Summer cruise season here in Seattle – the Stuck at the Airport homebase – runs from mid-April through mid-October.
And this summer a record-breaking 2.1 million passengers have reservations on 330 vessels heading north to Alaska in search of wildlife, glaciers, mountains, forests, fjords and more.
We flown, never sailed to Alaska, but this week we spent some time learning about what’s up with a least three of the more than dozen major cruise lines that makes runs to Alaska from here.
Holland America’s World Voyages
Many cruise line schedules include multi-month, 100+-day voyages that take passengers around the world or to multiple continents as part of a single journey. Bookings for these bucket-list trips fill up quickly.
Holland America’s Volendam ship stopped in Seattle on its way south from Alaska during its current 133-day Grand World Voyage.
The company is headquarted here, so there was an onboard party where were got to meet Lewie the Lion, the company’s mascot, and hear the big announcement of the itineraries for the line’s two 2028 Grand Voyages.
The two Grand Voyage itineraries include a 129-day circumnavigation of the globe or a 90-day deep dive into Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.
We fell in love with Australia and New Zealand a year ago on a 2-week Holland American cruise that added a long list of places to our “someday we’ll go back for more” list.
So that 90-day ‘deep dive’ trip would be an ideal way way to do it, if we could supercharge our savings plan now.
Princess Cruises hosts an Alaska-themed drone show
Princess Cruises’ newest ship, the Star Princess (capacity: 4000+ plassengers) recently set out for her inaugural Alaska sailing, with 20 roundtrips scheduled for the season.
To celebrate, the cruise line hosted a free Alaska-themed drone show by the Space Needle at Seattle Center that was really quite impressive.
Sampling Windstar’s ‘Star Seeker’
Windstar’s newest ship, the 112-suite Star Seeker, made its maiden voyage out of Miami in January and is spending the summer sailing to Alaska from Vancouver, B.C. before heading to Japan in the fall.
As the ship (Windstar calls it a yacht) made its way north, we were able to hop on board for the quick overnight leg between Seattle and Vancouver to test out the staterooms, the dining options and other onboard amenities.
We give thumbs up on it all.
And we learned one reason why one-day cruises like this might be so popular.
We met a couple who are big Windstar fans with a month-long trip to an exotic location already booked for later this year.
Seattle-area residents, they were taking advantage of the one-day cruise from Seattle to Vancouver cruise to get acquainted with the ship in advance of their 31-day residency. Smart!
(Image up top courtesy of Visit Seattle)
