Documentation for Victoria
 

I believe that you can visit Victoria on an Alaska cruise if you have an original birth certificate and a driver's license. Has anyone done that? Also if we take a minibus trip in Skagway up parallel to White Pass and it goes into Canada, is a birth certificate and perhaps expired passport or driver's license acceptable for coming back down into the U.S.

Your cruise line will need your passport before you can even board the ship if the ship is visiting a Canadian port.

There is also such a thing as "passport card" if you don't want to spend money on a real passport.

travel.state.gov Canada entry info have done it a
bunch they also run your DL # for DUIs and will
deny you entry even off a cruise ship for even 1.
Truly wierd but true.

No, this is not correct. If you take a cruise either stopping in or originating in Canada, you need a U.S. passport, passport card, or enhanced driver's license. A birth certificate and regular driver's license is no longer enough, not even if you are driving.

So while you can get INTO Canada with just a driver's license and birth certificate, that's not technically enough to get back into the U.S. regardless of how you are traveling. If you're a child, the requirements are somewhat less stringent.

Thanks everyone for your input. It's confusing because I found out the NCL document requirements page said an original birth certificate is enough if you are on a closed loop cruise starting and ending at the same port. Are they wrong?

NCL page - Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda, Alaska, Mexican Riviera, Or Canada & New England Cruises

For round-trip sailings (cruises that depart from and return to the same U.S. port), you may sail with either a valid passport, proof of citizenship and a valid government-issued photo I.D. (driver’s license with a photo), or any other WHTI compliant document.

Proof of Citizenship examples include:

State certified U.S. birth certificate
Original certificate of U.S. naturalization
Original certificate of U.S. citizenship

It's enough, but you aren't taking a closed loop cruise. You are taking a cruise that begins in some port (probably Seattle or Vancouver) and getting off the ship in Alaska. That's not a closed loop, which requires you to embark and disembark in the same port. On top of that, if you are taking a road trip that passes from Alaska into Canada, you have to go through border formalities.

I can't tell you specifically if any of NCL's Alaska itineraries are round-trips, but I can't think of one off-hand. There are some small-ship cruises that do round-trips out of Juneau and points north, but few, if any, big ships do anything but one-way cruises in Alaska.

Actually Holland America does have round trip cruises out of Seattle. The Westerdam is rounnd trip.

When we did the Seattle round trip trip Alaska cruise on Princess this past September, if a person did not have a passport they were not allowed to book excursions that would go into Canada and they were not allowed to disembark the ship in Victoria.

We did the Skagway train/bus tour into the Yukon and we did stop at the Canada border check point on the way back. An offical boarded our bus and thoroughly checked everyone's passport.

We were also required to show our passport disembarking the ship in Victoria and when returning back to the entry area where the ships are docked.

Personally, I wouldn't travel anywhere now days without a passport. Yes, they are very expensive, but they are worth it.

For Alaskan Cruise, if you take the Whitepass Yukon Railway to Carcross (typical stop), you are entering Canada and you are required to show your passport at the border crossing. They have a border officier board the train and ask everyone to hold up their passports. They don't inspect it or stamp it but they have the option if they wanted to.