MS Roald Amundsen - Alaska's Inside Passage Expedition

Where this cruise calls, day by day

12 ports and 1 sea day over 12 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Whittier, AK

   United StatesDepart

   Whittier is the strangest embarkation port in Alaska: a town of under 300 people who almost all live in a single 14-storey building, Begich Towers, reached by a one-lane tunnel bored through a mountain that cars and trains take turns to use. It exists as a port because the water is deep and Anchorage is 58 miles away. Nobody stays - you arrive, cross Prince William Sound, and go.

   • Passing through the 2.5-mile Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the longest combined road and rail tunnel in North America
   • Glacier and wildlife day cruises into Prince William Sound from the small boat harbour
   • The Buckner Building, a derelict WWII army barracks above the town
   • The rail journey or coach transfer to Anchorage along Turnagain Arm

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth alongside; the town is tiny and walkable in minutes, and everything else means the tunnel or the train.

   Best months

   May-Sep (Jun-Aug; Whittier is notoriously wet and windy even in summer)

2. Day 2

   Prince William Sound

   United StatesPort

   Prince William Sound is the sheltered, glacier-rimmed water between the Kenai Peninsula and the Chugach Mountains that Gulf of Alaska itineraries cross to reach Whittier or Valdez. Most ships spend the daylight hours in College Fjord, whose glaciers were named in 1899 after east-coast colleges by an expedition that put the women's colleges on one side and the men's on the other.

   • College Fjord and the Harvard and Yale glaciers at its head
   • Columbia Glacier, one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in the world
   • Sea otters, which recovered here in numbers after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill
   • Chugach Mountains and tidewater ice on both sides of the transit

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising - the sound is crossed on the way to or from Whittier or Valdez, with no landing during the transit itself.

   Best months

   May-Sep (Jun-Aug; often overcast, and glacier viewing depends on cloud height)

3. Day 3

   Icy Bay

   United StatesPort

   Icy Bay is a rare and genuinely remote scenic-cruising call on the Gulf of Alaska coast, west of Yakutat. The bay barely exists in historical terms - at the start of the 20th century its entrance was sealed by a single glacier face, and the retreat of the Guyot, Yahtse and Tyndall glaciers has opened the whole multi-armed inlet within about a century. Mount Saint Elias rises behind it.

   • The calving faces of the Guyot, Yahtse and Tyndall glaciers at the heads of the arms
   • Mount Saint Elias, over 18,000 feet, standing almost directly above the coast
   • Icebergs and seals in water that was solid ice a lifetime ago
   • Deck viewing on a coast with no settlements at all

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising only - no dock, no settlement, and how far in the ship goes depends on ice and weather.

   Best months

   Jun-Aug (a very exposed Gulf coast; calls are weather-dependent)

4. Day 4

   Icy Strait Point

   United StatesPort
   Icy Strait Point port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore
5. Day 5

   Haines, AK

   United StatesPort

   Haines is Skagway's quieter neighbour across Lynn Canal, and gets a fraction of the ships, which is most of its appeal. The town is built around Fort William H. Seward, a 1904 army post whose white officers' houses still ring the parade ground. It is one of only three Southeast Alaska towns connected to the continental road system, via the Haines Highway into the Yukon.

   • Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve along the Chilkat River flats
   • Fort William H. Seward's parade ground and Hammer Museum in town
   • Rafting or jet boat trips on the Chilkat, and bear watching at Chilkoot Lake
   • Driving the Haines Highway up over the Chilkat Pass

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth at the Port Chilkoot Dock, a short walk from Fort Seward and about a mile from the main townsite.

   Best months

   May-Sep (Jun-Aug for river trips; the vast eagle gathering peaks Oct-Feb, after the cruise season)

6. Day 6

   Lynn Canal

   United StatesPort

   Despite the name, Lynn Canal is not artificial - it is a natural fjord roughly 90 miles long and over 2,000 feet deep, among the deepest in North America. Ships transit it to reach Skagway and Haines at its head, where it splits into the Chilkat, Chilkoot and Taiya inlets. This was the water route to the Klondike, and every stampeder in 1898 came up it.

   • Eldred Rock Lighthouse, the octagonal 1906 light on its own islet mid-channel
   • Mountain walls and hanging glaciers dropping straight to the waterline
   • Sea lions, harbour porpoise and the occasional humpback on the transit
   • The approach to Skagway with the Chilkoot and Chilkat ranges on either side

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising only - a transit corridor, usually sailed early morning or evening en route to Skagway or Haines.

   Best months

   May-Sep (Jun-Aug for the best light on an often-early transit)

7. Day 7

   Tracy Arm Fjord

   United StatesPort

   Tracy Arm is a narrow fjord over 30 miles long south of Juneau, walled in polished granite and ending at the North and South Sawyer glaciers. Summer ice ranges from hand-sized to three-storey slabs, and when it packs in, ships divert to Endicott Arm instead. In August 2025 a 63-million-cubic-metre rockslide here generated a megatsunami with a run-up of about 1,578 feet - the second largest on record - hours before that day's ships were due.

   • The Sawyer glaciers at the head of the fjord, sea conditions permitting
   • Harbour seals hauled out on the floating ice, especially near the glacier faces
   • Waterfalls down sheer granite that still shows glacial polish and striations
   • Mountain goats on the upper walls and bears on the shoreline

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising only - no landing, and large ships often stop short or substitute Endicott Arm when ice blocks the upper fjord.

   Best months

   May-Sep (Jul-Aug for the least ice; access is never guaranteed)

8. Day 8

   Frederick Sound

   United StatesPort

   Frederick Sound is a broad passage between Admiralty and Kupreanof islands that ships transit rather than visit. It is one of the better-known summer feeding grounds for humpback whales in Southeast Alaska, so this stretch usually appears on an itinerary as a daytime cruising segment with the bridge watching for blows. Petersburg, a Norwegian-founded fishing town, sits at its southern end.

   • Humpback whales feeding through the summer, sometimes in cooperative groups
   • The Five Finger Islands Lighthouse, one of the last staffed lights in Alaska
   • The Coast Range and the Stikine Icefield along the mainland shore
   • Deck-side naturalist commentary as the ship transits

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising only - a transit passage with no landing, though ships may slow for whales.

   Best months

   Jun-Sep (Jul-Aug peak humpback numbers)

9. Day 9

   Klawock, AK

   United StatesPort

   Klawock is one of the newest ports in Alaska - a Tlingit-owned cruise dock on Prince of Wales Island that opened in May 2024 with the Seabourn Odyssey as its first ship. The village of around 700 was the site of Alaska's first salmon cannery in 1878, and its totem park holds 21 poles, originals and replicas carried from the abandoned village of Tuxekan. Expect a small, unpolished, genuinely local call.

   • Klawock Totem Park, one of the largest pole collections in Alaska
   • The carving shed and Tlingit cultural demonstrations
   • Prince of Wales Island's logging-road backcountry, karst caves and black bear habitat
   • Sport fishing and the Klawock River salmon runs

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth alongside at the Tlingit-owned dock; the village is small and close, and the rest of Prince of Wales Island requires an excursion.

   Best months

   May-Sep (Jun-Aug; the island is very wet and calls are few)

10. Day 10

    Misty Fjords

    United StatesPort

    Misty Fjords is a 2.3-million-acre national monument east of Ketchikan where granite walls rise 2,000 to 3,000 feet straight out of the water and keep going below it. The name is accurate: this is one of the wettest places in North America and the cloud usually sits partway down the cliffs. Most passengers see it by floatplane from Ketchikan; only smaller ships transit Behm Canal itself.

    • Floatplane flightseeing from Ketchikan with a water landing in Rudyerd Bay
    • New Eddystone Rock, a 237-foot basalt column standing alone in Behm Canal
    • Punchbowl Cove's sheer walls and waterfalls
    • Black bears, mountain goats and bald eagles along the shoreline

    Getting ashore

    Scenic cruising or excursion only - there is nowhere to land, and large ships generally view it from Behm Canal rather than entering the narrow arms.

    Best months

    May-Sep (Jun-Aug best odds of flightseeing going ahead; low cloud cancels flights regularly)

11. Day 11 · At sea

12. Day 12

    Alert Bay, BC

    CanadaPort

    Alert Bay is a village of about 450 people on Cormorant Island off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, with the 'Namgis First Nation reserves making up most of the rest of the island. It turns up only on small-ship itineraries. The reason to stop is the U'mista Cultural Centre, which holds potlatch masks and regalia confiscated by the Canadian government in 1921 and fought back home decades later.

    • U'mista Cultural Centre and its repatriated Potlatch Collection of masks, coppers and regalia
    • The 173-foot totem pole by the big house, carved by six Kwakwaka'wakw artists and billed as the world's tallest
    • A T'sasala Cultural Group dance performance, staged for visiting ships
    • The 'Namgis Burial Grounds, viewed from the road only, and the Gator Gardens boardwalk above the village

    Getting ashore

    Small ships come alongside the village wharf, larger ones tender; either way Alert Bay is one waterfront road you can walk end to end.

    Best months

    Jun-Sep

13. Day 13

    Vancouver, BC

    CanadaArrive
    Vancouver, BC port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore