Alaska Cruise

Alaskan Cruise 2015

“To the wilderness lovers, Alaska is one of the most wonderful states in the world.”

~John Muir

brinyquote.com/quotes/john_muir

June 25, 2015

Ever wonder what it would be like to go on a cruise to Alaska? Well if you ever consider doing one, I highly recommend you do it through Princess Cruises, it is what my family did and it was truly memorable! And here I’ll go into detail about the cruise ship, the places it stopped at, and some of the fun excursions my family did to give you ideas on how to plan one if you ever do. 

The cruise ship we were on was called Star Princess. This ship included tons of fun features! It had a couple different pools, a free buffet that is included, a few fancy restaurants, several bars that served both alcoholic beverages and non alcoholic beverages, a few stores for souvenirs, an art gallery, an on board club for adults, a game club for kids, and even a movie theater!  

This cruise stopped at 3 different places in Alaska. Our first stop was Ketchikan, The second stop was Skagway, and our final stop was Anchorage. At each of these stops my family had some fun excursions planned. In Ketchikan we just did a fun hike through Alaskan rain forest where we saw a water fall, a special type of slug native to Alaska, and lots of native plants that were so green! Also in Ketchikan we rode on a trolley that acted as a ski lift since it ran along a line and took us up in the air so we could see Ketchikan from above! That’s about all we did in Ketchikan and then our next stop was Skagway.

In Skagway my mom had one fun excursion planned for us. This excursion was a gold panning one where we took a bus further into the Alaskan wilderness until we came to a place we were allowed to pan for gold! First they gave us a tour of the gold mining place we were at. Then they sat us down and went through the rules and how to properly do it. After that they gave us our own pans to pan for gold with. After gold panning for about an hour, we went inside the place where they actually weighed our gold for us so we knew how many karats we panned and got to bring home with us! After that little excursion we got back on a bus which then took us back to where our ship docked. After we arrived, since we still had a good amount of time left until we had to board, we just explored the town of Skagway for a bit as well as did some shopping.

Our final stop was Anchorage, the capital of Alaska. Here we had another fun excursion planned where we got on a train that took us through a lot of Alaska’s wilderness out to Alaska Mushing school where we did a tour conducted through Happy Trails Kennel. Once we arrived, we were greeted and then taken on our tour through the school which was very cool and knowledgeable as they talked a lot about the history of dog mushing in Alaska, the history of the school itself, and even the history of their big race called The Iditarod! Then at the end of the tour we even got to see, play, and pet the puppies they had there! After that, we got back on the train which took us back into the city of Anchorage where we had some dinner and then explored downtown a bit. 

That was basically my whole Alaskan cruise which was definitely a very fun and memorable trip! Now there are other Alaska cruises you could do as well but this was just one that I would highly recommend. Now of course there are so many other different excursions you could do at all these places this cruise line stops at as well. Like one is called Alpine Air Alaska’s Glacier Dog Sled Tour which you could do in Anchorage and it allows you to ride in a helicopter over Anchorage and Willow, plus you actually get to ride on a sled that is pulled by those special Iditarod dogs! I also know that there was another excursion that was either in Ketchikan or Skagway that would allow you to actually ride in a sea plane for a tour as well. To find out more about Alaskan Cruises, definitely do research to plan your own perfect Alaska cruise!