Cruises and holidays abroad - Destination Alaska

For more than 580 thousand miles Alaska stretches out eith breathtaking scenery, glaciers, mountains and fjords.

There are two basic Alaska itineraries: The classic “Inside Passage” cruise begins and ends in Vancouver. It is a round-trip, one-week cruise, named because it lies within a long chain of coastal islands which act as a buffer from the open waters of the North Pacific. An “Inside Passage” cruise usually includes visiting tidewater glaciers, such as those at the head of narrow, cliff-sided Tracy Arm, or those found in the many inlets of Glacier Bay.

The “Glacier Route” itinerary includes the Gulf of Alaska in a one-way route between Vancouver and Anchorage. These straight-line cruises are referred to as the “Glacier Route” because they include some of Alaska’s most impressive tidewater glaciers, such as Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay and Columbia Glacier in College Fyord, Prince William Sound.

Alaska offers one of the widest ranges of shore excursions of any cruising area and it is one of the main reasons that people will choose to take an Alaskan cruise.

Most passengers take an Alaskan cruise to enjoy its relatively unexplored wilderness. Trips to glaciers, fjords and mountain lakes are a must. Other shore excursions include floatplanes & helicopter flights seeing over the glacier-filled valleys and rugged mountains, flying low enough for passengers to see mountain goats and other wildlife such as roaming bears. Passengers can also take rafting, boating and kayaking excursions. Back to top What wildlife Wildlife can include killer, humpback and minkie whales, dolphins, porpoises, sea otters, bears and bald eagles. To make the most of an Alaskan cruise more and more passengers are opting to extend it with an overland stay.

Alaska has an extensive programme of land tours, which can include plying the Yukon River on board a paddleboat or taking a private railcar to Denali National Park to view North America’s highest peak - Mt McKinley. Another overland tour, out of Vancouver, is a coach tour or rail journey to the Canadian Rockies, where the Banff and Jasper National Parks are famous for their alpine display.

The 49th state of the USA is the largest in the Union, and boasts eight National Parks. ź Nearly a third of the total land area lies inside the Arctic Circle. ź The people are from mixed descent; the indigenous Indian tribes maintain much of their tradition and culture, living alongside descendants of the gold prospectors who started to arrive at the end of the 19th century.

Ports of call visited on an Alaskan cruise include: · Anchorage - Alaska’s largest city. · Juneau - the capital of Alaska, founded in the 19th century by gold prospectors. It is the second largest city in the world if measured by area, yet with a population of under 25,000. · Ketchikan - on one of the many islands of the Alaskan Panhandle, began as an Indian fishing village. · Skagway- one of Alaska’s tiniest outposts, although 20,000 gold prospectors once visited. · Sitka - the former capital of Russian America, is where the official transfer of Alaska to the United States took place in 1867. · Seward - is a fishing port on the Kenai Peninsula.

Most of the voyages are on large ships offering traditional experiences including all the luxury and comfort passengers associate with cruises. There are also smaller ships that can cruise into areas some of the larger vessels have to miss, getting even closer to the glaciers.

In summer the climate is mild and moist, and it is possible to enjoy twenty-one hours of sunshine in a single day, and the temperature can rise to 28 degrees.

Alaskan cruise itineraries are fly-cruises, flying from an airport in the UK to Vancouver, although a few do start in San Francisco and others from Alaska’s own ports of Seward and Anchorage.