Husband and I have been on a Princess cruise to Alaska many years ago. 50th anniversary coming up, want to treat our family to this experience. One family has girls who will be 12, 10 and 7 at cruise time. Their mother is a reluctant cruiser, afraid of sea sickness. Other family is 2 adults who love having fun, drinking, seeing nature.

I looked at the Norwegian Bliss, as it has tons of fun things to do, and would have a great kids program. However, it seems that all stops are tendered, and DIL might get queasy.

Prefer 7 days, but 10 would be considered. Like the ease of into and out of Seattle. That flight home (south Florida) from Anchorage was a killer.

I know Celebrity and Princess are lacking in the kids program area. Do you have any suggestions. Glacier Bay would be a plus.

We need an inside cabin (dear family friend), balcony cabin ( 2 adults), some kind of accommodations for a family of 5, and a balcony cabin (aft balcony??) for us.

It's generally acknowledged that Princess and Holland America "own" Alaska as it relates to mass market cruises. Both get the best docking locations, have the best naturalists aboard ship and in general give the best experience in Alaska.

Having said that we did an NCL Glacier Bay cruise a number of years ago out of Seattle. NCL was one of the first that cruised Alaska out of Seattle and coming from NYC we didn't want to have the long haul to Anchorage, as is the case with you.

As it turned out we should have taken Princess (our favorite cruise line). Believe it or not NCL wasn't allowed to sail into Glacier Bay due to a fuel leak, which for ecological reasons made sense but it was a huge disappointment to all of the passengers. NCL added Sitka to the itinerary in place of Glacier Bay.

Although we have taken many NCL cruises before and after Alaska and enjoyed them all, when we return to Alaska it will be on Princess.

By the way we received a substantial discount on our next cruise due to the Alaska fiasco.