Alaska
 

Today I met yet another person who raved about their cruise to Alaska. Just for conversation, has anyone gone (or even met anyone who has gone) and not been totally taken with Alaska.

Drove to Alaska once and cruised there once. Loved it both times. Have booked a 14 Alaska Cruise this year. Good luck on finding someone who didn't like Alaska. ;)

Utahtea

I was not taken with Denali. The 12 hour ride on a school bus with scary switchbacks and no guard rails had a lot to do with that. Beautiful scenery, but animals per hour were not a lot. Loved the rest of it, though. If I had it to do over I would have spent more time on Kenai or driven to Valdez.

Gail, thanks for sharing that personal experience.

We've done two Alaska cruises and one cruise tour and loved it. But I agree with gail, would rather have gone to the Kenai peninsula rather than Denali, we just saw some bears and caribou in the distance. The Mt McKinley flight was something else though!

For the record we were totally taken with Alaska and would consider doing it again though this time it would be with a cruise/land package combo. The natural beauty is breathtaking and its the last frontier in a way. :-)

On our trip we did both Kenai Peninsula and longer Denali trip - school bus, no guard rails, pouring rain on a muddy road - and loved it all. The Kenai trip was spectacular although high speed in an open boat was incredibly cold. Would do both again.

Reme, "school bus, no guard rails, pouring rain on a muddy road - and loved it all."
You must be a great traveler!

Jacket, You are another real traveler, you appreciate everything, food, history and "natural beauty"

Your personal experiences are more interesting than brochure descriptions.

Spent some time thinking on this question this AM. It is difficult to separate Alaska the experience and Alaska the "there is no place else like this" part. If one travels, it is almost certainly on a list of places they feel they must go. Where else can you see the types of glaciers, wildlife, raw scenery in the US? We have been on several warm water cruises, and I think I enjoyed the experience of them more - sitting on deck in the sun, cool drinks on hot days relaxation. Alaska cruise was different. It was all about what we were going to see rather than what we were going to wear or eat.

gail there is a great deal of truth to that as I agree that the best part of Alaskan cruises are the excursions on shore.

But then there were monents on the ship such as a tranquil cruise thru Tracy Arm bout 0500 where from the balcony you can see the ice flows which appear blue for some reason pertaining to physics which I can't grasp. :D. However there was a peaceful to that moment that while being a little cool on the balcony ( wearing a hoodie was enough) it was something I'll always remeber. Maybe it was partly due to the early hour in that you felt you had this all to yourself. There were others awake too and they seemed to be enamored by the beauty of it all as well.

As for food just skip the reindeer sausage. :D.

Sass, yes ... DW's older sis's hubby. His claim was nothing to see there but ice and snow, boring, too cold, not enough action, waste of time ... There is no reasoning with people like that :D

I loved my experience in Alaska, but my spouse, less so. There were two downsides to our experience:

* Though we went in late May because there supposed to be less rain, it was overcast or rained six out of seven days.
* Our travel agent promised us many wildlife sightings and in seven days, we only saw the very tip of a whale's fin from very far away.

Yet, the beauty of the landscape, the quaint frontier towns and uniqueness of the experience made it all worth while. I have some postings on my blog on planning for an Alaska trip, if you're interested, http://musingaboutcruising.blogspot.com.

Denali was beautiful. We say many animals. The 12 hour bus ride flew by thanks to the wonderful narration, stops , scenery and animals. The switchbacks were nothing compared to driving in the Alps and driving Ireland's narrow roads with stone walls instead of shoulders.
Flying around the tip of Denali and the Alaskan range (with Northern lights coupons) was take your breath away, pinch me, incredible beautiful vistas. We also drove around the Kenai Peninsula. (2 weeks driving total including Denali)
The small boats we took out of Seward and Whittier provided us with up close views of Orcas, dolphins, sea lions, sea otters, whales, eagles and up close glacier calving. Just from the car we saw many moose and bears. This was 2 years ago.
Last summer we found a super rate on an Alaskan cruise (we had never cruised before). We loved the relaxed pace, scenery and the towns were fine. As far as seeing everything much closer, the driving and small boat sightseeing was superior. We spent a great deal of time on deck searching for sea life but only spotted a couple fins and the sea otters, which are 4-5 ft long always looked like a large stick from up high on the ship. We were on Princess and the food and entertainment were both good.