All About Alaska: Cruise-Altering Insights with Expert Valerie Stimac

Speaking with 🌲 Alaska expert Valerie Stimac completely opened our eyes to insights we had never considered or heard of, even though we had cruised to Alaska ourselves on multiple occasions. 

Having grown up in Alaska and worked in the cruise industry there, and now a frequent visitor, you'll find Valerie's advice and expertise at AlaskanCruisers.com and ValerieValise.com — and today, on our podcast!

Don't miss this episode to understand:

• What months are absolutely terrible to cruise to Alaska (the reason why is  logical yet jaw-dropping)
• The wonder that is "flightseeing"
• The ONE thing is you must do in Alaska (were you even there if you don't?) 
• Valerie's recommendation is for the best cruise itinerary and the reason why 

We especially love Valerie's Guides to Alaska, and her extensive “Alaska” resource category, which you'll find on the menu at the top of her website. 

Follow Valerie on all socials: @valerievalise

For further listening to help you plan your Alaska cruise, listen to our "All About Alaska" episodes:

• All About Alaska: Discovering the Inside Passage with Alaskan Dream Cruises
• All About Alaska: Ketchikan's Must-Do Experiences: Excursions, Food, Drinks & Top Hotel Choice
• All About Alaska: Sitka's Hidden Treasures
• All About Alaska: Inside Passage Cruises Two Ways – Small Cruise vs. Big Ship Experience

Thank you to our sponsor, Riverside Luxury Cruises. Find out more about our experience with this outstanding river cruise line, providing guests with the luxury of choice.

Chapters

• 1:20 Introduction to Alaska Cruising with Valerie Stimac
• 2:13 What Makes Valerie an Alaska Expert
• 5:22 Valerie's Thoughts on Cruising in Alaska
• 5:40 Cruising Perspectives: Small vs. Large Ships
• 8:45 Differences Between UnCruise & Alaskan Dream Cruises in Alaska
• 12:11 Cultural vs. Adventure Focus in Small Ship Cruises
• 14:14 Advantage of Starting & Ending a Cruise in Alaska
• 15:08 The Local Experience: Community Impact of Cruising
• 18:10 Must-Do Experience in Alaska: Flightseeing
• 20:53 The Cost of Adventure: Budgeting for Alaska
• 23:54 Understanding Dog Sledding in Alaska
• 26:23 Valerie’s Planning Tips for Your Alaska Cruise
• 27:42 Expert Advice on Cruising the Inside Passage vs. Aleutian Islands, Seeing Kenai Fjords, Prince William Sound, & More
• 30:34 Where Do You Go to Find TRUE Alaska?
• 33:03 You’re Missing Out If You Don't Do This During an Alaska Cruise
• 34:20 Best Weather Time in Alaska & Recommendations for When to Sail
• 37:56 Mikkel Tries to Pronounce Alaskan City Names

Transcript

Dan (00:35)

Welcome to another episode of Small Ship Cruise Talk. On this episode, we have a very special guest, Valerie Stimac. She is the creator of the go-to resource for travelers dreaming of visiting Alaska. She's lived in and visited Alaska in the off season and peak season, which is cruise season, and even spent three summers working for major cruise

Welcome, Valerie. Please introduce yourself and fill in the blanks. What did I miss?

Valerie (01:05)

Oh, no, that was a really good overview! Much faster than I normally say it. But yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to talk about cruising because a lot of what I write about is land based tours. And that's the side of the cruise industry that I actually worked on. But I've done several Alaska cruises and I've cruised in other places, too. But I love going back to Alaska clearly. And so I'm really excited to talk about that.

Dan (01:28)

Small ships: that's what we talk about. What small ship cruises have you done in Alaska?

Valerie (01:33)

So I've done four small ships total, two of which were in Alaska. I was trying to just count in my head really fast. And the two that I've done in Alaska, I did UnCruise, and then I did Alaskan Dream Cruises. And I think there's only one other small ship operator that's not considered a charter because there are companies that you can just charter like basically a private  to do the same kinds of routes that you can do on the small ships. But yeah, I think there's three main players and I've done two of them.

Dan (01:59)

Nice. So we've done UnCruise, but that was in Hawaii. But we did Alaska Dream Cruises and that was definitely one of our favorite cruises of all time. 

Valerie (02:03)

Mm-hmm.

Valerie (02:08)

Yeah, they do an amazing job. They really do.

Mikkel (02:10)

Yeah.

I'm excited to dive in with both experiences because it's unique that you've done both of those in Alaska. But can you let everybody know your background in growing up in Alaska, because that's something that makes you like double, triple whammy expert and really unique.

Valerie (02:27)

Yeah, so it's sort of by chance that I write about Alaska, but I did grow up there. I spent 15 years from kindergarten until I left for college working, living, growing up, living, working in Alaska. When I was a teenager, I had some sort of normal summer jobs and then drifted toward getting jobs with the cruise lines. ⁓ That's pretty normal for teenagers in Alaska. There's lots of jobs in the summer. And so as you said in the intro, Dan, I did three summers. I worked with Holland America Line all three summers.

And my only regret in all of that - because it was really amazing to be part of the industry and learn from that, and that has informed a lot of my approach to writing about Alaska and writing about cruising... My only regret is that I didn't work the minimum number of days in any given season to qualify towards the free cruise. Because back then - I don't know what it is now - but back then it was 100 days. You had to work 100 days on contract.

And I could only get about 90 days between when my college let out and when I went back to school. So I could never hit that 100 days. After three years, I was like, I can't keep doing this. I'm just getting depressed. 

Dan (03:31)

You mentioned you worked landside. Were you also on the ship? Or both?

Valerie (03:36)

No, I never worked on the ship. So if you're familiar with Alaskan cruising, I'll say you're not. Let's say you're not familiar with Alaskan cruising and that's why you're interested in this episode. The ships, some of the ship companies, they have their ship operations where they, you know, cruise from like Seattle or Vancouver and then they maybe they do round trip from those ports through the Inside Passage or they go cross-gulf and they end up in Seward or Whittier.

Mikkel (03:43)

Yeah, fair. Yeah.

Valerie (03:57)

All that is kind of the main core business, but a couple of the companies also do what they call, I think they call like "land tours" or "cruise tours," where they then do organized tours that people can go on where they either get on a bus or they get on the train and they go up to different parts of the state that you can't reach by boat. And so I spent two summers working in Anchorage, which is, while it's on the water, is not officially a cruise port. I actually think now that some ships do make port in Anchorage, which is wild to me, but it was not at the time. And then I spent one summer in Denali, which is definitely not a cruise port.

And so my jobs were typically doing sales and customer service for tours in those ports or helping people find their luggage or get transfers to the airport or to their hotels or anything like that at the end of their cruise or sometimes at the beginning of their cruise too.

Mikkel (04:37)

So what's your opinion on cruising in Alaska in general? And then if you want to just jump right into small ship experience versus large or why you think small ships are important, we are so excited to hear your opinion as the true Alaskan.

Valerie (04:56)

Yeah, I've had to like, over the course of growing older and wiser, I've moderated my opinion because, well, I worked for cruise companies and so you think I'm like, I love cruise companies. But then I sort of learned the impact that cruise companies have on local economies and environmental, you know, like ecosystems and marine systems. And I, you know, learned about how tax loopholes work and all these kinds of things that really ruin the way you can romanticize vacation.

Mikkel (05:02)

Hahaha.

Valerie (05:20)

⁓ And so for a long time, I did not promote cruising at all. I didn't cruise. I didn't do any of that.

But then I started small ship cruising, and that sort of opened me up to thinking about cruising in a different way. And I've really moderated my stance. I wish the companies were better on their corporate responsibility, and there weren't as many loopholes for them to not have to pay taxes in the communities where they're visiting and so on.

But I completely understand, too, why - especially mega ship cruising - has an appeal to a certain traveler. There is such an amazing convenience in that kind of travel that is not possible in any other way of traveling. And I try not to judge anybody because I think that sometimes in our industry, as people who communicate about the travel industry, there can be some like, "Well, you didn't really see the place if you only spent a day in port." And in my opinion, I'd rather have them spend a day in port than not see the place at all.

I think at least that might inspire someone to return or to continue traveling or something like that. So that's my general approach to mega ships is what I call them, because...

And I'm sure you guys have defined this, but like, there's... typically there's like five categories of ship size. In Alaska, there's really only three. There's like small, mid-size, and megas. There's not a lot of ⁓ range beyond that. And so the megas, I've done one mega in Alaska. I've done one mid-size and two small ships. I prefer small ships. They do a much better job at a lot of the concerns that I have about the larger ships, but that comes with other considerations that people might have, like if you're traveling with multiple generations or you're on a budget, that might not make sense for a small ship the same way it would with a big ship. Anyway, I've definitely gotten less intense about like judging people or taking a firm stand. But if you go to my website, I do have a list of values and

Valerie (06:58)

marine ecosystems is one of them. And so part of what I do through my business is I donate to charities that work in marine environmental protection and things like that. Because that's something I can do to help protect the part of the world that is impacted by that industry too.

Mikkel (07:13)

And I'm glad you mentioned your website, because I did want to mention that at the top of this episode. And we have your website in our show notes, AlaskanCruisers.com. But also, you have ValerieValise.com. And we're specifically also going to link to the guides for Alaska, because you have incredible, incredible resources, like an 

Mikkel (07:34)

Alaska budget bundle, Alaska city guides. You have free guides for X amount of days, whether it's five, seven, 10, 12. You have free packing lists. You have destination-specific stuff, Ketchikan, Juneau, places I can't even pronounce that I definitely want to ask your expert opinion on how to say it correctly. Not opinion, the real way to say it later on. We'll close out with that. But in terms of small ships,

I would love to hear your opinion about your UnCruise experience and your Alaskan Dream Cruises experience, kind of where you went if, you know, or your favorite places that come to mind and what you thought of the experience. Again, you are so singular that you have worked on land for the land tours and then you took some of these tours. I mean, this would be like, I'm from Long Island. would be like if I worked in tourism in Long Island growing up and then took the tours. So I'm sure you have a really

Valerie (08:27)

Mm-hmm.

Mikkel (08:28)

interesting perspective on that. And then also, like, what were the pros and cons of one over the other if you care to share?

Valerie (08:35)

Yeah, yeah, I'm absolutely happy to chat about it. So with regards to the two itineraries that I did, for a little bit of context, I did one cruise in 2017 and one in 2021. Obviously, the 2021 was a little bit modified because we were still very much in the pandemic. And the nice thing about small ships in Alaska is that they can go to smaller ports. But specific to the pandemic, that meant that these were potentially more vulnerable communities that had different restrictions for what we had access to.

Dan (08:49)

sure.

Valerie (09:02)

I don't believe that there was anything majorly adjusted for the itinerary that we ended up doing with Alaskan Dream Cruises, but it's just a consideration, you know, not for current travelers, but it was, it was a little bit different than we would have normally had access to in some of the communities because they were trying to protect themselves. And that makes sense when these are really distant rural communities. 

They were pretty different itineraries, which is something I don't think people quite realize is that if you are looking just at small ships, there's a lot of variety. There's a lot of options. Even if we just talk about the Inside Passage, you can find an itinerary that fits what your interests are. So whenever I talk to anyone about Alaska, I try and get a sense of what they want to do. And that's sort of a good starting place to say, what do we want to do? And then that'll help me decide to advise where to go. 

So if you want to ride a train and you want to see moose, you don't want to go on a cruise, right? Like, there's not lot of overlap between those two kinds of activities. Well, moose are typically going to be more interior and there's only one train in the Inside Passage and it's the White Pass and Yukon route. It's not like the Alaska Railroad that a lot of people who are really into trains want to, you know, do a long day trip through the countryside. That's not quite what the White Pass and Yukon route is like.

Dan (09:52)

Thank

Mikkel (09:55)

Why?

Valerie (10:13)

So anyway, I try and get a sense of what people want to do. And that can also help you decide which route you want to pick. So looking at different itineraries and what each community is sort of known for can help you get a sense of finding the right one. So my UnCruise in 2017 was pretty standard in Ketchikan. We ended in Juneau. It was a seven night. And I think we kind of just meandered the distance between the two. I don't believe we did Glacier Bay. But we did visit ports like Wrangell.

That might have... It's one of my favorite too, and that might have been the only port that we visited that...

Mikkel (10:40)

Wrangell is one of Dan's favorites. ⁓

Dan (10:42)

Yeah.

Valerie (10:46)

UnCruise, what I would say answering your question about the differences, UnCruise does focus a little bit more on the outdoor adventure aspect. So they're more likely to take a day and just park up in a bay and get you all on land to go hiking

Valerie (10:58)

than Alaskan Dream Cruises. I think Alaskan Dream Cruises has itineraries that are like that, but they also have itineraries that are more culturally focused that do go into more of the community. So you get a sense of what life and culture are like. So the Alaskan Dream Cruise, we went to Petersburg, and Kake. That one was also, I believe, Juneau to Sitka. 

So it ended in Sitka, which Sitka has all kinds of cool history and culture as well. And it was a little bit different, and that was more like quote unquote, "city" ports than adventure outdoor ports. And that, yeah, that's one of the big differences if people are asking me to advise them which one to choose between those two companies. I think Alaskan Dream Cruise does an amazing job with cultural cruising and UnCruise really is, they have a very good strength in outdoor adventure and coming up with lots of activities and a variety of things. And you guys know that from Hawaii too, like there's always multiple outdoor adventure things to do on the boat when you're with them.

It's really fascinating though to visit as someone who grew up in Alaska because I do view it always through that lens. I view it first as an Alaskan and then as someone in the industry and then as a visitor. And what I loved the most about small ship cruising, having done two, but especially after the first one, I thought, this is how I want people to see where I'm from. I want them to slow down and just be breathing the air and having the time and the flexibility that the small ships have to stop and watch a whale for a while 

Valerie (12:21)

or go on a cool hike that there's no one else in the area at the time. That's the beauty that Alaska provides that there are not very many other places in the US at least that have that. And I feel the small ships are the only ones who really do that. Even in the midship category, to go to the same places that all the big cruise companies are going. And so you don't get that same really intimate experience of the inside passage that the small ships do so well.

Dan (12:46)

Hmm. That is interesting. When we did our Alaskan Dream Cruise we started in Sitka ended in Ketchikan. And docking at Ketchikan - it was that jarring moment when you realize, well, we got there early in the morning. Like, you know, they were just starting to open up and we're like, what a cute little town. And then you realize what happens and the ships start to come in and the population quadruples or 10 X the local population within 45 minutes.

Mikkel (13:01)

Yeah, like 6 AM.

Dan (13:14)

And then juxtaposing that with the rest of our cruise - it was an interesting experience, especially at the end where it's like welcome back to civilization kids.

Valerie (13:27)

Yeah, yeah, and you start to really get a sense of how the style of traveling small ship via large ship is completely different. Yeah, very different. Ketchikan, I think that would be the other thing I would advise people: to always try and end in Sitka. 

Sitka is my favorite community in Southeast. And the way that that community is structured, they actually don't get the big ships right in town. It's not like you cruise in and the boats are right there like they are in Ketchikan and Juneau. And so I think it can be a little bit more of a peaceful transition back to real life than Ketchikan or Juneau.

Mikkel (14:00)

One of the things that I loved about our Alaskan Dream Cruises experience and American-flagged ships - which the smaller ships are American-flagged - is that you can start and end in Alaska, or you have to. And that means that you could do a pre and post extension in there.

I wouldn't trade our time, our days in Sitka and Ketchikan, for anything, because being there as tourists for a few hours... I agree with you, it's better than nothing. And it's a great intro, which most cruises are, you know, to see if you want to go back. But you really feel like part of the community when you're even there for three nights, because it's those moments when all the cruise ships leave and you're just one of it feels like maybe a couple hundred people there, not even that.

Valerie (14:23)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mikkel (14:46)

And you're at the local burger bar with people. You're getting cocktails that you wouldn't have normally gotten during the day when you were on an excursion with your five hours there. And you're really adding money to the local economy in a greater way than you could if you were only there for a few hours, and small ships afford you that.

Valerie (14:58)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And you get that weird feeling like, I feel like a maybe I'm like, people think I'm a local, but I know that everybody knows that then I'm not. like, they're kind of like happy that I'm that they maybe spotted me on the street and I'm not one of the major cruise passengers and good, I'm putting some money into the local businesses. Yeah, I definitely get that too. Where you're like, I feel like a local, but I know everyone knows I'm not.

Mikkel (15:09)

Right? Right? ⁓

Dan (15:10)

I'm ⁓ Right.

Mikkel (15:25)

Right, right.

And then you see how much a place like Sika, which I love too, really has to offer. And we were even, because Dan loved Wrangell that we went to on the Inside Passage with Alaskan Dream Cruises, we had the time to do a hike up to like that viewpoint that was amazing. And we saw the cruise ship in the distance. We went to a gem store we loved. And like, we just got to do things that, I mean, a big ship, I don't think big ships go there. You would know better than us.

Valerie (15:53)

They do get, I think, two or three ships that are about 3,500 pax, max. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, they're little for Royal Caribbean, who I believe is the primary cruise company that docks in Wrangell, but it's big for Wrangell.

Mikkel (15:57)

All right, that's pretty big. 

Mikkel (16:06)

Yeah, and when we were walking the streets there, sleepy town, but plenty to do. And you know, you're the only people on the street or on the sidewalk. I can't imagine seeing other cruisers on the sidewalk because it would be a totally different experience. You would have almost like a false impression that this is like bustling town's not the right word because I'm not.

Dan (16:06)

Right.

Valerie (16:19)

Mm-hmm.

Mikkel (16:27)

trying to offend the town. loved it. It was great. But one of the things that makes it special is that it's a really small community and it is quiet. You just wouldn't get that with 3,500 people walking around, plus the crew that has the time off to walk around.

Valerie (16:41)

Yeah, and that's why I think in some of those smaller ports, especially in Alaska, when you're looking, when you're in communities with the big ships, they often just put people on a boat or a bus and move them back out of the community right away. And that's another thing I don't love. I mean, I understand you have to manage the flow of how many people, like you said. I think Juno is the great example. 

They can handle like eight ships in a day. They can go from 30,000 to 60,000 people for their population doubling in a day. And so it's like, of course they're going to put people on buses to Mendenhall and they're going to get them on whale watching boats. Like that community is not built for 60,000, it's built for 30,000. But it does give you a different sense of the town than if you can stay a night or two and see what it's like when it quiets down.

Mikkel (17:22)

Right.

Dan (17:24)

Right.

Mikkel (17:24)

Right. So in terms of those excursions, you might have answer for big versus small. On small ships, we didn't have a lot of options, which was fine with us. It was the excursion that it was. We had one option to pay a little extra to do like a bear excursion that we opted out of because we saw bears in Sitka that we just loved doing a wildlife safari, so to speak, on a boat, just the two of us.

Valerie (17:42)

Mm-hmm.

Mikkel (17:50)

I saw you did "flight seeing" and I love that term. That was so cool on a helicopter. So what do you think are the experiences that if somebody did have an option, maybe on a bigger ship, but especially on a smaller ship and, even if they did a pre or post tour, what kind of adventures do you think are really worth people's investment?

Valerie (18:10)

Yeah, I think that flight seeing is one of the top ones that I advise people to do because getting up in the air gives you a sense of just how big Alaska is in a way that you can't get in the ships because you're at the same level as or you're like being dwarfed by the mountains. Like if you get up above the mountains and you see how high they are and how far they go, that's a really good way to get a sense of perspective. For people who looking at larger ships, which I know is not most of the people listening to this, any boat that will get you up close to a glacier is a really nice experience, but the smaller ships tend to have that flexibility. So that's nice. So if you're like, do I need to book a glacier cruise? Probably not. 

You're probably going to get that depending on what itinerary you're looking at. And then whale watching is the other main in the marine environment that we're talking about. And again, the small ships have that built in where they can just stop and do some whale watching for an hour. They're not pushing to get those nautical miles in to be in port at exactly whatever o'clock that they need to be the next morning. So the nice thing is a lot of the things I typically recommend people have to prioritize if they're doing either a big ship or they're doing a land tour, kind of get baked into the small ships. And that's really nice.

Mikkel (19:17)

I love that. So, the flight seeing: I'm guessing, tell me if I'm wrong, you've done multiple helicopter tours in

Valerie (19:25)

I just did an Instagram post where I went down a rabbit hole and I found every flight scene tour I've done and I was using the way back machine to figure out how much they cost. My goal was to show how expensive it is to flight see. So people could get a sense of, you know, like what does it cost to do this thing I'm advising and how much has it changed in the 20 years since I was working in the industry. Um, I've done three helicopter tours. Helicopters are generally cheaper, generally shorter.

Mikkel (19:31)

⁓ nice.

Valerie (19:49)

I don't love them, I just don't like helicopters, but that's a personal preference. And I've done probably seven or eight fixed-wing, which is how I prefer to travel around if I want to go see some things. But beside the point! The best thing that I advise is if you're looking at flight seeing, you got to do a glacier landing. So from Juneau, you can do that. I think that's the only place in Southeast that does a glacier landing. But if you're doing a land portion in the Anchorage or Denali area, you can do where they… like fly up and land on a glacier and you get out and you can walk around on this otherworldly landscape. That's just so cool, but it is super expensive. So budget accordingly.

Mikkel (20:26)

Give us like a ballpark per person for people listening.

Valerie (20:30)

So I just did a 90-minute flight out of Girdwood, which is near Anchorage with a glacier

was actually a modified version. The price that I paid would have been a hour and a half total tour with two glacier landings on two different glaciers. So like fly, land, fly, land, fly back to the base. It was modified so it was just one longer landing because there was a gal in a group who was doing a polar plunge into one of the glacial lakes on the glacier.

I was so worried she was going to have a heart attack, but she was fine. That was, I believe it was $620 per person for an hour and a half.

Mikkel (21:00)

OK, so…I would say that's good value. I mean, for sure, not like, you know, something that you're just going to book. Most people aren't just going to book it without a second thought. People think about it. But for a bucket list adventure for a lot of people, start saving listening to this now and you just budget properly for it. Yes.

Valerie (21:15)

Yeah. Yeah. I will. 

Dan (21:16)

All right.

Valerie (21:21)

Can I give you the best advice that I got when I was working in the cruise industry? When I say like working in the cruise industry, that doesn't feel like what I did because I just did like sales in an office on land. But, the story is - so working behind the desk where, you know, four or five of us young, late teen, early 20s full of, you know, spunk. 

And we see this old lady coming in the door and she's got this look like she's going to be the worst customer of the day. And she's just miserable looking. And she's walking with a cane and she comes in, she gets right up on the counter. She kind of leans on the counter and she goes, "You young people, let me tell you something..." We're like, oh God. You know, bracing! She goes, "Credit cards exist for a reason. Travel while you're young, because if you wait till you have the money and you're as old as I am, you can't do any fun stuff anymore."

She had wanted to go whitewater rafting and she couldn't because she wasn't physically able. 

Mikkel (22:02)

Aww.

Dan (21:54)

Yeah

Valerie (22:09)

So I am not suggesting that you are financially irresponsible, dear listener.

But I am saying it is a really powerful tool that we, especially American travelers, have a lot of access to. And if you are able to make a financially responsible plan, your Alaska trip is one of those times that credit cards exist for a reason.

Dan (22:25)

Yeah, yeah.

Mikkel (22:25)

Amen to that, right? 

Why do you prefer flight seeing over the other? You said you don't prefer helicopters. to the...

Valerie (22:32)

Yeah.

a helicopter to me feels like being a yo-yo on a string. ⁓ The mechanics, like the physical mechanics of the way the aircraft moves through the air are very different feeling. I just do not like the feeling of that upper prop and like hanging in the air while it does its thing. I like the feeling of a plane that just like puts you back in your seat the whole way. And yeah, that's what's comfortable.

Mikkel (22:35)

Ooh.

Do you prefer the view from one over the other or you feel that the view is kind of similar?

Valerie (22:58)

They're comparable. think helicopters tend to have much bigger windows. But I am much more anxious, so I'd still take the fixed wing.

Mikkel (23:08)

I understand that.

I went on in Juneau a helicopter tour to do the I don't remember the name of it but the dog sledding and I've mixed feelings about the dog sledding. I'm not sure I would do it again. It didn't blow me away. Did I think it was worth the investment? I don't know.

Valerie (23:18)

Mm-hmm.

Mikkel (23:27)

I know that they say that the dogs are like bred to do this. But I didn't love the situation. It didn't look like they were living the life that they should. Have you done that?

Valerie (23:35)

Hmm. I've done lots of different dog sledding things. And that's a very interesting difference that a lot of like Alaskans, which I don't live in Alaska. I'm not a resident, but I kind of have a streak of Alaskan in me.

It’s just a very different perspective because I'm like, "Yeah, that's what the dogs are there for." Like if the conditions that they're being kept in are not great, that's obviously very different. But they're made to run. They just love it.

Mikkel (23:54)

Yeah?

Valerie (24:01)

way you let them run, they're going to want to run. And not just run, just like pull. They want to pull things.

Dan (24:05)

Mm.

Mikkel (24:05)

That makes me feel better. What I didn't love was that they're obviously leashed when they're not working to like a little tiny dog house. And it's like a grid, right? Like there's like six by four or whatever and they're all chained up. And I just felt like, let them run free all the time. Like domesticated, which they're not, but like.

Valerie (24:15)

Yeah. No you can't let them run free. Yeah, no, you can't do that. You can't let them run free. They'll be crazy. They're crazy. They're full of so much energy because that's just the way that breed is made. I mean, I think that that's probably the feedback that most people have is like these kennels don't look like they're particularly humane. They are. 

They're they're very reasonable for the animals. They get plenty of exercise. They're not house animals. They are not. And so they need to be given that structure in an outdoor environment until they're ready to work.

Mikkel (24:27)

Yeah.

Dan (24:28)

You

Mikkel (24:37)

Okay. Okay. So culturally speaking, as an, I'm going to call you an Alaskan. I think when you grow up in Alaska until you're 18 and then you're back multiple times to work and to play, I think you're an Alaskan. More Alaskan than us, that's for sure. But culturally speaking, you are confirming that this is OK for the dogs. OK, that makes me feel so much better.

Valerie (25:07)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan (25:10)

Yeah.

Valerie (25:11)

You haven't said anything that made me think it was not okay for the dogs.

Mikkel (25:14)

Yeah, I mean, everybody that worked there was very kind and gentle and loving. And there was no abuse or anything going on. I guess I just think of growing up with, you know, my dog in my house on Long Island and like, you know, petting it all day long and making sure it had a sunspot to lay on the carpet and, know, all that stuff.

Valerie (25:19)

Yeah.

Dan (25:30)

Yeah.

Valerie (25:32)

Your dog was not these dogs.

Mikkel (25:33)

Right, true, and it wasn't even near the same breed. So how far in advance do you think people should start planning their Alaska cruise?

Valerie (25:44)

I recommend a year. The window has really…

Mikkel (25:46)

Okay.

Valerie (25:49)

Used to be, when I first started writing about Alaska almost a decade ago, it was three to four months. So if you were planning to go in summer '26, you could start in like March and April and probably feel confident. Post pandemic, it is just, it's cutthroat out there. There have been people planning 2026 trips in my community for six months now. And we are not even done with the 2025 season.

So you want to be coming up with the ideas of what you want to do early. For another example of the small ship specifically, they don't have a ton of availability, but UnCruise is now running an Aleutian route that sold out for 26 already. It's been sold out since June. So that's a year in advance that they're selling out, not even like they're starting to get bookings a year out. They're sold out a year in advance. 

So I think with the small ships in the more traditional parts of the state, the Inside Passage, you don't have to worry about that quite so much. But it's still a good idea to just start doing your initial research, looking at what airfare is gonna be, getting a sense of what your budget needs to be so that you are ready to book by seven to nine months out.

Mikkel (26:50)

And then again, if you're going to do pre or post, you have to start thinking about what hotel you want to book and what excursions and such.

Dan (26:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mikkel (26:57)

So you mentioned the Inside Passage versus the Aleutian Islands. What is your thoughts on Inside Passage versus, let's say, non-Inside Passage?

Valerie (27:07)

Yeah, so before the Aleutians and the Bering Sea and these crazy other places that some of these ships are now going, there were two options. There was just a strictly Inside Passage, where you're just kind of in the Inside Passage. You're just doing like a round trip from either Vancouver or Seattle, and you're staying within that semi-enclosed waterway. So it's really calm, really stable. Lots of communities. You're kind of bopping around depending on what ship you're on and what itinerary.

The other option is what I call a cross-gulf. And that's where you start in, you know, let's say you start in Seattle or Vancouver, you do the Inside Passage and then you pop out and you cross the Gulf of Alaska to end in Seward or Whittier. Or you do it in reverse if you're going southbound. The main difference is that there's the same length. basically like seven night cruises are very standard in Alaska. But the cross-gulf, you're going to spend a little, maybe like a day less in the inside passage, two days less.

And you're going to work your way up potentially some of the sites that you cannot get to any other way unless you're on a cross-gulf. So that would be like Hubbard Glacier. Valdez is occasionally a port that they some of the like Norwegian's been trying to establish themselves in Valdez and then Whittier and Seward both are sort of deep water ports inland a little bit. So you get to either do Prince William Sound or Kenai Fjords and

sorry, that's a lot of locations to throw at you. So if you're now totally mystified, open Google Maps because we'll probably just keep talking about places all over. But you know you can't see Kenai Fjords unless you do a cross-gulf cruising. You're not anywhere near that body of water. So you're going to have to do the cross-gulf if you want to do Prince William Sound or Kenai Fjords.

Mikkel (28:24)

Mm-hmm.

And they look completely different than the inside passage. Like if somebody's listening and says, well, could I get the fjords? Because we saw Misty Fjords National Park.

Valerie (28:46)

Yeah, Misty Fjords is the closest thing that looks like Kenai Fjords. That's about as close as you get, but I think Misty Fjords is actually a more impressive fjord than Kenai Fjords. Kenai Fjords are a little bit wider, so if you want like a narrow, steep fjord, that's Misty Fjord. But yeah, Prince William Sound doesn't really look like anywhere else. It's a completely different waterway than Kenai Fjords or the Inside Passage. And then on the whole, the Inside Passage does not look like Kenai Fjords.

Mikkel (28:55)

Ooh, hot tip. Okay.

So do you recommend somebody starting their Alaskan cruise life in the Inside Passage and then moving on to a completely different itinerary? Or what are your thoughts on one versus the other? Or repeating, even?

Valerie (29:25)

My preferred route that I always encourage people is the southbound cross-gulf. So starting in either Seward or Whittier, fly up to Anchorage, maybe hang out for a few days, get down to Seward or Whittier, get on your boat, and then cruise cross-gulf and into the Inside Passage to end in Vancouver or Seattle. That's, that's, I've looked at all the different ways and like if I'm booking, that's the route I'm looking at. And that's what we did. We did one last September and that's the one we did.

Dan (29:41)

Okay.

Mikkel (29:48)

Okay.

Dan (29:50)

I wanted to see true Alaska, the kernel of what you think Alaska is, where would I go?

Mikkel (29:59)

And then what is that kernel of true Alaska?

Valerie (30:01)

Yeah. ⁓

It depends. Okay. It depends. But the reason for the "it depends" is because of how big Alaska is. I cannot give you a single location that fully encapsulates all that Alaska is because the size of the place is inconceivable. And there are cultures that developed almost semi independent of one another, such that what represents one part of the state from another, they're not similar.

So like when you go to Southeast, which is the Inside Passage, you see totem poles, you see community houses, there's lots of seafood. That culture and what...if you were like, what's the thing in Southeast? I could give you an answer. 

But then you go cross-gulf and you come up into South Central and you get this blending of an interior group of Alaska natives and a coastal group that's very different than the coastal group of the Inside Passage, the Aleutic and the Denaʼina people, where they are sort of overlapping and there's no totem poles. 

And there's a completely different set of marine species that they relied on. There's the influence of the Russians that's a little bit different than you get in Southeast. So there's no one answer for what like the truest Alaska is.

Mikkel (31:14)

Yeah, that's the...

Valerie (31:15)

The other thing, I would say it depends on is what your interest is. So if you're interested in history, but that depends on which chapter of history even that will my answer would come from. 

If you're interested in food, it's very different. If you're interested in modern industry, because the modern industries are very different in different parts of the state. So the reason I'm kind of like hesitated is that, you if you're looking for the real Alaska, you're not going to be on a cruise. You're not going to be even on the road system or where the train is. You're going to be in one of the rural communities where people are not relying on the tourism industry at all because that's people who are just living with all of the industry and environment that they are part of. Tourism is its own force that comes in and shapes the places around it, kind of like a glacier to drop back to Alaska. 

So the truest Alaska is not the place that people tend to see or go. And even if you go, it may not have any infrastructure to support your visit. And you have to be prepared then to adapt to where you are instead of it accommodating you.

Mikkel (32:07)

I learned so much from that answer though.

Dan (32:09)

Yeah, yeah, it's such a great reminder of the true size of the state and that it's even bigger than you can imagine.

Mikkel (32:18)

Yeah. But do you think that if somebody's best option is going on the cruise, let's say for financial reasons or vacation time, or they're trying to see a lot in a small amount of time, then you say "If you went on a cruise and you didn't do, X and Y, then you missed out?"

Valerie (32:37)

Yes, if you go on a cruise and you do not learn about the Tlingit people and the other native groups of that region, you have not properly contextualized your experience. That's the nicest way, and those were some big words, but like, you did it wrong. ⁓ You are traveling through waterways that have been paddled for potentially tens of thousands of years by the people who still live there. They're very much there. And I love seeing the communities there embrace that culture again. So now when you go to Juneau, there's the Totem Trail. When you go to...

Dan (32:50)

Yeah.

Valerie (33:07)

Ketchikan, there's totem poles all over. You're in Sitka, there's totem poles in Totem Park and you're learning the history of how there were different battles. It’s there, it's there and it's wonderful to be alive as native communities are getting to reassert their presence in the place they have always been. But it's essential for understanding Alaska to me and especially in Southeast because I think Southeast is kind of quote doing it best. Like they're the most present and in your face about their culture in a, I think, a welcoming way.

Yeah, that'd be the big one.

Mikkel (33:35)

And do you have a favorite time of year within the cruise season? So let's say generally from late March, early April to October that you recommend people go.

Valerie (33:46)

Yes. I can't believe you said late March, but we'll come back to that.

Mikkel (33:49)

You know what? Because the cruise lines want to, you know, maximize the dollars, but also allow more people to live their dreams. But yeah, I mean, it is crazy. Yes, please do.

Valerie (33:58)

We'll come back to the end of season, beginning of end of season. the best time, in my opinion,

the most popular time is June. Best weather. Best chance of good weather, I should say. 

There's no best weather because people don't realize that the rainy season in Alaska is the summer, so you should always be prepared. My favorite time to visit is the first two weeks of September. As it cools off, literally and figuratively. Most people are headed back to work, back to school, et cetera. So the cruise capacity starts to drop down. Most of the land visitors are going back home and the weather's turning so it's getting a little cooler and there's a very short window of autumn where the colors are really beautiful. That's my like thread the needle. I love to do the first two weeks of September.

Mikkel (34:38)

You can see fall colors in September in Alaska is what you're saying.  That's special.

Valerie (34:41)

Yeah. Yeah. It depends on the year as to which week of September you'll have autumn. But like there's there's usually one week of autumn in September. And so if you get lucky it overlaps when you are in Alaska.

Mikkel (34:45)

Yes, of course. Yeah. Okay, and would you say late March, big X?

Valerie (34:57)

Yeah, no. So yeah, I agree with you that I think that the cruise companies were greedy in stretching their cruise window as wide as they could. And they're learning the hard way. 

What I've told people, I have an article on my, I think it's on Alaskan cruisers or it needs to be migrated from my main site because I'm trying to get all my cruise stuff right where people who want to cruise, they find it all in one place. If you love being on a ship, early and late is fabulous because nothing will be open and no excursions will be available. And you can just walk around town and get back on the ship for every

Dan (35:25)

Yeah.

Valerie (35:28)

If you are a diehard, recurring cruiser and you love that experience, that's a great time. And they're cheap. They're way cheaper because they know the experience isn't as good. Like part of what you're paying for is a good experience and that includes all the ports. So I don't say, "No, don't do it." But I say, if you actually want to see Alaska, no March, preferably not April, I would say you're really pushing it.

And then nothing after the end of September - ideally nothing after the third week of September. The other thing to consider from a staffing perspective, this is something people don't realize, is how many people like me, college students, are the ones doing the work. We all go back to school. There's literally just not enough staff to keep these businesses running after the season's over. So that's part of why everything's closed. It's not like they're like, we don't want any more tourists. It's like, we literally don't have any staff to do the things we normally do in the summertime. ⁓

Dan (36:12)

Interesting.

Valerie (36:13)

Yeah, my prime cruise window is like the first week of May through the third week of September. And those edges are fabulous because they're typically a little cheaper. They're a little bit less crowded. You've got more iffy weather. But if you're willing to bear that, you can have just as good of an experience without the same crowd and cost.

Mikkel (36:29)

You’re opening my eyes to so much. So much.

Valerie (36:32)

Yeah, I will say like Norwegian learned the hard way because they were running cruises into late October last year and people hated them and were just, you know, flaming them. People don't say that on the internet anymore. They're flaming them on the internet. The reviews were terrible. And so they backed way back. Like I think their last cruise this year is the first week of October. So they scaled back three weeks because they realized like they just couldn't meet their guests' expectations.

Dan (36:41)

haha

Mikkel (36:54)

Everybody has to listen to this before they plan their Alaska cruise, because there's just “Gold, Jerry, gold!” in this episode. ⁓ I'm pretty sure that's from Seinfeld. Dan's usually my checker for Seinfeld quotes. OK. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. OK. So to wrap things up, can you indulge us with some cities that we found out about from your website and cannot pronounce?

Dan (36:57)

Yeah, absolutely.

Yes, that was a Seinfeld quote.

Mikkel (37:20)

Okay, this first one starts with a K. Should I try it and then you'll tell me what it really is? Okay. Oh my gosh. Now spotlight on me. Coats-a -bue?

Valerie (37:26)

Yeah, try it.

You're close. You're close. It's Kotzebue. And when I saw that on your notes that you sent me in advance, was like, I should look up where that word came from because I don't know the origin of that word. I don't know if it is a native word. I don't believe it is. I don't believe that was the original name of that community, but it is Kotzebue. So it's close to what you said. You read it phonetically and you were very close.

Dan (37:34)

Mmm. Cottaboo.

Mikkel (37:36)

Okay. Okay.

Talk-ee-na?

Valerie (38:00)

This one's super phonetic. Talkeetna. Talkeetna.

Mikkel (38:05)

You pronounced the L. OK. Talkeetna. And so far, are these two - Kotzebue and Talkeetna - are they really land only, or you could potentially get there by a cruise? Not by boat, because I'm guessing a lot of these you could get by boat. And it depends if they're interior or coastal, but.

Valerie (38:06)

Yes. Yeah, you're good. Yeah. Yeah. Talkeetna. Yep. Talk heat. Kotzebue.

Yeah.

Yeah, Talkeetna is fully interior, so you're going to be on either your own trip or a cruise tour through one of the big cruise companies if you did that. And then Kotzebue is coastal. It is very far north. It is not a cruise port, so you would not visit. You would fly in. Yeah, you wouldn't visit by boat.

Mikkel (38:45)

Okay.

This last one, I'm not even sure I could phonetically try. U-keeg-a-vik?

Valerie (38:56)

You're not that far off. It's, and I'm going to say, I'm going to say I'm not an Alaska native and I am not an Iñupiat speaker. So I will also say it wrong. Like if you were to speak to a local, they say it slightly differently, but it is close to Utqiagvik. Utqiagvik. So that Q without a U is sort of a K-ish sound. And then that G, that's what I'm mispronouncing myself, which it's more of a like a back of the

Mikkel (39:14)

Wow, okay.

Valerie (39:25)

throat sound that they make. Utqiagvik.

Mikkel (39:28)

Well, I'm certainly impressed.

Valerie (39:30)

Thanks. When I was just up there in June and the guide said it, I was like, "Oh no, I'm never going to say it right. But I'll try." If you're listening and you're like, "Where the heck is that?" That was formerly called Barrow.

Dan (39:36)

Yeah.

Mikkel (39:42)

okay.

Dan (39:42)

They rebranded.

Valerie (39:44)

They, it was, It was Utqiagvik, then it was renamed Barrow, and then they in the last decade decided that they wanted it to be the name that it's always been. So they went back to calling it Utqiagvik. Yep, also not a cruise port. Sorry, just to clarify, can't cruise there either.

Mikkel (39:44)

They should.

Dan (39:53)

Nice.

Mikkel (39:55)

I like that.

Dan (39:59)

Right. Yeah.

Mikkel (40:01)

But full circle, whether or not you're just curious about Alaska and the cruise is your gateway, let's say, to Alaska, you have to check out Valerie's sites because you're just going to learn so much, as I hope that everybody listening has during this episode. Like I said, I've learned a ton. I could talk to you for hours, but tell the people where to find you to learn more. And everything is going to be in the show notes. But for everybody listening and driving, indulge us.

Valerie (40:28)

Yeah, sure. Yeah. 

So you can find me on my two main websites about Alaska, which is Valerie and Valise and AlaskanCruisers.com. So it's ValerieValise.com, AlaskanCruisers.com. 

It's just easier to check the show notes when you remember at home. And then I'm on social media @ValerieValise for everything. And the other cool thing is if you want to go to Alaska and you follow me on Instagram, send me a little note. Every Friday, I draw someone to win a 45 minute consultation for free just to talk about their Alaska trip planning.

Valerie (40:58)

I say that. I haven’t drawn any names in a while, but it is something I am supposed to be doing. So if you message me, you will peer pressure me into drawing a name this coming Friday.

Mikkel (41:02)

Yeah. Yes, and if you're listening to this, you're already a winner, because it's 45 minutes approximately of this, but you could get an even more personalized one-on-one session with the drawing. That's so cool and so generous that you do that.

Valerie (41:20)

It's ⁓ yeah. Instagram's not my forte. So I just want to encourage people to come follow me.

Dan (41:26)

Yes.

Mikkel (41:26)

Yeah, I love it. Dan, any last thoughts for the Last Frontier with Valerie?

Dan (41:32)

Hmm. So this has been extremely eye-opening. Just the intricacies, the size of Alaska. I'm sure we could talk for days and never really have the same conversation twice. But my true takeaway from this conversation was cruising is such a great way to start the adventure and it's accessible and easy way to start your Alaska adventure.

Mikkel (41:57)

Thanks for coming on, Valerie.

Valerie (41:58)

Thanks so much for having me.