
Haha, one of the AI tools helped me generate that title about our Alaska Cruise, and I chuckled when I saw it, so I went with it! 🙂
Anyway, it’s been a long time, friends! I haven’t written a post for a couple of months now. I said I was going to scale back and, boy, did I! I’ve been super busy with a bunch of things (travel included), so it was nice not putting pressure on myself, feeling obligated to write.
But here I am! I’ve got a handful of posts I’m eager to write, but I thought I’d start with one about our recent Alaska cruise, which we just returned from a few weeks ago.
If you’ve been following along, this was one of several “free” cruises we got just by taking advantage of a loophole we learned about last year. You can read about the cruise-chasing adventure in a few posts I wrote last year:
- Learning about it and taking on the challenge:
The Next Mission… Free Cruises Through Casino Status Matches! - Progress report and starting to book the cruises:
Free Cruises with Just a Little Leg Work… Living Like Rock Stars! - Our final plans, including the Alaska cruise:
Traveling the World: 121 Days, 9 Big Adventures, and 6 Cruises Throughout the Globe
Part of the path that got us there has been “fixed” now, so the loophole is gone, but it was good while it lasted! I know some of you took advantage of this – congrats to you! If you didn’t, just know that these sorts of things come and go, and if it’s up your alley, it’s all about jumping on them before they disappear. I’ll always try to keep you in the know, especially if I’m going to pursue it.
But back to our Alaska cruise!
We had high hopes for this trip and we weren’t let down. If you’ve never been on an Alaska cruise before, that’s something to consider adding to the bucket list.
But there was one thing that didn’t quite meet my expectations. I guess I had my sights set a little too high.
Read on and I’ll try to take you through everything we loved about Alaska and the one thing that didn’t blow me away.
The itinerary for our Alaska cruise
One of the cruise offers we received from our mission for free cruises was from Holland America. Here was our offer for this one:
Complimentary Interior Cabin & Drinks for two (2) while playing in the casino *Excludes government taxes & fees, and required cruise fees and expenses in the amount of approximately $175 USD per guest for a 7-Day sailing. Redemption of offer is subject to the payment of a non-refundable deposit of $200 on sailings starting January 1, 2025.
Offer Description: Valid on select sailings on Holland America Line only (blackout dates may apply and subject to availability)
This was one of a few unique ones where we had a little more flexibility on what to do with it. After discussing it for a while, Lisa and I decided that this would be a great opportunity to turn it into an Alaska cruise.
That said, we knew it wasn’t going to be free because we wanted a balcony (especially for Alaska!) and, of course, we wanted our daughter, Faith, to come with us.
In the end, it cost us about $4k for the three of us. That’s almost twice what we would normally pay for a 7-night Caribbean cruise with a balcony on MSC Cruises… but this wasn’t a cheap Caribbean cruise. This was what could be a once-in-a-lifetime Alaska cruise.
And when I priced it out normally through Holland America’s site, it would have been about $8k… and I can tell you we never would have done this for $8k. So this Alaska cruise was about half the cost and we were content with that. That included the extra person (our daughter), the upgrade to a balcony, their fancy-pants drink package, one specialty restaurant, $100 off per person on a shore excursion, internet access for two devices, gratuities, $200 in onboard credit (which we cashed out at the end of the cruise), etc.
Our cruise was on Holland America’s Eurodam ship for their 7-Day Alaska Explorer itinerary:
- Sat – Sail from Seattle, Washington – 3:00pm
- Sat – Puget Sound (Cruising Only)
- Sun – Sea Day
- Mon – Scenic cruising Stephens Passage (Cruising Only)
- Mon – Juneau, Alaska – 12:30pm 10:00pm
- Tues – Glacier Bay (Cruising Only) – 6:00am 3:00pm
- Tues – Icy Strait Point, Alaska – 5:30pm 10:00pm
- Wed – Sitka, Alaska – 8:00am 4:00pm
- Thurs – Ketchikan, Alaska – 6:30am 1:00pm
- Fri – Victoria, British Columbia, Canada – 8:00pm 11:59pm
- Sat – Debark Ship Seattle, Washington – 7:00am

Months after we had already booked this, I got together with my friend Fritz from The Retirement Manifesto for dinner. I think Fritz has done everything in life, including working in Alaska when he was younger. He was able to tell me all sorts of stuff about what to expect in the different areas. He was also happy that our cruise included Glacier Bay, as they only allow a couple of ships in per day and that’s supposed to be the best of the glacier visits.
Even though we were already booked, I like that kind of reassurance!
So let’s talk about why the Alaska cruise was so cool.
The Eurodam ship is old, but she did the job just fine
I learned that cruise lines tend to put their newer, fancier ships with all the latest fun stuff in their Caribbean itineraries because they can command more $$$ that way. When you’re looking at cruising to Alaska, South America, or elsewhere, it’s more about the destination and less about the ship. Because of that, it tends to be the older ships that take you to the really cool places.
We knew when we booked this that Holland America’s Eurodam ship was getting up there in years. Its maiden voyage was on July 5, 2008, making it almost 17 years old when we went on it.

We enjoyed that it wasn’t as huge as a lot of the newer ships. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still big, but with a capacity of just 2,104 passengers and 929 crew members, it’s a fraction of the size of most of the new ships. In comparison, our last Caribbean cruise in March was on the MSC Seascape, which holds 5,877 passengers… and that’s still not as massive as some of the mega Royal Caribbean ships!
They also use the smaller ships like this to be able to get into a lot of places in Alaska that the bigger ships wouldn’t be able to get into.
That said, the ship did its job. Our cabin was a little smaller than we’re used to seeing on the newer ships, but it was absolutely fine for us.
A downside to some of these older ships though has to do with the stabilizers. We had brought seasickness meds with us just in case. We’ve never used them before on our cruises, but we’d heard that the waters can be a bit rougher in Alaska.
We didn’t end up needing the meds, but we did have some rougher waters on a day or two. I spent a lot of time talking with AIs (like ChatGPT) about this because my thought was that maybe the computer stabilizers just aren’t as good on these older ships. Turns out, that’s true (or so they say):
Ship Age | Typical Roll Reduction by Stabilizers |
---|---|
New Ships (last 5–10 years) | 85–90% reduction |
Ships built ~20 years ago | 65–75% reduction |
I don’t take everything the AIs say as gospel, but this was good enough for me.
Anyway, I don’t know how much of our rocking was from being on an Alaska cruise and how much was from it being an older ship, but it was definitely noticeable. Not enough that we had any sickness problems, but still worth noting if that’s something that you wouldn’t do well with.
And we didn’t really miss all the fancy-pants extras the newer ships have. We were there primarily for Alaska, not for the ship. We spent a solid part of our days looking at landscapes and wildlife or visiting cruise ports so that didn’t leave time for us to be bored at all on the ship.
Alaska wildlife is truly awesome
I mean, the wildlife is a major part of why most folks do an Alaska cruise, right? It didn’t disappoint either. Among other things, we saw:
- Bald eagles… like a lot of bald eagles (especially in Sitka!)
- Puffins
- Gulls
- Humpback whales
- Orcas
- Sea otters
- Porpoises
- Sea Lions
- Coastal bears (which, as it turns out, are still grizzlies)
We had brought a good monocular we borrowed (thanks, Dave and Kellie!) and two pairs of binoculars, so we were good on that front. That said, most of the time, I just preferred not to use anything for the close-up wildlife. The reason is that by the time I would get the monocular up and find the wildlife, sometimes I would just miss it completely. Regardless, all of those were good to have with us.
What was cool was that there was a naturalist contracted for Holland America who was on board to help point out the wildlife and answer questions. That was extremely helpful and he’d fill you in on when and where you’d likely see the most activity. At another point, while we were at Glacier Bay, park rangers jumped on the ship (yes, literally from another boat while we were moving) and similarly helped with animal-spotting and filling us in on the glaciers.
Here’s one thing we learned…
There would be blocks of time on certain days when the naturalist would be there on the main deck on the aft (back) of the ship for wildlife spotting. This is because they know when and where you’re more likely to see certain creatures (whales, bears, etc.). So we would go out there and look for stuff along with a ton of other passengers.
Suddenly, someone would spot something and the naturalist would call it out… “Whale spouts on the port side of the ship!. And, of course, everyone would run to the port side of the deck to see it. Then there’d be something on the starboard side and everyone would go running over there. We’re short people (hey, I don’t make the rules), so unless we happened to be in the front, we would essentially not see a thing when this would happen.



Finally, I said to Lisa and Faith, “Look, this is silly. If we go down to our cabin, we can go out on the balcony that we have all to ourselves. We’ll only see wildlife on the port side of the ship, but 50% is better than the nothing we’re seeing now.”
They agreed, which turned out to be fantastic. We saw so much and didn’t have to worry about anyone crowding us. Not only that, but we had neighbors on each side of us that were doing the same thing (we were separated by the partitions), and we’d help each other out by telling each other where the stuff was that we were all seeing. So much better! That became our go-to for most of the wildlife viewing events.


It was hard enough seeing the marine life when it would briefly pop up, but trying to take photos of it was even tougher. I did get a couple of decent shots, however. Here are a few photos of some of our Alaska cruise wildlife (click to enlarge the images)…





The scenery is incredible and was my favorite part
We were very fortunate. We had fantastic weather throughout our entire trip. It was about 50-55° F throughout our entire week with barely any rain. The one exception was when we were coming back from a hike we did in Juneau (part of the Mount Roberts Trail). The weather was actually really warm (notice Lisa in the tank top):


Where we were had a beautiful blue sky. But as we were walking back to the ship, the wind started to pick up and we looked ahead and saw Armageddon. I mean, it looked crazy dark and scary.
We stopped walking, pulled our rain jackets from our backpacks, and quickly put ’em on. None too soon, either, because the temperature started to drop, the wind picked up, and the heavens opened up.
It took a while to get back and onto the ship, but we were fine and didn’t think anything of it. However, we later learned that it was as bad as it looked out there. Another ship that was in the port with us (a Celebrity ship) struggled. Its mooring lines started snapping one by one. The ship started drifting toward another ship until the captain was able to take control and get it back:
If you haven’t seen cruise ship mooring lines, you might be surprised. In the video, they look like rubber bands snapping, but in reality, these are incredibly thick and strong. Scary stuff, right?
Ok, enough of that stuff. Pictures can by no means do justice to how beautiful Alaska is, but here are some anyway…








The glaciers were… well, they were there
Ok, hear me out on this one. I was really excited to see the glaciers – I mean, how often do most folks get to see that?! And I was told by everyone who had seen them on an Alaska cruise, just how magnificent they are to see.
I don’t blame anyone for this – only myself. My problem was that I had built this up in my head to be something more than it turned out to be… I had set my expectations way too high.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the glaciers are beautiful and truly something cool to see.
But… I was expecting that breathtaking moment like I had when I stood over the Grand Canyon for the first time. With the Grand Canyon, I was completely astonished. It just flabbergasted me enough to stop yapping for a couple of minutes (that can be hard to do!).
With the glaciers in Glacier Bay, though, I thought they were cool to see, but I didn’t have that moment. In fact, I actually started to lose interest in that “grand” moment pretty quickly.


And then there’s the whole glacier calving. That’s the moment folks on an Alaska cruise hope they get the opportunity to see – when chunks of ice break off from the edge of a glacier.
We got lucky – it happened more than once while we were there watching… but that wasn’t impressive to me either. I mean, it was ok to see, but it wasn’t anything mind-blowing for me. I caught the end of it with the camera…

Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but it just didn’t blow me away. I was more in awe of the beautiful snow-covered mountain landscapes against the ocean everywhere else we went.

So, yeah, beat me up in the comments, but that was just my take.
Outside of that, Alaska was amazing. Taking an Alaska cruise is something anyone who loves Mother Nature should put on their bucket list. You won’t be disappointed!
I’ve already rambled on too long, but we also enjoyed our stops in Juneau and Sitka. Ketchikan’s a cute little town, but there were just too many cruise ships in port when we were there – it was waaaaay too crowded.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that Faith does a great job of putting together great recaps from our trips. Check out her Alaska post here (you don’t need an account to view her stuff – just click the “x” if prompted to log in). And, if you do have an account, I’m sure she’d be more than thrilled if you followed her if you wanted.
If you enjoyed this post, consider jumping on my mailing list. I won’t ever spam you, and I’ll send you some spreadsheet freebies as a welcome gift that I think you’ll find useful as well…
Plan well, take action, and live your best life!
Thanks for reading!!
— Jim
Great blog on Alaska cruise, but I’ll counter with a suggestion for anyone who doesn’t want cruise but wants Alaska. Earlier in my early retirement, I was 61 at the time, my wife and I joined a Princess Bus and Rail tour package with some other relatives. We all flew into Anchorage, visited three National Parks, traveled on the Alaska Railroad from Fairbanks, to Denali, to Anchorage, and saw a lot more of Alaska than those who never travel farther north than Juneau.
I think that’s a great suggestion, Jim! We love cruising, but I know there are a ton of folks who don’t. A while ago, my wife and I had discussed the idea of doing one the trains like you’re talking about (and then we stumbled onto this cruise). I think that would be a ton of fun to do! 🙂
Alaska is great. We were literally just discussing going again for a third time right before your post popped up on my feed.
I felt like glacier bay was a bit underwhelming too. One of the glaciers was like “well it’s there but it’s dirty but it’s there”. Also was pretty foggy. We had better weather at Dawes Glacier on a subsequent trip. Still amazing to see the glaciers and all the little icebergs everywhere but I think the rest of the Alaska landscape and the wildlife was more interesting overall.
Oh, that’s funny – I assumed I’d be in the minority on my thoughts on Glacier Bay (well, I guess we both might still be! 😉 ). Looks like we’re on the same page with the landscape and wildlife beating that out.
Wow, a possible third visit – that’s fantastic!!
How was Victoria, British Columbia, Canada?
Ya know, we never got off the ship for Vancouver. It was from 8pm-12am on the night before we got back and it just didn’t strike us as a highlight to bother with. Plus, my understanding was that there really wasn’t anything right there – you need to take a shuttle to get to anything worthwhile. That said, I had talked to one of the crew members who told me that they love to get off the ship there and it’s their favorite stop.
That’s actually just a stop they have to make since the cruise line (like most) isn’t based out of the U.S. Because of that, they’re required to make a stop in a foreign country (with some other rules).
Jim, thanks for the shout-out. Happy to see you mention the National Park ranger who boarded your ship as you entered Glacier Bay. They stay at Bartlett Cove (at the bottom of the “Y” shaped Nat’l Park), which is where I worked! There’s a remote lodge there (accessible only by air or boat), and I worked in the restaurant. Cool to think of you passing my old stomping grounds. And…I agree the glaciers and calving aren’t as dramatic from a cruise ship, but you should see them from a kayak! Those waves from the calving are a lot bigger than they appear onboard a cruise ship. I was fortunate to be able to ride the boats into the bay for free on my “off” days, and they’d drop us off on shore to hike in the absolute wilderness until we had to be back to work. Amazing summer…
That’s so cool that you worked there, Fritz… you’re one of a kind! That makes sense that the mammoth size of the cruise ships (and being quite a distance away) makes the glaciers not seem as impressive as they would from a kayak! Super cool, my friend!
Love the post!
“In the end, it cost us about $4k for the three of us.”
Is that the total cost with travel expenses to Seattle and back, including any hotel stays in Seattle?
One reason I don’t like doing cruises is all those extra costs associated with getting to/back from the departure/destination port.
That was just the cost of the cruise without the flight and hotel for the night. But we used points for the flight and for the hotel so that was a win! 🙂