There are plenty of good reviews on here about a lot of the aspects of cruises and cruisetours, but hopefully I can add a few new thoughts to these.   I am really glad I decided to do a cruisetour, and if the northbound cruise then land portion is at a good discount I would do it over a more expensive southbound one.  The in and out of lodges/coaches/trains is not the best way to see Alaska.  I'm glad I did it, but if I went back again, I would hire a car and go independently.  My son and I were the last people on the ship, our coach had a flat tyre on the way from Seattle, and then customs had a problem with his finger prints, so we literally flew through embarkation   The cruise was wonderful, the weather superb, and the staff, ship and facilities good.  We ate in Sabatinis and the steak restaurant, with the added price.  The steak was good, and probably worthwhile the extra $$, however we found Sabatinis dreadful.  This is our opinion, and I am sure many people love it.  Maybe as Australians we are spoilt on good seafood and meat, we thought the lobster had no taste and was like rubber, the rest of the meal was not much better.  We ate in a dining room the following 2 nights and thought the meals in there were much better.  The Horizon Cafe was good, considering it is buffet style, and the food sits around for a bit.  I was happy to get my breakfast and lunch there, although my one complaint would be the smoked salmon was ony served every second day.... and I live for smoked salmon, so learnt to get twice as much as I needed, and stored it in our cabin fridge for the next day.   One of the hardest things for Australians visiting the USA, is the sweetness of all the food, eg: even plain old bread is sweeter than ours.  And after one week I was craving a little vegemite... which most Americans hate.  It is just what we are used to and are brought up on.   I didn't go to any shows, they are not my thing, I went along and listened to a few talks on Alaska's glaciers/animals/plants etc, and found them interesting, but thought it could have been presented better with the addition of good photos or film.   The glaciers were amazing, and photos, film or tv of them cannot do them justice, and even with such a large ship up close to them, it wasn't until I looked down into the water and saw a small boat floating amongst the ice, that I realised how huge the glaciers really are.   Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway were great for a one day visit, and I really enjoyed our choice of hummer tour, helicopter and dogsledding, and tour in a cadillac.    The train to Talkeetna was good, the Talkeetna Moose Droping festival was on, and it was a bit of fun walking around town.  Mt McKinley Lodge was an hour drive from there, and the coaches went every hour from Talkeetna.  The service and food was very average, I heard they have a huge turnover of staff, and it showed.  It was great to get free internet in the main area of the lodge after the ridiculous price/slowness of the ship internet.  We saw the mountain all the time, although it was a little obscured by smoke from all the fires in Alaska/Canada.    Denali was good, tour into park was ok, although the highlight for me was listening to Carol, the Athabaskan woman who talked to us on her heritage and life... she brought tears to my eyes.   In Fairbanks we did the paddlesteamer tour, which was quite interesting, and hearing about the Iditarod race from David Monson, Susan Butcher's husband and seeing the recreated Athabaskan village was good too.  We left early the next morning to catch our flight to Anchorage/Seattle and spent the night in the Doubletree Hotel.... I think it was about a mile to our room, winding in and out of adjoining buildings.  My advice here would be to INSIST on a room close to the lobby.   None of rooms on the land portion provided by Princess had fridges, so we resorted to fillling up the rubbish bins with the free ice from the ice machines.    The four of us flew to Las Vegas the next morning early, and we had a fantastic time there, with the highlight being a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon, which included a short ride on the Colorado River.   It is great to be home after 21 days away.  I love going to different places, but as Dorothy said... there is no place like home.