Last Updated on March 15, 2026 by Adrienne
After an active, independent first week in Alaska (watching brown bears in Katmai National Park, hiking the Harding Icefield Trail, and kayaking in Kenai Fjords National Park, among other adventures), we boarded a Princess cruise for their 7 day southbound “Voyage of the Glaciers” itinerary, which travels from Whittier, Alaska to Vancouver, B.C., by way of two glacier viewing stops: either Hubbard Glacier (southbound) or College Fjord glacier (northbound), along with the famed Glacier Bay National Park.
While I know cruises aren’t for everyone, some things really are best viewed by cruise ship, and tidewater glaciers in Alaska are near the top of this list. There’s no shortage of cruise operators to choose from in Alaska, from the kid-centric Disney to the ultra luxury Seabourn and the non-traditional UnCruise Adventures. We opted to go with Princess because their itinerary met our needs (I really wanted two glacier stops in case weather caused us to miss one of them) and because they have a long history as one of the original cruise operators in Alaska and deep ties to the region. Ok, and a tiny bit because I grew up watching “Love Boat” re-runs with my father and I wanted to “set a course for adventure.” 🙂
This blog post covers part 1 of our cruise with embarkation and our two glacier viewing stops. If you’re interested in reading about your stops in Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan and our shore excursions there, as well as more about the onboard experience, look at part 2 here.
Embarkation in Whittier, Alaska
We began our cruise adventure in Whittier, a tiny town of about 200 people. Many Alaskan cruises leave out of Seward, which would have been more even more convenient since we were already there for the Kenai Fjord National Park leg of our trip, but the drive from Seward to Whittier was less than two hours and (like pretty much all drives in Alaska) was quite scenic.
Our ship sailaway was delayed from the scheduled 8 pm until about 10 pm, but thanks to the almost midnight sun we were still able to enjoy beautiful views of Prince William Sound and a gorgeous sunset as we set out.
Hubbard Glacier
Our first full day on the ship was our visit to Hubbard Glacier. Although it was overcast and a bit drizzly as we entered Yakutat Bay, it was still pleasant enough to be out on deck and enjoy the increasingly nice views. We had a cheap interior cabin and I’d heard negative things about crowding on deck during glacier viewing days so I was a bit nervous. Fortunately, we didn’t find the decks crowded at all, probably due to the large number of people who had balcony cabins and were enjoying the view from their own cabins.
It wasn’t long before we started spotting cute seals hauled out on the icebergs.
Hubbard Glacier is the largest tidewater (meaning, it meets the sea), glacier in North America, and its face is six miles wide. Interestingly, it’s one of the few glaciers in the world that is advancing rather than retreating. Its size is truly impressive in person.
Due to the good weather, our cruise ship was able to get very close (closer than any ship so far that season, we were told), and we enjoyed spectacular close-up views of the face of Hubbard. The ice on the face is almost 500 years old!
Hubbard Glacier is very active, and we were lucky to witness it calving over and over again during the hour or two that our ship was parked right in front of it.
The views leaving Hubbard were even nicer than the views approaching it. I hung out at the ship’s stern and snapped away. This was by far my favorite day of the whole cruise and I’m glad I was able to savor every minute of it.
Glacier Bay National Park
I’ll be honest: after our spectacular day at Hubbard Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park was a little bit of a letdown. But I’m very glad we visited it, because it seems we got very lucky at Hubbard and if the weather had been different, Glacier Bay could have easily been the highlight of the trip. If there’s anything I learned from this cruise, it’s that having two days dedicated to glacier viewing is essential, if seeing glaciers up close is a main goal of the trip.
In Glacier Bay it was cold and raining and it was painful to be out on deck, even with all the warm weather gear we brought (including wool coats, hats and gloves). I would probably have tried to tough it out more if we hadn’t just had such a great day at Hubbard, but as it was I didn’t feel too guilty about spending much of the day inside the heated dining room, which had floor-to-ceiling glass windows that allowed for good viewing, if not photography. (These photos were all taken from the outdoor portion of the deck, but I was regularly running back into the dining room to warm up with some hot chocolate).
We did get even closer to these glaciers than we did to Hubbard, but I thought we got plenty close to Hubbard.
The specific glaciers you visit in Glacier Bay vary depending on the ship’s schedule and weather. We saw two, Margerie and Lamplugh. Margerie was very nice and we saw it calve several times (although it was little bits of ice and not huge chunks), but I didn’t see Lamplugh (the last picture below) calve at all.
Although many cruise lines (including Princess) hype up the park rangers who come aboard the ship at Glacier Bay, I actually thought the narration at Hubbard (provided by the cruise ship’s naturalist) was better. There was certainly plenty of beautiful scenery to enjoy at Glacier Bay though, and even a less-than-perfect day of glacier viewing is still a great day.
Check out part 2 of my “Voyage of the Glaciers” review for more on our port stops in Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan and my thoughts on the Princess onboard experience.
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