Trip Introduction – Alaska Cruise on Holland America
Lodging Review: Element Seattle Downtown
Our Time in Seattle
Ship Review: Holland America ms Noordam
Our Time in Kodiak, Alaska
Our Time in Anchorage, Alaska
Our Time in Valdez, Alaska
Our Time in Juneau, Alaska
Our Time in Ketchikan, Alaska
Our Time in Prince Rupert, British Columbia
Hullo Ferry Between Nanaimo and Vancouver
Welcome to my next trip report where I’ll cover my late-summer cruise, which was round-trip from Seattle to Alaska.
A friend from Australia already had this cruise booked, so when my Los Angeles-based friend – who had never been to Alaska – suggested we join her, it sounded like a great idea. My only visit to Alaska was a cruise in 2005 so I was happy to go back.
Booking the trip
Booking the Cruise
I work for a non-traditional airline (we move packages, not people) but we still qualify for interline discounts. I have used standby seating once before and ended up spending all day in an airport and missing a day of work, so I don’t typically use my flight benefits (I’m not eligible to fly on our cargo planes). But for hotel discounts and – in this case – cruise discounts, it works quite nicely. I have been receiving a couple of emails a week from a certain company for the 20+ years I’ve been an employee but this was my first time to use them. When we saw the discounts we’d be receiving, we were able to book a cabin that was a couple of categories higher than what we might otherwise have done had we been paying list rates. I will be keeping this in mind for the next cruise I book from scratch! (I’ve already booked my 2027 cruise.)
The cruise both departs from and returns to Seattle after a two-week jaunt, so I only needed domestic airfare this time around. We were booking our airfare in February, during a time when the US government’s actions were causing airfare to shoot sky high (where they remain at this writing). The good news was that I was able to find some reasonably-priced airfare in domestic first class using frequent flyer miles. The bad news was that while the outbound itinerary was a 1-stop journey, I would have to take a 2-stop routing back home. The other bad news is that because the ship docked at 7 AM on its final day, I didn’t dare book a flight before about 11 AM, which meant even if I could have found a 1-stop itinerary I wouldn’t get home until very, very late. Fortunately the return date was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, so I had a day off before I had to return to work.
Booking the Lodging
Since we were arriving in Seattle two days before the ship departed, we needed somewhere to stay. I decided on the new Element Seattle Downtown as that allowed me to use my annual free night certificate (plus some points) for one night and points for the following night as well.
Booking the Flights
I had planned to fly to Seattle on a Saturday before our cruise left on a Sunday but was unable to find any reasonably-priced airfare using either cash or miles. I was finally able to find flights on American Airlines with one segment on Alaska Air though I had to depart on Friday evening. Outbound, my routing was a simple change of planes in Dallas/Fort Worth, while on the return I had three flights on regional jets. My first stop was the Tri-Cities airport (PSC) in Washington state. After a 3-hour layover there I flew to Phoenix where I then had to hustle to catch my connection back to Memphis. This cost me 62,500 American Airlines miles in domestic first class. As it turned out I was glad I booked in First because my luggage was a bit over the usual 50-lb weight limit since I wanted to take just one checked bag.
My flight path. My friend had a simple up and back between LAX and Seattle.
Cruising to Alaska
This was my first time on a Holland America ship. As a Viking aficionado I was curious to see what the differences would be. As we began planning this trip I did consider Viking but it was much more expensive and we also wanted to be on the same ship as our Australian friend so I didn’t even check to see if I could get a discounted rate.
As you can tell from the table of contents above, we had quite a few stops both in Alaska and in British Columbia. Our ports of call were: Kodiak, Anchorage, and Valdez, Alaska, Juneau, and Ketchikan, Alaska, and Price Rupert, and Nanaimo, British Columbia. Between Valdez and Juneau we were supposed to have visited the Hubbard Glacier, but the weather made that unsafe and the captain made the decision to turn the ship around and head for Juneau. It was disappointing but of course with rain, fog, and ice chunks in the water he did the smart thing.
Following our Australian friend’s lead, we didn’t book many shore excursions but chose to enjoy the port towns instead. In Nanaimo we took the ferry across the Strait of Georgia to North Vancouver where we met up with a friend who lives nearby.
This trip report will be a little different from my usual ones that delve into the history of places a bit. I expect this to be more a collection of photo essays with a few details here and there.
In the end
We had a wonderful time on a trip. It was great to be able to spend a lot of time with our Australian friend who we hardly ever get to see and to catch up with our friend in Vancouver. I hope you’ll enjoy following along and feel free to chime in with questions or suggestions for others.
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