Experience Alaska’s Inside Passage: A Holland America Cruise Guide

A heavy mist shrouded the peaks outside my cruise ship window. The mirror-smooth waters of the Inside Passage reflected a densely forested landscape carved into narrow inlets and strewn with rocky islands. Thin waterfalls washed over cliff faces into the Pacific Ocean, and gulls searched for their morning catch. I delayed heading out for my own breakfast, content to watch the birds gathering theirs, diving into the water and scooping up silvery fish.

I had been to Alaska before. Just a few years earlier, I’d explored the state’s national parks by way of an RV, camping near Denali, Kenai Fjords and Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks. But despite my excitement at visiting those Alaskan treasures, I discovered that much of the state’s beauty could be acceAnd so this time, I booked a 14-day cruisetour that combined 8 days at sea aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam with 6 days on land, all with Holland America Line. The cruise would transport me from Vancouver to Fairbanks, stopping at ports along the way for cultural offerings and outdoor recreation, before I would continue on by motorcoach and train.

Into the Inside Passage

After sailing along the largely uninhabited British Columbia shoreline, my ship’s first stop in Alaska was a full day in Ketchikan, a city that lies so near the Tongass Narrows that half of the downtown’s buildings require stilts. Americans of European descent founded Ketchikan in the late 1800s to establish a salmon cannery, but Alaska Natives had occupied the region for at least 10,000 years.

I walked from the ship to Ketchikan’s Totem Heritage Center to learn about the local Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples. There and at nearby Totem Bight State Historical Park, brightly painted, intricately carved totems tower overhead, and displays explain the poles’ symbolism. After visiting the heritage center, I had enough time to immerse myself in the rainforest along a stretch of the Rainbird Hiking Trail and to grab a plate of halibut tacos at the  before heading back to the ship.

The state’s largest collection of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian art lies at the Sealaska Heritage Institute in our next stop, the port of Juneau. It’s easy to reach the institute, the state capitol and the rest of downtown Juneau by foot from the docks, but many visitors head farther afield. Whale-watching cruises, visits to Mendenhall Glacier and kayaking the Gastineau Channel are among the many available excursions on a day-long visit to Juneau. I settled on a scenic view of it all—the city, its waters and islands, and the Boundary Range mountains—by way of the Goldbelt Tram to the top of Mount Roberts.

Next on the itinerary: the northernmost tip of the Chilkoot Inlet and the port of Skagway, a town that relishes its role as a historic gold-mining outpost. I immersed myself in the Klondike Gold Rush, riding aboard the 125-year-old  to a gold camp with the laughably telling name Liarsville. As might be expected, an opportunity to pan for gold did not make me rich, but I learned plenty about the determined speculators and exploitative entrepreneurs who tried to make their fortunes here in the late 1800s.

Shipboard days

After several days exploring Alaska’s ports of call, the Nieuw Amsterdam spent two days at sea. On the first day, we sailed past the incredible beauty of , a 3.3-million acre natural area known not merely for its namesake glaciers, but also for its wildlife. A park ranger boarded the ship to describe via loudspeaker the park’s highlights, most notably the properties of the 1,000 glaciers within Glacier Bay. He also pointed out and identified wildlife, like a lumbering brown bear near the shore and the bobbing heads of swimming sea otters.

The days on the ship left me feeling smart for having opted for a verandah room aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam. Access to the outdoor space made it easy to stand outside photographing a calving glacier, a colony of sea lions at South Marble Island and that massive brown bear. And when I became uncomfortable—the weather in Glacier Bay can be cold and damp year-round—I simply stepped into the warmth of my stateroom and watched through the glass doors.

The days at sea also offered time to enjoy the ship’s amenities. Its 2,106 passengers have access to nine restaurants, serving everything from burgers and pizza to freshly caught salmon and halibut feasts. The newest addition is Morimoto by Sea, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s first foray into cruise ship restaurants. Set in a room with floor-to-ceiling ocean views, the restaurant serves an Asian-inspired menu loaded with fresh seafood: appetizer-sized pizzas topped with tuna; an assortment of seafood and vegetable sushi rolls; and Pacific yellowtail cooked tableside and served in a hot stone bowl. I sampled them all.

There are pickleball courts on board, too, as well as a large fitness room and a spa. And the Nieuw Amsterdam offers two music lounges and a wrap-around stage with presentations about the coming days’ activities.

I found it impossible to refuse a drink made with real glacier ice—an amenity exclusive to Holland America Line—but I couldn’t stay indoors for long. The beauty and fresh air of the Alaskan coast continually drew me back on deck. Particularly memorable was our passage through College Fjord, the subject of an 1899 expedition that included John Muir and a team that named each of the fjord’s glaciers for an American college: Amherst, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Vassar, Yale and the largest, measuring a mile and a half in width, Harvard.

Journey’s end

After eight days of cruising, the Nieuw Amsterdam completed its journey in Whittier. But since I had also booked a cruisetour, my Alaska adventure continued as I joined other cruise passengers by motorcoach to Seward. The busy seaport sits on Resurrection Bay, flanked by snow-capped mountains.

Seward most commonly lands on travelers’ itineraries for its role as the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. Once again, it is by boat that visitors experience this spectacular landscape, via a small vessel in the Gulf of Alaska. We sailed through the choppy surf, past a colony of harbor seals, through towering sea stacks and beneath bald eagle nests, the birds’ telltale white heads visible in the treetops. The beauty of the park’s steep fjords, its calving glaciers (we saw two) and the icebergs that lay in their wake are fully visible only from the water.

Only the periodic appearance of whales drew our attention away from the Kenai Fjords’ rugged beauty. A group of orcas poked their black-and-white snouts above the water. A pod of porpoises sped alongside our bow for a time. And before we returned to port, the captain pointed out the spray of a humpback whale who, as if on command, performed a deep dive, revealing its mighty fluke.

We continued the next day with an included motorcoach tour to Anchorage. After spending the night, we would travel by glass-domed train cars via the Alaska Railroad to Denali National Park. There we would stay at Holland America Denali Lodge, less than 2 miles from the entrance to the national park.

The grandeur of Mount McKinley lay before me, the grandeur of 1,000 glaciers lay behind me. By land and by sea, Alaska’s beauty is captivating.