We love spending time with our kids and their families. There's something humbling about watching our children interact with their own kids in a way that makes us proud as parents. One of our sons invited us to join him and his family on an Alaska cruise, and we jumped at the chance.

It was a bold move — our grandson was 19 months old at the time — but it worked out well. Janet and I booked a balcony stateroom, which gave us extra room to have everyone together. The kids booked an inside cabin directly across the hall, which gave them the best of both worlds. A dark cabin when the little one needed to sleep, and grandparents in easy reach when he wouldn't.

Alaska is not a destination you stumble into. You either plan it deliberately or you keep putting it off until someone else makes the reservation for you. Our son and daughter-in-law made the decision; we handled the bookings. Choosing Princess for Alaska is smart for one reason above all others: access. Princess carries more passengers to Alaska than any other cruise line, has operated in these waters for decades, and holds one of the coveted limited permits to sail into Glacier Bay National Park.

By the Numbers

The Itinerary

Royal Princess sails the 7-night Inside Passage roundtrip from Seattle during the Alaska season, visiting Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay National Park, and Ketchikan, with a final evening in Victoria, British Columbia before returning to Seattle. It is as close to the definitive Alaska cruise itinerary as exists — four ports that each tell a different part of the Alaska story, with a glacier experience in the middle that makes the whole thing worth doing.

Juneau

The state capital, accessible only by sea or air. Mendenhall Glacier is the signature excursion — a receding tidewater glacier you can walk alongside, with a waterfall at its face and black bears frequently visible on the adjacent Steep Creek boardwalk. Whale watching in the surrounding waters is reliably productive. We'd been to Juneau before and knew Mendenhall was too rugged for a 19-month-old, so we skipped the tour and explored on our own. Besides, we'd get our fill of glaciers in Glacier Bay.

Skagway

The Gold Rush gateway. The entire downtown is a National Historic District, unchanged in character since the 1890s. The White Pass & Yukon Route Railway is the marquee excursion — a narrow-gauge historic rail line that climbs through the White Pass into the mountains used by Klondike prospectors. Book early; it fills up.

We opted for a country ride out to a sled dog and musher's camp. A musher gave us a fascinating description of the dogs' lives, what sledding means to them, and the dangers they face on the Iditarod trail. Then came the real reason we'd chosen this excursion: our grandson got to hold one of the sled dog puppies. Two females had litters about six weeks before our visit, and the puppies were at the perfect age for socializing with people. He absolutely loved it. He has two dogs at home, so what's not to love about puppies on vacation? Especially when you get to hold one.

Glacier Bay National Park

A full day of scenic cruising in a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A National Park Service ranger boards the ship and narrates the entire transit. The centerpiece is Margerie Glacier, a tidewater glacier nearly a mile wide at its face.

Once you're in Glacier Bay, cabin side is irrelevant anyway. At each glacier, the Captain holds the ship steady so the bow observation areas get a good look, then executes a full turn so every side of the ship — port, starboard, aft — gets its moment before he heads to the next one. If you booked inside, claim your space on deck early. Bring everything you would bring to spend a day outdoors in a giant icebox, because that is precisely where you are.

We were lucky. The Captain was able to get us close to the glaciers, and we caught several calving events. Watching a glacier calve is — for lack of a better description — weirdly thrilling. The first time it happens, the scale deceives you. Even relatively close to the glacier face, you're still a significant distance off, and the chunk of ice that breaks away doesn't initially look like much. My first reaction on an earlier Alaska sailing was, genuinely, "what's the big deal."

And then the sound reaches you.

The thundering roar arrives a beat after the visual, and in that moment the scale issue resolves itself completely. You understand what you just dismissed as unremarkable was actually an event of staggering magnitude. You watch for the next calving event far more vigilantly than you watched the first. When you see it, and then hear it — that's when you appreciate what you came for.

Ketchikan

Alaska's southernmost city and its salmon capital. Historic Creek Street, the totem pole collections at the Totem Heritage Center, and the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show give you as much or as little as you want. We'd done the totem heritage tour on a prior visit — genuinely fascinating, highly recommended. The Lumberjack Show seemed hokey, so we skipped it. What we wanted were bears.

We took a trolley tour that promised a river where bears regularly show up to salmon fish. We got to the river. The bears didn't. The only action in the water was a pair of bald-headed guys in waders with fly fishing gear who didn't appear to be having much luck, which probably explained the bears' absence.

Our trolley driver reached a point where he needed to turn around, but his options were limited. He decided to use a local's driveway. The homeowner came running out to object. The several signs reading "No Trolley Turnaround" in his driveway suggested this was not his first rodeo. Oops.

The Day the Whales Showed Up

On the sea day between Ketchikan and Victoria, we were finishing lunch in the main dining room and our daughter-in-law had just left to take our grandson back to the cabin for his nap. That's when all hell broke loose — squealing, shouting, pointing, a general rush toward the windows. Usually a good sign.

Humpback whales. More than I could count. Spouts near and far. Our son texted his wife: come back. Immediately. She did. I didn't bother counting after that — I was too busy watching their faces.

The look on her face when she walked in and saw whale after whale surfacing — and on our son's face — that made the whole trip for me. They were in awe. We pressed our noses to the glass for the better part of an hour. We had sailed to Alaska three times before and none of those trips came close to the number and variety of whale sightings on this cruise.

Eventually the whales fell behind us, so we headed back to the cabins — our grandson for his delayed nap, and I suspect Mom and Dad napped alongside him, at least for a bit. When they came over to our stateroom later that afternoon, the action started up again, this time on our side of the ship. Janet and I took turns minding the grandson while the adult kids took in whale after whale from the balcony. Multiple breaches. It was spectacular.

Victoria, B.C.

An evening arrival in the British Columbia capital. The stop is a regulatory requirement under the Passenger Vessel Services Act — an archaic law requiring ships that depart and return to a U.S. port to call at a foreign port in between. In practice it means a few hours in Victoria. If you've been, the evening light on the Empress Hotel is worth going on deck for. We stayed aboard. The port call wasn't long enough to justify going ashore.

The Ship

The Piazza

Royal Princess was the first in Princess's Royal class and introduced design features that became standard across all six ships in the class. The most significant is the Piazza — a three-deck central atrium expanded roughly 50 percent larger than on previous Princess ships. Two grand marble staircases and glass elevators connect the levels; glass domes spread natural light down through the space. The International Café opens 24 hours here, Vines wine bar and the Ocean Terrace seafood bar look down on it from the upper levels, and live music fills it in the evenings. On an Alaska sailing, it's also where the onboard enrichment programming tends to gather between port days.

The SeaWalk

An industry first when Royal Princess launched in 2013 — a cantilevered glass-bottomed walkway extending 28 feet off the side of the ship on Deck 7, with the ocean 128 feet below. Exhilarating or alarming, depending on your relationship with heights. For us, it was firmly in the "meh" category, and we moved on. In Alaska it does serve a practical purpose beyond novelty: it extends your sightline forward along the hull and gives you unobstructed views of glaciers and coastline that aren't available from a standard balcony. But meh.

Camp Discovery

Princess's kids' program on Alaska sailings is called Camp Discovery, divided into age-specific spaces: The Treehouse for younger kids, The Lodge for 8–12 year olds, and The Beach House for teens. The programming on Alaska sailings leans into the destination — activities that teach kids about the landscape, wildlife, and indigenous culture rather than just keeping them occupied.

We didn't formally enroll our grandson — he wasn't quite the target age — but during gaps in the scheduled programming we snuck in and let him work through the kid-sized slide, playhouse, and tube crawl. When our own kids were young and cruised with us, we couldn't get them anywhere near the kids' areas. We couldn't get our grandson to leave.

Ocean Medallion

The Ocean Medallion is a quarter-sized wearable device — essentially an RFID chip in a wristband or lanyard — that replaces the standard key card for everything: opening your cabin door, embarking and disembarking, charging purchases. Through the companion app it also lets you order food and drinks delivered to wherever you are on the ship, manage dinner reservations, and track family members' locations.

The technology itself isn't new. Disney pioneered RFID in their theme parks in 2013 with the Magic Band; Royal Caribbean borrowed the concept for the Quantum of the Seas in 2014 with mixed results. Princess hired the engineer who built the Disney system and, this time, it actually works.

For two grandparents traveling with a 19-month-old, the location tracking was the best use of technology we've encountered in family cruising. Being able to see where our son was on the ship with our grandson — and for him to see where we were — was genuinely useful, not just a gimmick. You set permissions for who can track your location, easy to turn on and off through the app. It's still a little stalker-creepy. I can live with that.

The room service piece of our medallion package was a different story. We tried it a couple of times; both times the order arrived wrong. We gave up after ordering lunch for the four of us on a sea day, waiting over an hour, and receiving an order for two that wasn't what we ordered. I went up to the pool deck grill, stood in line for five minutes, and had everyone's lunch back in fifteen. I did use the medallion to open the stateroom door on the way back in. My hands were full with the lunch the medallion couldn't manage to get right. It opens the door by unlatching it — you still have to physically open it, which I managed without dropping anything. Minor miracle.

Staterooms

In Alaska, the balcony cabin upgrade earns its price in a way it doesn't on a Caribbean sailing. You will spend meaningful time on that balcony — watching the Inside Passage at 6 a.m. with coffee, standing outside in the cold during Glacier Bay, scanning the water for whales between ports. The aft-facing cabins offer a particularly dramatic view as the ship moves through the fjords. If budget is the deciding factor, book inside and plan to spend your observation time on the open decks and at the SeaWalk — meh notwithstanding.

For our group, the combination worked perfectly: the inside cabin gave the kids a blackout cave for nap time and nighttime; our balcony cabin gave everyone a place to gather. The balcony stateroom also came with a full bathtub, which our grandson regarded as one of the finer amenities on the ship.

Dining

The Main Dining Rooms

Royal Princess has three main dining rooms — Allegro, Concerto, and Symphony — operating on Princess's "Dine My Way" flexible system. You can pre-reserve times through the app before sailing, or show up and wait for a table. On Alaska sailings, when port days end at different hours and glacier viewing keeps everyone on deck past normal dinner times, the flexibility earns its keep.

The food is consistently above mass-market average. Menus change nightly, the proteins and seafood are reliable, and Princess makes a genuine effort to feature Alaskan seafood on Alaska sailings — wild salmon, Dungeness crab, and halibut appear with appropriate frequency.

When you travel with a 19-month-old, routine is everything. Our son and daughter-in-law are disciplined about it, and it shows. We ate dinner at roughly the same time each night and requested the same table. By the end of the first service our waiter had the operation dialed in — a plate of mac and cheese appeared shortly after we were seated, clearly pre-ordered, and our grandson's chicken nuggets and fries arrived alongside the adults' entrées. He didn't eat much of them, but they kept him occupied while the rest of us ate. A good waiter on a family cruise is worth his weight in Dungeness crab.

Crown Grill and Sabatini's

Princess's two specialty restaurants are present on every ship in the fleet. Crown Grill is the steakhouse — USDA prime cuts, a seafood menu alongside, genuinely quieter than the main dining rooms. On an Alaska itinerary, it's where you book dinner on Glacier Bay evening if the timing works, to mark the day properly. Cover charge runs approximately $39 per person.

Sabatini's is the Italian specialty restaurant — multi-course, handmade pasta, a dessert sampler that is not optional in practice regardless of what you tell yourself at the bread course. Come hungry. Cover charge runs approximately $35 per person.

We skipped both. The main dining room was genuinely good, and the prospect of paying extra for a USDA prime cut that still wouldn't match the beef from our local farm wasn't worth the time away from the family. No regrets.

International Café and Casual Dining

The International Café in the Piazza is open 24 hours and becomes the default meeting point for a multigenerational group operating on different schedules. Pastries, paninis, sandwiches, and cookies are included in the fare; specialty coffee is priced à la carte. It's where the early risers gather with their coffee before the glacier transit begins. Alfredo's Pizzeria, the Horizon Court buffet, and the Trident Grill poolside round out the casual options.

Alaska on the Ship

North to Alaska Program

Princess runs a destination-specific enrichment program called North to Alaska that sets their Alaska experience apart from other lines. Onboard naturalists provide commentary during glacier transits and wildlife viewing. The National Park Ranger who boards at Glacier Bay narrates the entire daylong transit — the history of the bay, the glaciology, the wildlife patterns — and the programming is substantive rather than promotional. Guest lecturers cover Alaska history, indigenous culture, and natural sciences. The enrichment talks fill seats in a way that doesn't happen on Caribbean sailings.

With a 19-month-old in tow, we didn't get much out of the program directly. What we did use was the in-room television feed of the Park Ranger's narration during Glacier Bay — it let us enjoy the balcony, listen when something caught our attention, and tune it out when it didn't.

On select sailings, Princess invites Libby Riddles to speak onboard. Libby was the first woman to win the Iditarod — in 1985, racing through a blizzard when every other musher had stopped. If she's on your sailing, go. She was on ours, and while we didn't make it to her presentation, Janet went down to talk with her and buy one of her books for our grandson.

We'd actually met Libby before, on a Princess Alaska sailing in 2008 — with our kids and Janet's parents, our kids' grandparents on that trip. We were heading back to the ship and caught her on the pier with her dogs, just disembarking. She stopped, talked with us, let us say hello to the dogs — when I'm sure all she wanted was to get them back to the kennel. Another full circle memory, and a reminder that some people are just professionals in the best sense of the word.

Movies Under the Stars

The main pool deck features a large outdoor screen running films throughout the day and evening. In Alaska this becomes something different from the Caribbean version: wrapped in a blanket on a deck chair at 9 p.m. with the Inside Passage sliding by in the fading light, watching a film while the temperature drops toward fifty degrees. Princess provides the blankets. We skipped it. Way too cold.

What to Know Before You Book

Alaska is a weather itinerary. Pack waterproof outer layers, hat, gloves, and good walking shoes for uneven port terrain. Layers beat bulk. Binoculars are not optional — if you own a pair, bring them; if you don't, this is a reasonable occasion to acquire some. For Glacier Bay, plan to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Even in summer, when interior Alaska regularly hits 80 degrees, Glacier Bay is cold. It has something to do with being surrounded by all that ice.