We had the opportunity to take another bucket list trip in 2025 – a cruise tour in Alaska. Amazing!

Alaska is a bucket list for many, including us. The scenery and wildlife are so different from what most of us see every day. North America’s highest mountain peak. Huge glaciers. To see even just the highlights, you need to cover a lot of ground – and a lot of water. One of the best ways to do that is on a cruise tour where you combine a cruise with a land adventure into one vacation. While several companies offer that experience, we opted to travel with Princess who is one of the leading tour companies in Alaska.

We opted to do the land portion of the vacation first. It was a long day of travel, but we arrived in Fairbanks Alaska in mid-May. We flew in a few days early. With long travels and limited flights, it seemed like a good idea to ensure we didn’t miss the start of our adventure. As a bonus, it gave us time to adjust to the time zone which was quite a few hours behind our home.

While Fairbanks is a smaller city, there was a lot to explore. We spent a full two days in Fairbanks seeing everything we could. We found that the Museum of the North was a great place to learn a bit about the history and cultural influences that shaped the area. A few other highlights included the Fountainhead Antique Auto Musuem. Even if you aren’t into old cars, the combination of cars and fashion provide many with an enjoyable afternoon. A quick dive to see the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was interesting. We ended our time in Fairbanks on the first excursion arranged through Princess, the Riverboat Discovery tour where we got to learn about dogsledding, Athabascan culture, and the river that helped shape Fairbanks.

For our stay in Fairbanks, we were at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge which proved to be a good home base. We rented a car and found that exploring on our own using a rental car was an easy way to experience the great city.

As we wrapped up our Riverboat Discovery Tour, we headed to our next destination. Just a few hours by coach took us to the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. We spent two nights at the Denali Lodge and enjoyed our time there. A highlight was taking the Tundra Wilderness Tour. This bus adventure into Denali National Park gave us the opportunity to see an incredible amount of wildlife. And, we were treated to views of North America’s highest mountain throughout the day. We felt lucky as many visitors don’t get to see the mountain due to cloudy weather.

We found the food at the Denali Lodge was fantastic. King Salmon is their nicest restaurant and we had the opportunity to dine their both evenings. We also had breakfast at King Salmon. Having the dining package made enjoying our meals nice as we didn’t have a surprise bill at the end of our trip. We share a few tips about dining at the lodge in our post and video.

As our time at the Denali Lodge ended, we boarded a bus to our next destination, the McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. We spent two nights at the McKinley Lodge, too. This lodge has a viewing deck where, if the weather cooperates, you can get amazing views of the tallest mountain. The lodge is a bit isolated though there are fun things to do. Check out a ranger talk and explore the treehouse that was featured on Treehouse Masters. But, if you want to explore beyond the lodge, you’ll need to book an excursion. We did an easy hike at Denali State Park by taking the Beyer’s Lake Nature Walk. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed hiking along the lake as it slowly melted with the spring thaw.

On departing the McKinley Lodge, we took a relaxing train ride south to Whittier, Alaska. We arrived late in the day and boarded the beautiful Sapphire Princess cruise ship. While not the newest or largest ship in Princesses’ fleet, it was the perfect platform for visiting Alaska. We appreciated that it had a covered pool area so that we could enjoy a visit to a hot tub without being out in the cold. Food on the ship was great. What we really appreciated, though, was the nature talks. By attending one of these talks, you could learn about the wildlife and scenic beauty of the area.

The cruise was a one-way trip from Whittier to Vancouver. Along the way, we got to visit Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay National Park. Port stops included Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan. Finally, the ship cruised through the inside passage on the way to Vancouver. It was a fun and amazing journey. We especially enjoyed the White Pass Scenic Railroad in Skagway and taking a helicopter ride to a glacier in Juneau. We shared our experience along with some tips on our post Princess Alaska Cruise Itinerary and Ports.

Our final stop was Vancouver. We opted to spend two nights in the area so we could do a bit of exploring. With limited time, we really enjoyed bicycling around Stanley Park. We stayed at the Westin and appreciated that they had a bicycle loan program. We used Viator to book a full-day adventure to Vancouver Island and Victoria. Taking the ferry ride, seeing Butchart Gardens, and walking around Victoria were great but it left us wanting to come back for more. We shared more details on this post-cruise stay in our Vancouver and Victoria post.

After all of the research we put into planning for this trip, it was amazing. And yet we still learned some things. To help you plan your Alaska cruise tour, we put together a list of our Top 10 Alaska Cruise Tour Tips. We hope that you find it helpful.

After an amazing two weeks in Alaska, we headed back home. While we completed the third of our bucket list trips, there is so much more to explore in this world. We hope you are enjoying our adventures and are glad you are along on the journey.

Of course, sometimes it can be easier to show rather than tell. That’s why we created a YouTube video series, too. Check out the Travel Trail Sail YouTube channel where you’ll find an Alaska playlist with videos that match all the posts from this series.