In this conversational YouTube video, Josh and Rachael Fillbrandt share practical lessons learned from two Alaska cruises—one on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas (late September) and another on Holland America’s Koningsdam (late May). They walk viewers through the typical Alaska cruise itinerary (Seattle/Vancouver round‑trip, common ports such as Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Sitka, Icy Strait Point, and occasional stops in Vancouver or Victoria). The duo offers detailed booking advice, emphasizing the importance of selecting the right ship (indoor viewing spaces), the right cabin (avoid obstructed‑view balconies), and timing of excursions (book early, consider private operators to save money). They discuss connectivity (U.S. cell service works well in Alaska) and highlight the value of wildlife‑focused excursions versus ship‑based sightings. The hosts stress that Alaska is about the ports and nature, urging travelers to explore towns on foot, take glacier and UTV tours, and embrace long port days. A substantial portion of the video is devoted to packing strategies for Alaska’s variable weather: layered clothing, a water‑resistant jacket, rain slickers, waterproof shoes, backpacks, binoculars, extra socks, and optional waterproof pants. They describe the weather challenges (rain, wind, rough seas, wide daylight variations between shoulder seasons) and share personal anecdotes about sea conditions and sunrise/sunset times. Finally, they recommend trying local seafood (salmon, halibut, crab, oysters) and provide a brief call‑to‑action for their channel and social media. The video serves as a comprehensive, experience‑based guide for first‑time Alaska cruisers.
Chapters
Hey everybody, I'm Josh.
And I'm Rachael.
And we are just wrapping up our second Alaska cruise and we want to teach you some lessons we learned along the way.
Let's go. Here we go.
All right, like I said, this is our second Alaska cruise that we are wrapping up. Our first one was on Royal Caribbean Quantum of the Seas. It was at the end of September. And this one was Holland America on Koningsdam at the end of May. So some basic information real quick. It seems like most of the Alaska cruises are round trip either from Seattle or Vancouver. There are some that are one ways, but most of them are going to be hitting Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Sitka, Icy Strait Point. And if it's out of Seattle, you're probably going to head to either Vancouver or Victoria for a quick moment.
Yes, you may also have a glacier day depending on what cruise line you choose.
Right. Most of these towns are relatively small in size and you can do a walking tour on your own if you want to. Sitka does require a shuttle to get you to town, but the rest of them are quite close to the docks.
We have seen whale watching tours, fishing expeditions, float planes, helicopter rides, and other options right at the port if you're not interested in booking an excursion directly with the cruise line.
Pay attention to arrival and departure times in port as they seem to vary widely, with some ships in port by 6 AM and some arriving at midday until later in the evening. Alright, so one of the first things that we want to recommend is make sure that you're booking the right ship. We felt like Koningsdam was really good for us this time because it's— it is set up for a lot of indoor seating to see the scenery.
And I would say most ships that are going to Alaska are set up for indoor because the weather is not always perfect.
Right.
It just also depends on what you want to do and how big of a ship you're looking for.
Make sure you're booking the right room. So our first— This is huge. Yeah. Our first cruise, we ended up getting an obstructed view balcony because We wanted to save a few bucks because there's a lot of things down below that you're missing when the lifeboat may be obstructing your view a little bit. So this time we made sure to get in front of the lifeboats. We even got a larger balcony.
I would call it like an extended veranda balcony.
Yeah.
It was very nice. And with that, you end up having multiple options where you can actually just hang out in your room until you hear an announcement that there may be something coming up. If you don't want to be around a bunch of people, if you just want to hang out in your sweatpants and a sweatshirt, you're good to go. It doesn't matter.
Now if your budget calls for it, I think that an inside room would be perfectly fine. Just know that you're going to want to get out of that room to be able to see things quite a bit. And not every cruise ship has a lower deck to be able to see things. So you might be up on the 12th, 13th, 14th floor being able to look down, which is just going to take you away from nature a little bit more.
Yes. If you're starting to look for Alaska, you understand that Alaska can be pricey. Not just the cruise itself, But once you've booked the cruise, understand the excursions themselves are some of the priciest we've seen. And they're limited and they seem to sell out quickly.
It's true. Yeah, so we booked a lot of our excursions very early and we expected to spend 2 to 3 times what we normally do for excursions and sometimes more.
We did learn on one of ours though that try booking it, especially if you are American traveling to Alaska, you're still in America. So you can easily get to these cruise excursions without having to stress too much. And they work really close with the cruise company so they know the ideas. We were able to save quite a bit of money booking through a private excursion on our own. And we've done that twice and it worked out really well.
And on that note, if you're American like us, your cell phone is probably going to work pretty well in Alaska. Which we don't always get the Wi-Fi package. So we a lot of times don't have access to be able to book things last minute or check out and see what else is going on. But this time it was great because every time we got to port, our phones worked.
Yes.
Make sure you hit that subscribe button if you want to see our full Alaskan experience while on Holland America's Koningsdam. We will have daily vlogs showing some of the best tips and tricks to make the most of your Alaskan cruise, including excursions to Tracy Arm Fjord, the White Pass Railway, and some amazing wildlife encounters. We also showcase some of the best food and drink options in Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and even Vancouver. In Alaska, some of the local eats that you're definitely going to want to try is the seafood. You know, there's tons of salmon, there's halibut, there's crab, oysters, cod, shrimp, and a lot of other fish. So hopefully you are a big fan of seafood because you're gonna see that pretty much everywhere.
Also in Alaska, if you're coming here, likely you want to see wildlife. So excursions are definitely worth it if you're looking to see nature and animals. There's a chance of seeing wildlife on the ship and your balcony if you have one of those rooms, but it's not the same. On a lot of those excursions, you can get a lot more close to seeing that wildlife up close and personal.
Yeah, like we did a whale watching tour our first trip. And how close you get on a whale watching versus even on your balcony—
Yeah.
Is so different. Plus, when you're on a cruise ship, your cruise ship doesn't stop when some animals are coming by. So you're going at a pretty fast rate. They're not slowing down. They're not always pointing it out.
True.
They're not going to make sure that you get a good view and angle of your video or your picture!
Yeah!
So if it's really important to you to be able to see whales, I would book a whale excursion!
Agreed! And I'm with Josh when he mentioned earlier that a lot of these ports are walkable. In addition, they're kind of a lot of the same things in town. One of the best things we did this time around was we got out and saw nature up close and personal! We did an excursion through the Tracy Arm Fjord and seeing a glacier up close! We also did a UTV experience on Where we got up into the mountains of Ketchikan and it was just beautiful! Stuff you couldn't see walking around town. Now granted, we still walked around town.
Yeah.
Found the good breweries, found a place to eat. But get out there and see nature because that's what you're here for. A lot of these excursions we took this time, I told Josh, this is why people move to Alaska. They get out and do those pieces and just get to enjoy the scenery.
I agree. Yeah, don't, don't do Alaska just because you want to be on a cruise ship for a week. I know that's what it's Seems like a lot of people do when they're based out of Florida and they go to the same Caribbean ports all the time. Alaska is about the ports. And so really take advantage of that because we ended up with some really long port days. And so I partially feel like we barely even got to see a lot of this cruise ship because we were off so much. But we had a great time doing it. So embrace your ports, embrace nature.
Yeah.
Also, unlike us, bring binoculars.
I did consider purchasing binoculars, but also I wanted to take pictures. So I should have done some better research.
Yeah, definitely want to bring some binoculars if you have some or have the availability to bring some. We don't have a big camera to be able to do like the nice zooming. We don't have binoculars, but if you have those, you should definitely bring those. This is the trip for it.
This would be the one for it. Yes.
Something else to be prepared for is the weather. This morning, for instance, it was one of the rockiest sea days we've probably ever had in almost 20 cruises each.
It was bad.
Yeah, it was. We woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning because the wind was blowing so hard. And then the waves that we were hitting, I think it was around 15—
I think he said 15 meters.
Yeah, so it was extremely high stuff. We saw multiple people in the dining room at brunch that looked like they were leaving to go throw up. There were puke bags out.
Yeah.
Be prepared for that. But also on your excursion, Be prepared for the weather.
We— Alaska is rainy.
Yeah, we will show you what we ended up packing that really came in handy. But be prepared for weather that is going to be cold and rainy, especially in the shoulder seasons, which is when we've done.
Like we mentioned earlier, we've cruised in late September and it felt like we were in a fog bubble the whole time. But we did enjoy the rain and weather.
We got used to the rain.
Yeah, we got used to the rain. This time we saw a little bit different. There was a lot of rain, but there was bursts of sunshine as well. But we did still need to pack for layers.
Correct. And the other thing that you should be prepared for is the sun.
Or lack thereof.
Yes. So when we came at the end of September, it was a very standard time frame where the sun came up around 7 AM, the sun went down around 7 PM. This time around at the end of May, the sun was up by 4 in the morning.
4!
And it didn't go down until like 9:30 at night.
Yeah.
So you're gonna definitely see a wide— a wide range of sunup, sundown. And I think in the summer you're gonna see even more sun than we saw.
Yeah, and even though it's cloudy and gloomy, you still notice that the sun is up. You still have that brightness coming in, that natural light, which is great until you're trying to sleep.
It's true. But on that note, let's talk about what we packed, what we think will save you some time, effort, and disgruntledness probably. So we did not pack Winter coats.
We did not. Not this time.
We are from a northern state. We do get cold weather. We get snow. So we felt like we were strong enough. We didn't need to have a winter coat.
But we did need layers.
Yeah, one of the days we probably could have used our winter coat, but we didn't want to pack it. Yeah, that's one of the issues you got to think about with, with Alaska, because I brought a flannel for every day.
And I brought sweaters.
And they take a lot of room in suitcases, and they also weigh a lot. So unless you want to bring 2 suitcases a person and you want to try to trim down, and maybe not always re-wear the same clothes over and over, you have to try to cut somewhere.
Yeah.
So jacket-wise, we both have this jacket, which is kind of a bit of an all-weather one. It's not weather— it's not water resistant, or it's not water repellent, but it's probably water resistant.
So yeah, and it's wind resistant as well.
If you got too wet You're going to get wet from this. But it has a nice liner and it's more of a— I call it like a 40-50 degree jacket.
Yeah, it's definitely not a heavy winter coat. But it works well when it's chilly outside and you just need to keep warm.
Yes. We also have a backpack.
Yeah, water— this one is water resistant.
Yes. So Waterfly is what this one is by. That way if you're taking stuff off, especially because you should be dressing in layers when you go into Alaska. You may not always want to wear a second jacket. You may not want to wear your Hat and your gloves and yeah, whatever else.
Everything else that you might have to pack. Plus having that in there was, at least from my perspective, I didn't have to carry a purse. I just threw my wallet in the extra pocket on the inside and I was good to go.
Something we definitely had to have and recommend is get some waterproof shoes.
I went with Xtra Tuffs. They have many different options. This is more a little bit above the ankle. It helped to keep the water out for the most part. And I'll tell you, it was needed. There was, especially in Ketchikan, that was a rainy day!
Right? And these are Merrell. Looks like Vibram is the style. But these were great! My feet never got wet. I never had issues and we were walking through puddles!
Yep!
And then this might be the most important actually!
And they were not that expensive!
No, they're not that expensive! These are just some Columbia We call them rain slickers.
Yeah, we got them— I believe we actually got them in one of the stores in the airport. But they work so well. The other nice part about these is you can tidy or fold these down to very small size and fit truly in the bottom of a backpack without taking up much room.
But also we could wear these over the top of our jacket, over the top of a flannel or a sweater, sweater, which also had a t-shirt. So we had many layers and And now the one thing that I would do differently is I would have wore that rain slicker on our Tracy Arm Fjord excursion.
Yeah.
Just to have an extra layer of warmth.
Yeah.
Because that was really cold. Something to remember, 40 degrees on the water in a glacier environment is far different from 40 degrees at your hometown randomly going in and out of the store or to your car and work.
Yeah.
Yeah, we could have had a ton more clothing.
I also ended up bringing a couple different pairs of water-resistant pants. The one pair I have is a pretty thin pair, so I could have layered with another pair, like a pair of running tights underneath of it, if I would have been thinking that day, but I didn't. And then the other pair is a little bit thicker, so you can have those options. We also did jeans without any problem. Now jeans can get wet. They are not water-resistant whatsoever, but we did pack quite a few jeans.
When we did our UTV experience, we definitely should have had Waterproof pants. Because instead, basically from my knees down, my pants were wet.
And it was wet. It was a wet excursion.
Now, is there anything that you would have packed differently if you could go back and knew everything that we were gonna do?
The only thing I would have packed is binoculars. But we don't own binoculars. I would have done research and bought us a better pair or a pair of binoculars that could have taken pictures maybe. But otherwise, I think I packed really good this time around.
I think so too. I think, I think the binoculars, but also like you said, wearing maybe a pair of running tights under our pants on our Tracy Arm Fjord day. I should have done, but I didn't even pack them. And so I just had a pair of jeans and that was it. I could have probably used an extra layer. So, you know, if you have some tights or some insulated pants of some sort that can fit under jeans, I would probably recommend those as well, just in case.
And I would recommend bringing a couple extra pairs of socks just in case your feet do get wet. There's nowhere to dry them on board unless you're going to pay for laundry. So having an extra couple pairs of socks is just a peace of mind.
Yep. Hopefully this video helps you prepare for Alaska. I know we had a great time and we will probably be back at some point.
At some point.
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