Alaskan cruises typically cruise along the Inside Passage, a sea lane protected by groups of small islands that runs all the way from Seattle in Washington State, north to Skagway; a distance of around 950 miles. The islands offer some protection so the sea state is usually pretty calm.
Some cruises venture further north into the Gulf of Alaska, up to Anchorage; actual disembarkation is at Seward or Whittier.
Not all ships stop at all ports but the main ones on the itineraries are (heading north from Seattle and Vancouver):
- Seattle
- Vancouver
- Victoria, British Columbia
- Misty Fjord
- Tracy Arm Fjord
- Ketchikan - salmon capital of the world
- Wrangell
- Sitka - a blend of Russian history and indigenous Tlingit culture
- Juneau - the state capital with a population of just over 30,000
- Glacier Bay National Park
- Haines - links to the Alaskan Highway and home to the Tlingit people
- Skagway - gateway to the Klondike gold rush of 1897-98 and start of the Chilkoot Trail
- Valdez - end of the Trans-Alaska pipeline
- Columbia Glacier
- College Fjord - 16 ice blue glaciers
- Whittier - gateway to Prince William Sound and the city of Anchorage
- Prince William Sound
- Seward - head of Resurrection Bay on the Kenai Peninsula
- Kenai Fjords - home to 40,000 puffin sea birds
- Homer
- Kodiak - Alaska's Emerald Isle, home to the Kodiak brown bear
