Alaska Cruise Guide
Alaska Cruise Ports
Every major Alaska cruise port explained — docks, passenger caps, logistics, and what actually happens when your ship ties up, paired with live arrival schedules for each port.
Guides & explainers
- Icy Strait Point: The Tlingit-Owned Cruise Port Next Door to Hoonah
Icy Strait Point is the world's first Indigenous-owned cruise destination — a restored salmon cannery near Hoonah, run by Huna Totem Corporation, with about 240 ship calls a year.
- Sitka Cruise Port Guide: Old Sitka Dock, Tendering, and the 7,000 Cap
Where cruise ships dock in Sitka, why some still tender downtown, and how a voluntary 7,000-passenger daily cap shapes cruise days in Alaska's old Russian capital.
- Whittier vs Seward: Alaska's Two Anchorage Gateway Cruise Ports
Whittier and Seward are the turnaround ports linking Alaska cruises to Anchorage and Denali. One sits 60 miles away behind a shared road-rail tunnel; the other is a 4-hour scenic train ride.
- Shore Power in Alaska: How Cruise Ships Plug In and Why It Only Works Sometimes
Princess plugged in at Juneau in 2001 — the first cruise ship shore-power connection in the world. 25 years later the Alaska grid still can't always supply it. Here's why.
- Seattle's Two Cruise Piers: Pier 91 vs Pier 66
Seattle handles 330 cruise calls and 2.1 million passengers in 2026 across two terminals: Pier 91 (Smith Cove) and Pier 66 (Bell Street). They work very differently. Here's how to choose.
- Áak'w Landing: Juneau's Fifth Cruise Dock and the Indigenous Corporation Building It
Juneau's tidelands lease for Áak'w Landing was finalized April 2026. Construction starts summer 2027. Opens for the 2028 season. Built by Huna Totem, the Tlingit corporation behind Icy Strait Point.
- Coral Princess Becomes First Cruise Ship of 2026 at Whittier
Coral Princess docked at Whittier on April 28, 2026 — the first cruise ship of the season — wrapping a 131-day world voyage from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles.
- Juneau's 2026 Cruise Passenger Caps: 16,000 Weekdays, 12,000 Saturdays
Juneau's first year under formal cruise passenger caps started with Eurodam on April 27, 2026. Here's what the 16,000 / 12,000 daily limits mean for your sailing.
- Ketchikan's Two Cruise Ports: Downtown vs Ward Cove
Ketchikan has two cruise berths — downtown and Ward Cove, seven miles north. Which one your ship calls at materially changes your day, and not always for the better.
- From Seward to Anchorage by Train: The Cruise Connection
Seward is the second cruise gateway to the Alaska interior — but unlike Whittier, the connection to Anchorage runs through the Kenai Peninsula on one of America's most scenic train rides.
- Skagway: Gold Rush History from a Cruise Ship
Skagway was the boomtown gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. Today its main street is a National Historical Park, and the White Pass railway runs the same route prospectors took 128 years ago.
- Whittier, Alaska: The Tunnel, the Tower, and the Cruise Port
The cruise gateway to Anchorage shares its only road with a railroad, fits most of its 200 residents into one Cold-War-era apartment building, and just opened a new dual-berth terminal in 2024.