Which Cruise and What Cruise Line to Pick ??

DH and I are looking to take our first cruise in May. Ive been reading about the different lines and my head is swirling with trying to pick a cruise line. We are middle of the road budget folks - so we aren%26#39;t going high end. At the same time we like to be comfortable and enjoy good food and entertainment.

Love to know from anyone who has a strong opinion one way or the other on who to cruise with?

The 2nd big question is - do we do a round trip or a one way cruise from Vancoucer?

Which Cruise and What Cruise Line to Pick ??

Hi

What I can tell you is what we did as we are not cruise fans but still wanted to take one to Alaska

We picked NCL Pearl round trip out of Seattle, the reasons why were

1. we were able to make our airline miles work for Seattle saving us alot of money

2. we wanted to see the Inside Passage

3. we wanted to not have to dress for dinner and have a set time when we had to eat

4. we had a very short window of when we could travel

5. we wanted a balcony and they were doing upgrades that worked for us

This ship did all of that for us,the ship was very clean, we had a balcony so we had great views and saw lots of water life. Room was well planned with plenty of storage and comfortable

The food was good, not great but not terrible. we usually ate at the buffett as the other places were an extra charge. We did do a couple of extra charge dinners, they were ok but we found the buffett to be very good most nights and easier to do

Service was ok, not as friendly as we had expected.

We did feel nickeled and dimed for drinks, bingo, bowling but we knew before hand that it would be that way

The excursions were expensive so we only picked two, whale watching and then the White Pass train, the rest we did on our own and really enjoyed ourselves.

Am I a huge fan of NCL, no but then I am not a cruise fan.

All that said we had a great trip and are looking into NCL for Hawaii, again because they will be going where we want to go and my miles will work for that trip too!

Which Cruise and What Cruise Line to Pick ??

You can%26#39;t really go wrong on any of the cruiselines for Alaska. My favorite is Holland America, smaller ships that the megaships, excellent service, very elegant decor.

As for whether to do a roundtrip or one-way, do you have at least 3 or 4 days to spend on a landtour up near Anchorage? If not, do the roundtrip. No point in the added expense of flying to (or from) Anchorage if you don%26#39;t have to.

I agree with both those points from M_M.

Like MM I agree that Holland has some nice smaller ships. We really enjoyed our cruise on the Volendam. This year, the Volendam and another HAL ship are doing a round trip out of Vancouver that goes to both Glacier Bay and Tracy Arm Fjord. These are two very scenic areas. Last year, the NB Volendam traveled the ';small craft'; route through the inside passage. This was a real surprise to us. No guarentees you would experience the exact itinerary, but I do know the larger ships do not travel that route.

What you need to do, is read about the different ports and glacier areas. Once you find the places that sound the most interesting to you, you can then find a cruiseline and itinerary that suits you.

If you haven%26#39;t been on www.cruisecritic.com, check out their Alaska board.

boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

We don%26#39;t cruise as much as take other sorts of holidays, but from our few cruises so far, we are becoming fans of Princess. Good food, good entertainment (all opinions). You can keep a cruise casual by choosing the buffet for dining, always an option. Coral Princess has a one-way itinerary this year (Van-Whittier, then the other way the next week). That ship has had good reviews, and there seem to be some very good prices this year (would apply to all cruise lines, I imagine). Same applies to airfares - we got a good price (one way to Anchorage, return air from Vancouver) just by keeping an eye on prices. If you have a few days for land exploration around Anchorage, this seems like a good plan to me. I have found that if you check out a site like vacationstogo, pick a cruise that sounds appealing (itinerary, price) then post that cruise on cruisecompete, then you have a lot of choice for prices. Also, lots of reviews of cruise lines, ships, etc on cruisecritic. Sorry for mentioning all these sites - will I get deleted??