The ultimate Alaska
cruise guide.

Port highlights

• Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls, a valley glacier about 12 miles from downtown and one of Alaska's most-visited natural sights.
• Whale-watching in Stephens Passage and Favorite Channel, where humpback sightings exceed 90 percent at the peak of the season.
• An easy stroll between the state capitol, the Gastineau Channel waterfront, and the floatplane docks that fly over the Juneau Icefield.

Interesting facts

• Juneau is the only U.S. state capital, alongside Honolulu, that cannot be reached by road; everything arrives by air or ferry.
• It has been Alaska's capital since 1906, when the territorial government moved here from Sitka.
• More than 1.5 million cruise passengers visit in a typical season, docking right at the downtown waterfront.

Something not everyone knows

The city is named for Joe Juneau, a prospector who followed a local Tlingit chief, Kowee, to the gold that started the settlement in 1880. Before that hike, this waterfront was simply a Tlingit fish camp.

Port highlights

• The White Pass & Yukon Route, a narrow-gauge railway that climbs from sea level to a 2,885-foot mountain pass and has been thrilling cruisers for over a century.
• A walk through the Klondike Gold Rush national historic district, where downtown has kept its wooden boardwalks and false-front buildings.
• The town's frontier saloons and the wonderfully shady story of Soapy Smith, the con man who once ran Skagway.

Interesting facts

• At the height of the Klondike Gold Rush, Skagway swelled to roughly 10,000 people and was Alaska's largest city.
• Today about 1,100 people live here year-round, yet more than a million visitors arrive in a single season.
• The White Pass railroad was pushed through terrain engineers called impassable in barely more than two years, opening in July 1900.

Something not everyone knows

Soapy Smith's crew ran a fake telegraph office that charged stampeders for telegrams and then invented the replies. The nearest real telegraph connection was hundreds of miles away, so nobody could check.

Port highlights

• Creek Street, a historic boardwalk of buildings raised on wooden pilings over Ketchikan Creek, now lined with shops, galleries, and breweries.
• World-class totem viewing at Saxman Totem Park and Totem Bight State Park, part of the largest collection of standing totem poles on Earth.
• Floatplane trips over Misty Fjords National Monument, plus salmon streams where the fish still run beneath your feet in summer.

Interesting facts

• Ketchikan began in 1885 as a salmon cannery site and earned the title Salmon Capital of the World by the 1930s, when 13 canneries packed about 1.5 million cases a year.
• All five species of Pacific salmon pass through these waters: king, sockeye, coho, pink, and chum.
• The town averages roughly 150 to 165 inches of rain a year, among the highest totals in North America.

Something not everyone knows

During Prohibition, Creek Street's red-light district was served by a discreet wooded path called Married Man's Trail, so clients could come and go without being seen on the main boardwalk.

Port highlights

• Castle Hill, where the Russian flag was lowered and the American flag raised at the formal transfer of Alaska in 1867.
• St. Michael's Cathedral, a faithful reconstruction of the first Orthodox cathedral in North America.
• Sitka National Historical Park's totem trail through rainforest, plus the Alaska Raptor Center's rehabilitating bald eagles.

Interesting facts

• Sitka was the capital of Russian America from 1799 to 1867, when it was known as New Archangel.
• Ships often anchor in the harbor and tender passengers ashore, because the town has only a few deep-water berths.
• It sits on Baranof Island with no road connection to the rest of Alaska; everything arrives by air or sea.

Something not everyone knows

When fire destroyed St. Michael's Cathedral in 1966, townspeople rushed in and saved most of the icons inside; the church was rebuilt as an exact replica and its treasures returned.

Port highlights

• The ZipRider zipline, one of the longest and fastest in the world, with a 5,330-foot flight from Hoonah Mountain toward the beach.
• The 1912 cannery turned museum, where a restored cannery line and boardwalk shops tell the story of Southeast Alaska's salmon industry.
• Whale-watching in Icy Strait, a renowned humpback feeding ground, with Point Adolphus just across the water.

Interesting facts

• Icy Strait Point is the only privately owned cruise destination in Alaska, opened in 2004 and developed by Huna Totem Corporation, the Alaska Native corporation of Hoonah.
• Hoonah, a few minutes up the road, is the largest Tlingit village in Alaska.
• The restored cannery dates to 1912, when Hoonah Packing Company began canning here; the last full canning year was 1953.

Something not everyone knows

The zipline's launch deck sits roughly 1,300 feet above sea level, higher than the Empire State Building, and six riders launch side by side at once.

Port highlights

• Glacier day cruises into Prince William Sound: College Fjord, Portage Glacier, and the celebrated routes that count 26 glaciers from one deck.
• The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, a 2.5-mile bore through the mountains that is an adventure in itself.
• Begich Towers, the 14-story building where most of the town lives, works, and shops.

Interesting facts

• Nearly all of Whittier's roughly 270 residents live in a single building, Begich Towers, which holds the post office, a small market, and the city offices.
• The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is the longest combined highway-and-railroad tunnel in North America, running one-way traffic on a schedule.
• Whittier is the main turnaround port for one-way Gulf of Alaska cruises, about 60 miles from Anchorage.

Something not everyone knows

Whittier did not exist as a town until 1943, when the U.S. Army quietly built a supply port here, hidden by peaks and cloud cover. For the next 57 years, its only land link was the railroad tunnel.

Port highlights

• Canada Place, the white-sailed landmark on the downtown waterfront, where most Alaska voyages begin or end; at the peak of the season the terminal often hosts three ships at once.
• Stanley Park's 400-hectare rainforest ringed by the Seawall, one of the easiest great urban nature escapes anywhere, minutes from the terminal.
• Gastown's cobblestones and steam clock, Granville Island's public market, and lookout views over the harbour from the city's vantage points.

Interesting facts

• Vancouver has been an Alaska cruise homeport for more than 30 years, sailing both round-trip Inside Passage voyages and one-way Gulf of Alaska routes.
• Canada Place moves well over a million cruise passengers a year; in 2026 it set a record of roughly 1.4 million travelers across 358 ship calls.
• U.S. cabotage law keeps many Seattle round-trips looping through a Canadian port, which is one reason Vancouver and Victoria appear on so many Alaska itineraries.

Something not everyone knows

Canada Place was built for Expo 86, the world's fair that put Vancouver on the map; the terminal's soaring white sails are actually the roof of the convention centre next door.

Port highlights

• The Inner Harbour's parade of landmarks: the ivy-clad Fairmont Empress, opened in 1908, the BC Parliament Buildings, and the Royal BC Museum, all walkable from the dock.
• Butchart Gardens, the 55-acre National Historic Site in nearby Brentwood Bay, whose celebrated Sunken Garden fills the quarry of a family cement works.
• Afternoon tea at the Empress, a Victoria ritual since 1908, and the little harbour ferries that dart across the Inner Harbour.

Interesting facts

• Cruise ships berth at Ogden Point, a deep-water dock about two kilometres from the Inner Harbour, so Victoria is a walk-off port with no tendering.
• Victoria is the busiest cruise port of call in Canada; the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority reported 316 vessel calls and roughly 970,000 cruise visitors in 2024.
• Many Seattle round-trips call here on the way home to satisfy U.S. cabotage law, which is why the city often shows up as an evening stop on the return leg.

Something not everyone knows

The castle that stars in the X-Men films is Hatley Castle, built in 1908 for coal baron James Dunsmuir; it later served as a naval officers' training college and today anchors Royal Roads University.

Port highlights

• Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary, Canada's first and only grizzly bear sanctuary, a protected inlet roughly 45 kilometres from the city and reachable only by boat or plane.
• The working Rushbrook Harbour, a large small-craft and commercial fishing facility a short walk from downtown, from Cow Bay's seafood eateries, and from the whale-watching and fishing charters that leave from its floats.
• The Museum of Northern BC, styled after a cedar longhouse, with Ts'msyen, Haida, and Nisga'a artifacts, totem poles, and a gallery of regional art.

Interesting facts

• Prince Rupert sits on Kaien Island, about 64 kilometres south of the Alaska-Canada border, making it one of the northernmost Canadian ports of call on Inside Passage itineraries.
• Ships berth at the Northland Cruise Terminal on the edge of downtown, so it is a walk-off port with no tendering.
• The city is also the northern terminus of BC Ferries' famed Inside Passage route from Port Hardy on Vancouver Island.

Something not everyone knows

Cow Bay was once called Cameron Cove; it was renamed after a dairy opened there in 1908, and the district still keeps the cow theme today, from painted bollards to the shop fronts that line the docks.

Port highlights

• Pike Place Market's fish throw and food stalls, a short walk from the Bell Street pier where Norwegian and Oceania ships are homeported.
• The Space Needle and Seattle Center, built for the 1962 World's Fair, with the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibition at its base.
• Ferry rides across Elliott Bay and the waterfront's Great Wheel for post-cruise views of the skyline, and of Mount Rainier on clear days.

Interesting facts

• Seattle runs two Alaska cruise terminals: Pier 66 at Bell Street and the larger Pier 91 at Smith Cove, serving a season that runs roughly April through October.
• In 2026 the port set records with 330 vessel calls and about 2.1 million revenue passengers, including brand-new Alaska seasons for MSC Cruises and Virgin Voyages from Seattle.
• Most of the big-ship lines homeport here, from Carnival, Celebrity, and Princess to Holland America, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, and Norwegian.

Something not everyone knows

Pier 66 opened in the year 2000, and Norwegian Cruise Line was the first line to homeport a ship there; Alaska cruising from Seattle has since grown into a two-million-passenger season.