I try to be helpful to readers here and in my Trip Advisor posts. So this post is mostly about Alaska and cruising the Inside Passage rather the SilverSea, the cruise line I was on (spoiler alert-they are nearly perfect). To cruise Alaska is tricky and requires some insight. I will focus on the typical 7-day Anchorage to Vancouver trip.

To start with, begin your trip in Anchorage, not Vancouver. The port for Anchorage is Seward which is a 4 hour train ride from downtown Anchorage. Granted that some of the scenery is gorgeous but it is still a 4 hour train ride at the start of your journey. But I would much rather get this out of the way at the start. Doing it this way, you also end up in Vancouver, and not Anchorage, which is not a visually or culturally interesting city. It is a place to pass through on the way to somewhere. Vancouver on the otherhad is one of the most culturally vibrant and visually beautiful city in North America. A perfect place to add a few more days to your trip. So fly into Anchorage the day before, spend the night at the Thomas Cook Hotel, a mammoth hotel serving the cruise trade, and then Silversea or other cruise line staff will come and collect you in the morning for the ride to Seward.

The second MAJOR tip about cruising Alaska is that this trip is all about the excursions. The first majestic sight doesn’t require an excursion, because you will sail by the Hubbard Glacier and this is truly jaw dropping. Pray for good visibility. You will see this Glacier, a frozen aqua blue river, from miles away. As you near it, it keeps getting bigger and bigger, its nearly a mile high, one of the most majestic sights in North America. Read more