Millions of travellers are flocking to this frozen frontier

When I throw back the curtain to my verandah stateroom, it’s as if opalite has exploded into the cabin. Chunks of floating ice sparkle before Dawes Glacier steals the limelight, bedazzling when the sun hits its 182-metre tall ice wall, which absorbs all colours except blue.

Dawes glints like a splintered aquamarine – its calving ice akin to performance art at sea.

This morning is one of those “top-shelf” cruise moments that delivers all the feels, and all the squeals. Demarcations are forgotten as crew and guests marvel in collective wonder at where we are, and what we’re seeing.

Call it a gold-star, big energy, “last frontier”-scenery sort of morning.

Yet despite so much beauty and excitement, there is a large thorn wedged in my side.

My husband and I have only just woken up, a bit before 7am, to see Dawes Glacier towering outside our stateroom – thanks to the fact that Star Princess is doing doughnuts so lazy guests like us can see nature’s spectacle from our Princess Luxury Bed.

Our more organised co-sailors have been up prepping since 4.30am: carefully tracking the ship’s journey towards Dawes Glacier at the far end of the Endicott Arm fjord.

I blame our pathetic performance (on this of all mornings) on the ship’s 366 chefs, catering and bar staff, including four sommeliers.

We stayed up too late the night before, enjoying a leisurely five-course with paired wines dinner at Catch by Rudi, one of Star Princesses’ seven specialty restaurants.

The ensuing food and drink coma foiled our early-riser plans. (Read, we fell asleep after the alarm went off at five.)

Not only do we arrive late to the Dawes Glacier dawn party on the ship’s top deck. But we’re on the wrong side when someone later screams “BEAR!” after a brown bear (reportedly) appears on a distant forested hillside, prompting those on the starboard side to break into a paparazzi frenzy, their phone camera zoom functions maxed to the hilt.

“We’ll just have to come back,” my husband says as we race across deck, still pulling on beanies and puffer jackets, grabbing two mugs of hot chocolate laced with Baileys. “It’s not the worst place to return to.”

And there’s the silver lining.

Dawes Glacier is day four of our seven-day cruise. And it explains in just a few hours why Alaska continues to race up the charts, welcoming a record 3.08 million visitors in the 2024-25 travel year.

First up, Alaska is a wilderness lover’s paradise, comprising just shy of 23.4 million hectares of legislated wilderness, accounting for more than half of the United States’ total designated wilderness areas. There are only 740,000 or so residents, making it the third least populated state in the US, behind Wyoming and Vermont.

This destination is a perfect storm of wildlife, majestic scenery, and larger-than-life characters in each port with big stories to tell. During the warmer months (May to mid-August), you have the Midnight Sun, followed by the Northern Lights from late August to mid-April.

If you’re not much interested in glaciers – effectively nature’s water towers, holding roughly 70 per cent of the Earth’s freshwater and continuing to melt at alarming rates – you will be by the time you leave.

In his 1915 book Travels in Alaska, Scottish-American author, naturalist and environmental philosopher John Muir described Alaska as “a great, solemn poem, set to music by glaciers and volcanoes”.

Extreme polar destinations such as Antarctica and Greenland might have far greater total ice-sheet coverage. But no country or state has more individual glaciers than Alaska’s 100,000-plus, covering 3 to 5 per cent of the state.

About half of all visitors to Alaska take a cruise, and cruising is the main growth driver for visitor numbers. It’s possible to travel overland, but cruising delivers an easy option that guarantees a time-efficient, good overall view of the state’s tidewater glaciers, fjords, snow-capped mountains and pine forests. Especially for first-timers seeking to get their bearings.

A few cruise lines specialise in the region, including Princess, which has cruised here for almost six decades since Princess Italia first carried 525 guests to Alaska in June 1969.

The line’s new $1.4 billion Star Princess – its second Sphere-class ship – was purpose built for these waterways, featuring distinctive blue-tinted glass panels (to cut sun glare) across all stateroom balconies. Large blue-tint panels on the upper decks also serve as wind breaks.

The ship features the distinctive “Sphere” – a large circular blue-tinted glass feature that spans decks 7 to 9 midship, bulging outwards to allow more natural light in, and to maximise scenery and wildlife viewing opportunities.

A cosy rooftop dome – like a glass igloo – along with a heated infinity pool on deck 8’s aft Wake View Terrace, plus multiple hot tubs, will delight guests seeking a more outdoor experience during sea days.

The ship’s 2157 staterooms cater for 4300 guests, looked after by 1600 superlative crew. Star Princess has a dual-fuel engine, powered primarily by LNG, which reportedly reduces emissions, producing about 25 per cent less carbon dioxide than traditional marine diesel.

I jumped on board in Seattle in mid-May for the round trip Alaska Inside Passage sailing, with the standard port stops of Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway and Victoria in British Columbia. The first thing most guests do is reach for the binoculars.

Scenic cruising can feel a tad competitive, albeit in the nicest possible way. Who doesn’t want to keep up when passengers start the nightly ritual of comparing photos of glaciers, whales, long-distance bear sightings and bald eagles?

Luckily, we have a proven whale whisperer on board in the form of Australian naturalist Michelle Nussey. Her frequent lectures during this cruise can be heard from the comfort of your stateroom on the television, making it easy to absorb facts while in holiday mode.

“I’m using all my powers of willing out the wildlife,” Hussey assures us each morning. “So keep your eyes peeled.”

The most commonly spotted wildlife on this itinerary are humpback whales, Steller sea lions, harbour seals and sea otters – and we see them all.

“Orcas also pop up pretty often,” Nussey says, adding “as do Dall’s porpoises, which unlike other porpoises, are not shy, so they’ll come right up to the ship. Sometimes we see Pacific white-sided dolphins.”

As well as eagles, surf scoters and Pigeon Guillemots are also regulars up here, swooping all around the ship.

When Nussey mentions Alaska’s “Big Five” – moose, grizzly (brown) bears, caribou or reindeer, wolves and the thin-horned alpine Dall sheep (which she swaps out for mountain goats given Dall sheep tend to be found more inland) – a frisson goes through the corridors. By day seven, I have to admit, I’m yet to meet anyone onboard who has spotted a wolf or a Dall sheep.

Even so, each little town offers nicely differentiated experiences, and the chance to get close-ish to wildlife, pending how agreeable said wildlife is feeling.

For example, none of us expected to be mobbed by bald eagles near Ketchikan during the 3½-hour Bering Sea Crab Fishermen’s tour, conducted aboard Aleutian Ballad, a weathered crabbing trawler that salty sea dogs might recognise from its appearance on Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch.

At Annette Island, the ship cuts its motor and suddenly, out of nowhere, some 30, maybe more, bald eagles appear, anticipating marine snacks as the vessel starts hauling its catch.

In Juneau, I signed up for a once-in-a-lifetime true mushing experience with Alaskan huskies atop a glacier. It’s unfortunately cancelled due to bad weather, but the ever helpful shore excursion team onboard switch me to a half-day walking tour of Mendenhall Glacier, which turns everyone into a social media influencer as we clamour to get ever closer to the adjacent cascading 115-metre Nugget Falls.

The waterfall is fed by glacial meltwater, and the freezing spray wakes us up. We don’t spot a bear, but I make a mental note of the many “This is a Bear Trail″⁣ signs, recommending: “Give bears space. Do not approach or run from them.”

Then it’s off to the Gold Creek Salmon Bake, where the salmon run in a nearby stream alongside a massive old-style barbecue, powered by sweet-smelling local Alderwood. It feels slightly awkward given the live salmon just next door until I taste the tender smokey flesh, and end up having thirds.

This is Alaska. You don’t come to eat quiche.

In the old gold mining town of Skagway, the must-do day trip is to ride the thrilling White Pass Railway, followed by lunch at the somewhat hokey but fun Dredge Town gold-panning experience. The real treat for me here is peering over a fence to see a mushing dry training session next door.

By the time we reach our final port stop of Victoria, British Columbia, it’s a pleasant change of pace to simply enjoy a delicious afternoon tea at historic Pendray Mansion, which has absolutely no wildlife-spotting opportunities on offer. Then it’s a bus or e-bike tour of this lovely city, founded in 1843 as a fur-trading outpost.

Summer in Alaska means you’re definitely not alone. It might be a Last Frontier, but during the warmer months, expect anywhere from three to five ships to be in each port with you. So busy do things get that Alaska’s capital city of Juneau has limited the daily cruise passenger count to 12,000 on Saturdays, and 16,000 on other days.

Why the popularity? Alaska gets under your skin. This itinerary left me craving more – including a second go at Dawes Glacier, and more whales. Call me greedy. “It’s so easy to get hooked on Alaska,” Nussey agrees, urging me to next book the 7-Day Inside Passage, with Glacier Bay National Park on Royal Princess. “You’ll spot a lot of wildlife there,” she says. “Last year I saw puffins. And Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay is the largest tidewater glacier in North America, about 11 kilometres wide at the face.”

Sail these waters and you’ll never take glaciers for granted again. And thanks to Nussey’s whale- whispering skills, you’ll also return home with a phone full of photos of Megaptera novaeangliae.

THE DETAILS

CRUISE
7-day Inside Passage Alaskan voyage (Seattle roundtrip) on Star Princess on May 23, 2027 is priced from (AUD) $2679 per person for a balcony stateroom. Add $134 a day for the Premier Package (unlimited drinks, speciality dining, Wi-Fi and more).

Lead-in price for a mini-suite with restricted Sanctuary Collection access is $5879 per person, including the Premier Package. See princess.com

SPA
The ship’s decadent Lotus Spa does great discounts on treatments port days, such as the 45-minute mud foot therapy for $US59 ($83).

FLY
Air Canada does an easy route from Sydney to Vancouver direct. After a 90-minute layover, we flew onto Seattle in about 40 minutes. The greatest benefit is that Australians can clear US customs in Vancouver and enter the US as a domestic traveller. See aircanada.com

The writer travelled as a guest of Princess Cruises.