant. On the ship, the kids had their own things to do—and understandably, they wanted to do them. That independence was one of the reasons they loved cruising.

It was also one of the reasons I realized I prefer the way we travel on land.

The Question I Wish I’d Asked Before Booking

Before this trip, I was asking the obvious questions: Which ship? Which itinerary? Which excursions?

I should have been asking something simpler: What am I willing to trade for convenience?

A cruise gives you a lot. You unpack once. Your transportation, lodging and meals travel with you. You wake up somewhere new without having to get yourself there. There are activities for the kids, entertainment at night and no daily debate about where everyone is going to eat. That’s a pretty good deal.

But in exchange, you give up some control over your time. The ship decides when you arrive, when you leave and, occasionally, where you’re going in the first place.

Land travel gives you more freedom, but you have to earn it. Hotels. Rental cars. Driving. Restaurants. Packing and unpacking. Figuring out what everyone is doing tomorrow.

Neither is inherently better. The question is which tradeoff fits you better. And that’s where this quiz comes in.

Want to take the quiz later? Download the printable version to save, print, or share with your Alaska travel crew.

What I’d Do Differently Next Time

I wouldn’t skip Alaska. And I wouldn’t necessarily skip the cruise. I’d just make sure the cruise wasn’t our entire Alaska trip.

Next time, I’d add several days on land—rent a car, stay in a few places and leave enough room in the itinerary to change our minds. If weather canceled something, we could try again tomorrow. If we found a trail we wanted to hike, we could hike it. If we stumbled into another Red Dog Saloon, nobody would be checking the clock. I’d want to stay somewhere long enough to have a tomorrow.

Because now I know that’s something I need from a vacation.

So, Would I Take an Alaska Cruise Again?

Yes.

I liked the cruise. The kids loved it. Waking up to Alaska outside our window was pretty incredible, and there is a lot to be said for unpacking once while someone else handles the transportation. I just wouldn’t confuse seven days on an Alaska cruise with seven days in Alaska again. The cruise wasn’t the problem. We just discovered that we didn’t want a taste of Alaska.

We wanted more of it.