Our son and wife took one a couple years ago, and loved it! Don’t remember the cruise line. They loved the scenery, small villages, etc. went on a helicopter ride to a glacier.

We went on an Alaskan cruise in 2014. It was on the Holland America line and it was just wonderful. The food was excellent - I still dream of their breakfast muesli. The excursions were all fun and well organized, and the service was great. Our weather was perfect and we had such beautiful scenery.

We just got back from a cruise on Norwegian, and everything was just okay, other than the service, which was great (but that's typical on any line). The food was mediocre and their excursions were ridiculously overpriced. We won't be back.

@Kathsgrdn, there are some forums at https://boards.cruisecritic.com that might provide some good information in addition to those who post here.

I do not know if you are planning on going by yourself or with another but I have been checking and most of the cruises that I found the single supplement was the same as cost of the second person in the cabin. There are a few companies that list Solo Cruises but they are very few. I was told Windjammer has them but could not find one going to the locations I was searching.

Edited to add that my personal thought is that I would like one that is all inclusive so that I am not hit by extras.

Oh yes, balcony is a must for Alaska. Some of our best glacier viewing was from our balcony. We splurged and did the Neptune suites on the honeymoon and it has been so hard to go back to regular balcony. :)

My sister and BIL did one. They are not luxury travelers, I just texted her.

My sister also agrees with Fun's recommendation of Cruise Critic.

Their favorite is Holland America.

There is going to be at least 4 of us right at this moment. I've been reading on the website provided by Fun2behere.

We went on HollandAmerica this past June. It is our only cruise so I have nothing to compare it too. Other guests seemed to think Holland was more 'up scale'--fresh flowers/after noon tea etc. We found the drink packages unnecessary--happy hour was more than reasonable, but we are not heavy drinkers. We took advantage of the allowed one bottle of celebratory wine per adult (brought with us) and enjoyed our cocktail hour in our stateroom eating fresh pears. Our ship The Nordham was a very nice size and I was overwhelmed seeing the bigger ships we encountered. The crew were superb, the food excellent. The "formal dining" was not over the top--people wore formals to 'street dresses' and were all comfortable. It was an older crowd-not for young singles ready to PARTY I would say. We were celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary and our two daughters in their early twenties joined us. There was no "night life" for them to meet up with. We too went on a lot of excursions. The boat was very much a floating hotel for us. From what I hear other lines have more on board FUN offered. That was not our purpose for going to Alaska. We did not have a balcony and saw no reason for one, but we preferred to be out on the ship deck as we went through the inside passage. We had FABULOUS weather, however. Our only disappointment was not seeing the Northern lights--wrong time of year. For optimal wild life sightings the very end of June into July would have been better--but our son's wedding interfered with that. Our cruise and daily excursions were under your five thousand. We took in the hot springs/rafted/took a plane through the fjords/did a whale watching cruise/ as well as a few hikes through the National Parks. We discovered cruising down is cheaper than cruising up the inside passage. The day long bus ride was tolerable due to the scenery but I hear the train is fabulous.

I was looking at Holland America because of the size of the ships, a lot of the reviews said the bigger ships can't get into the passage to see one of the glaciers because they are way too big. Also most of the meals are included. I am a little concerned the "kids", who are grown but still in their 20s might get bored on the ship. I don't think my kids would mind the older crowd, though, little kids running and yelling through the halls would probably annoy them. It is a short trip, though, 7 days so we won't be on the ship for long periods of time, I don't think, except the first day and last? Will probably sail from Seattle because the airfare is much cheaper than flying into Canada or Alaska from Kentucky. I'm still looking at a couple of cruiselines, the cheaper ones but most of them seem to have the bigger ships.

American Cruise Lines does river boat cruises in Alaska. The ships are all small, and most of the staterooms have balconies. The Southeast Alaskan Cruise is an 8-day/7-night cruise. The other two are 11 and 15 days.

Edited to add screenshot of the ports of call on the Southeast Alaskan Cruise:

Holland America, and the Alaska crowd in general, tend to be older. I saw very few children on our cruise. We are on our 30's and were some of the youngest.

As for the kids in their 20's, it depends what they like to do. If they are drinkers, there are plenty of bars and lounges with music. Also pools and hot tubs. There are activities all over the ship for all sorts of interests and each night there's usually a big performance. Excursions are usually early so we never stayed up really late.

You won't spend a lot of time on the ship other than sea days.

One thing to consider for starting from Seattle vs. Vancouver is that you can take a gorgeous, gorgeous train ride between the two cities. It's about 4 hours and did I mention it's beautiful? :) This add more flexibility as we found the ones leaving from Vancouver had better itineraries and more time in Alaska.

Lindsay, those cruises look nice but way over what I can afford.

Our Holland America boat had quite a few families with grade school children. There were plenty of reunion cruising going on it seemed. They have a kids room and they kept the kids busy.

Chi, did you use Amtrak for the train ride?

Not for everyone but you might consider using one of the ferry systems to Alaska. Some do have cabins but the activities of a cruise ship would be missing. Depending on how far you go you could then fly back home. There are several sites to chose from but this was the first on the list. You would definitely be meeting the locals. http://www.alaskaferry.com/FerrySchedules/AlaskaFerryInformation

Yes, Amtrak.

Don't go too late in the year. We took HA on a small ship on the last day cruises were offered. HUGE mistake. Because HA has to go around the outside of Vancouver Island, rather than starting within the Strait @ Vancouver as the other cruise lines do, bad weather can be a real problem.

It was the end of September, and we ran into a storm. Very impressive seeing 20-ft waves hit the ship, LOL. They had to turn the boat around so we ended up losing 2.5 days, having to backtrack around Vancouver Island and start all over again heading north through the Straits. The ship never made its final 2 stops, they had to cut it short before reaching Sitka :((

Note it can be rainy in summer, so check the weather forecasts regularly. There was absolutely NO insistence on formal dress even in the main dining room. Although many folks did dress up on the final evening dinner, a sizable number did not bother at all, coming in tee shirts and tennies at every meal.

We personally thought the food was okay but not great. Lots of quantity but the quality was more on level with a chain steakhouse. The upscale extra-cost restaurant wasn't much better - we actually preferred the food in the main dining room. The service is always impeccable, everywhere.

We found the cruise people push a lot of jewelry on the ship and the stores nearest the port seem to be 2/3 jewelry stores. A friend of ours picked up the most delightful pendant ever, a beautifully carved pendant of a tiny polar bear on a swing!

Remember that peak season for whale-watching is May - October. We obviously had a bad-luck fairy on our Alaskan cruise, as the whale watching excursion was pretty much a waste of money. We did see an orca calf - did you know they are a pinkish-orange color? - but that and a few far-off spouts were about it.

Ironically, there are a number of companies on Vancouver Island that offer whale-watching tours. Our friends flew in to meet us after we got off the cruise ship, and a week later we all drove to Victoria BC. This was their first visit ever to the Pacific NW so we wanted to show them around. I had reserved the half-day tour from a local company, as I knew they would enjoy the scenery and sea air even if we didn't see many whales.

Wouldn't you know it - we saw whales every few minutes! They swam so near the boat we could count individual barnacles. They splashed out of the water and spyhopped as if they were posing for photos! More orcas, and some dolphins leaped by as well.

We've been on 3 whale watching tours, but this was by far the luckiest. You can just never really tell if they're going to be around the surface when your boat is nearby. But it's thrilling when you're in the right place at the right time.

Good luck on your cruise!

If you saw a pinkish orange one you saw the rare one that has been in several news stories here. https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/05/rare-pale-orca-calf-spotted-off-british-columbia

Jakkom, I requested May and June off next year so we'll see what I end up with. Waiting for our manager to send out the list for us to haggle with each other over who's willing to give up what week. A friend and I went to Massachusetts a few years ago to go whale watching, it was wonderful but my kids have never been. I've wanted to go to Alaska most of my life. I can't wait. I am still reading through reviews of a couple more companies. So far I've ruled out all but Holland America, for either too big a ship or the cost.