The Four Top Alaskan Cruise Departure Points
The start of an Alaskan cruise vacation is always going to take place at a beginning port of call. There are four main ports of call that are used as Alaskan cruise departure points. These are Seattle, Vancouver, Anchorage, and Seward.
Seattle is one of the most popular of Alaskan cruise starting points. The proximity of Seattle to the American-Canadian border and the Pacific Ocean helps to make this a great place to begin an Alaskan cruise vacation. Getting to Seattle is very easy to do in that many airports have nonstop services to and from Seattle. With this in mind many different groups will offer routes that start and end in Seattle.
Vancouver has all sorts of places to depart on an Alaskan cruise vacation. Like Seattle it is near the border and offers easy access to the Pacific Ocean through a bay that moves across Vancouver Island. It is also very easy to get to and from Seattle, and is about a three or four hour drive on average from Seattle. Cruise liners will depart from Vancouver from either Canada Place or Ballantyne Pier.
Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, can also be used as a departure point for an Alaskan cruise. Anchorage is located right off of an inlet that is apart from the Alaska Bay near the Pacific Ocean. As a result it is easy to get cruise ships in and out of the city. This is an area that is generally used as the best departure point for cruises that are going to be heading along the western and Aleutian Island parts of the state.
Seward is the fourth Alaskan cruise vacation departure city. Seward is located in the southern central part of Alaska and is right along Resurrection Bay. Seward is a great place to start an Alaskan cruise vacation that goes around different glaciers. Among the most common of the places where one of these cruises will go are College Fjord and Glacier Bay. Getting to this area is fairly easy, as it takes only a few hours to get from Anchorage to Seward, which is south of the city and can be reached by airplane from Anchorage.
These top four Alaskan cruise departure points are all great places that are used as a point for starting and ending a cruise. They are all areas that are right near large bodies of water and are in well populated areas that can be very easy to reach. They can make an Alaskan cruise vacation even more memorable, as they can be visited for a few days of sight-seeing before or after your cruise!