If you are planning an Alaska cruise for next year, better get down to business. Last October my wife and I booked a balcony cabin aboard the Princess Emerald for June of 2026 and nearly all the balcony cabins were already sold out, so we had to settle for one in a less than ideal location.
Motion Sickness: The Inside Passage to Alaska has a deserved reputation for calm waters that rival a Kiddie Fairy Land boat ride. However, if your ship departs from Vancouver, the first night and next day may be in the open sea.
If you have not taken precautions, you may awake and utter bad words — such as “Holy Chitmeister!” Or “Golly Gee!” Or “Fudgesickle!” And if your significant other — who never seems to share these intimate experiences with you — opens the slider to your balcony, instead of the scenic British Columbia Coast, what you may see is a wall of gray that is spitting rain all over the deck furniture. As a precaution, I recommend pills, wrist bands, ginger and patches behind your ears. One of them may work.
Bob Miller
Hot tubbing: You may soon notice — once that you have found your sea legs — that whereas cruise ships overstock the dining areas with silverware and the pool areas with beach towels, hot tubs are in limited supply. And you may be hesitant to go into one because most of them will be occupied to capacity by your fellow seafarers — most of whom seem to be the size of small whales. But if you decide to wedge your way in, not to worry. I have always found the nicest people on cruises in hot tubs. There is nothing like sharing a warm bath with strangers to open everyone up for enjoyable conversation. And there seems to be an unspoken code of never mentioning politics.
Tipping: My particular cruise package had preplanned to take the awkwardness of tipping out of the trip — we paid about $18 a day per person towards gratuities. And considering that my wife and I came into contact with about 100 cruise ship personnel at our beck and call each day, I consider that a convenient bargain. And you have to realize that the cruise ship crew (nearly 2,000 of them) are unfailingly polite and efficient — despite working long hours and sleeping in tiny rooms in the hold with few opportunities to enjoy a cruise vacation. (The slaves rowing the boat in the Ben Hur movie come to mind.)
My cabin stewards on my three Alaskan cruises were more than eager to please my every whim. Indeed, if I had asked them to brush my teeth for me, I’m sure they would have, even though my teeth are still in my mouth. And none of the crew on board seemed to be Americans — lots of them were from Indonesia, the Philippines or the Ukraine. (The ship’s officers seem to be mainly from the UK or Italy.) Our European server contacts always delighted us with excellent English spoken with accents that you would expect to hear in a James Bond film. (We do leave a little extra for our cabin steward and our head waiter at the end of the cruise.)
Excursions: I am sure that there is so much to do onboard that many people would enjoy their Alaska cruise and never set foot on the shores of Alaska. And they would save a bunch of money. The variety of shore excursions boggles the mind. Although I plunked down nearly $500 on one of my cruises for a float plane fly fishing trip, my wife and I usually go for the less expensive ones. If you do opt for a float plane trip — don’t expect a modern day airplane. Indeed, mine was circa 1930 and may have been the one used in the Indiana Jones movie.
I got to sit next to the pilot on vinyl seats ripped to shreds with the white foam stuffing as frothy as the white breakers. I did cringe a bit when the young pilot kept flipping one of the gauge switches on the control board. It wouldn’t come on.
Finally, he just gave me a sly look and said, “Screw it! We don’t need that one.” Needless to say, the “excursion” was one to remember! And usually, we are happy as can be with the ones under $200. Misty fjords even in the rain were spectacular despite a rather monotonous hour boat ride to get there. Plus, we even got to see a pod of orcas frolicking near Annette Island.
The guides are almost always eager and informative on a tour. Even the van drivers have some nuggets to cast out — most of the drivers or tour guides are either perky college girls or retired Alaskan sourdoughs. However, I am a little wary of their accuracy now. On our land excursion to Denali, my bus driver confidently told us that some gulls resting on the river shore were Arctic Terns.
She failed to realize that one of her passengers — me — was a lifetime birder who quickly identified the birds as mew gulls and herring gulls. You can see Alaska without paying for an excursion. Once my wife and I enjoyed a rare sunny day in Ketchikan to walk to the park and totem pole museum.
As fun as any guided tour. In Juneau once, I paid a whopping three bucks to ride the muni bus to the Mendenhall Glacier. (It no longer goes all the way there I found out on my last cruise.) And about my fly fishing trip. I caught two large Dolly Varden trout (catch and release) and our guide gave me a Bear Outfitters ball cap because we had to wait a long time for the van to take us back to the cruise ship. So I am now the proud owner of a $500 hat and can tell everyone a fish story.
Onboard Entertainment: I don’t think I have ever been in a ship’s theater and not been entertained. Of course, I have to admit that I am easily impressed by anyone who has just the least bit of singing or dancing talent. I would probably drop a dollar in the tip jar of someone playing a kazoo on a street corner.
So don’t miss the Broadway song and dance productions or miss going to the lounges to hear the Elton John or Roy Orbison impersonators. Most of the audience will be as gray haired as you are, so the cruise ship plans for the oldies. If there is a magic or illusion show don’t miss that, for sure. If you want to go dancing with your roommate, there will be plenty of opportunity. Sometimes very late at night, unfortunately, when the next morning you have to be on the pier at 7 a.m. for your excursion.
Glaciers: Go topside to view the glaciers. Or sit on your balcony. The captain will turn the ship for you. Once you get home, you will wonder why you have 120 pictures of the same glacier. They move very slowly, after all, so each picture looks pretty much alike.
Cuisine: Eat as much or as little as you like. You are bound to find something tasty. Experiment — don’t just go to the burger joint or pizza place. The complimentary restaurants have a menu that changes every night, so even if you can’t pronounce the name of a dish, try it.
Princess Cruise Line, especially, has a well deserved reputation for delicious meals. On my last voyage, the desserts seemed to be the most exceptional. Try all of them! Don’t be like my friend who ordered an ice cream sundae every night after the entrée. Don’t be worried about putting on weight — the airline won’t weigh you after your cruise. Somehow, after my last cruise and eating everything in sight, I put on just two pounds. If I knew the secret, I would tell you.
Repeat cruises: Some of the passengers you meet will exclaim, “This is our 20th cruise, and we like such and such cruise line better than this one” or they will say, “We always come back to this one because it is so good.”
On our last cruise there was a picture of an octogenarian couple who have logged over 900 days on cruise ships — my math tells me that they have probably been on at least 70 cruises, counting ones longer than a week. For me and my wife, we have been on five cruises in the last 20 years, and four of them have been to Alaska — three on a Princess cruise ship. Maybe one of these days we will go cruising somewhere else, but I like Alaska just fine. If I keep subbing, I may even have enough money saved for another one before I’m 90.
And lastly: Oh, one last piece of advice. Don’t put your passport in a piece of checked luggage. The cruise ship may — or may not — find it before the ship takes off. And your souvenir picture of the cruise will be the one your friends took of you as you waved good-bye from the dock.
Bob Miller is a 48-year resident of the mountain area and a former English teacher, football/baseball coach at Yosemite High School. He keeps his brain sharp as a Q-tip by substitute teaching at the overly ripe age of 78. He enjoys traveling and taking short hikes with his wife and grandkids. And reading such books as “The Cat in the Hat” and Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods.” He thinks what the world could use in these crazy times is a good laugh. He can be reached at writerbob46@gmail.com.
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