Specifics? Sure...
We are sailing on the
Zuiderdam round trip from Vancouver in mid-June. This is the "Glacier Bay & Tracey Arm" itinerary, and includes cruising the inside passage and port calls in Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan. I chose this over the Seattle departures because those seem to have more time "at sea" and don't do the inside passage. That makes sense since Seattle is 125 air miles south of Vancouver so you have all that extra distance to sail just to get to Alaska. Note, however, that the airfares I found from Boston were about twice as much to Vancouver as to Seattle. Since I'm using frequent flier miles for the flights, that didn't matter to me.
The other choice was one-way between Vancouver and Seward (near Anchorage). This is supposed to be a great trip, especially northbound. I looked into this, but the flights into or out of Anchorage were going to be more hassle in time and money than I wanted to deal with. Maybe next trip.
You can find all the details of the various itineraries on the
Holland America website.
The season is only five months long, yet they divide the cruises into six price categories ranging from 166 to 230 points per person depending on sailing date. (Check out the
point charts on the DVC site). Our cruise falls into "standard" season, so it cost me 205 points each for myself and DW. The cost to upgrade from a category C large outside stateroom to a category VA verandah stateroom (a four category jump) was $210/pp. The upgrade prices were $135, $160, and $185/pp for categories VD, VC and VB respectively. For our cruise only the VA was available, but that was what I wanted anyway. Keep in mind that the upgrade price also varies by ship. For the
Volendam, which will sail the same itinerary departing on Wednesdays this summer, ranges from $415 to $475/pp. All these prices include taxes and port fees.
My total cost for the trip comes to 410pts + $420 upgrade + $95 DVC exchange fee. This compares to about $4100 for the same cabin on the HAL site. Given that most of the points I used were banked from last year and would have expired at the end of July, the price was close enough that I didnt want to bother with the whole rental thing. As I said previously, I didnt do a lot of shopping around for prices so there may be better cash deals around on HAL or other cruise lines than I used for my calculations.
When you book also makes a big difference. The best prices are found for very early or very late reservations. Right now is probably not the optimal time to find the best prices for this summer's Alaska cruises.
On the advice of many folks on cruisecritic.com I chose an aft-facing cabin to get the best views both port and starboard. Member services asked what my preferences were and then called HAL. Since I got my first choice I didnt find out if there were also port and starboard cabins were available.
I'm happy to answer any more questions that you have.
Len.