Small Ship versus Large Ship: What Size Ship Should You Choose for your Alaska Cruise?

When taking an Alaska cruise you can do so on a large ships such as a Princess cruise line or you take on cruise on a smaller ship such as Cruise West Spirit of 98. Depending on the type of atmosphere and the experience you want a smaller ship may be for you or it may not be. When deciding you need to look at what each style of cruise ships have to offer.

Passenger Accommodations are one thing you need to look at. Do you want a cruise with a large amount of people or a cruise with a smaller amount of people? Cruise West accommodate around 114 passengers on an Alaska cruise. The Princess on the other hand being such a large ship can carry around 2, 400 passenger in Alaska.

How you prefer to dress for dinner is another aspect that changes with the size of the cruise ship you are on. A smaller cruise ship such as the Cruise West keeps everything casual even at meal times. The larger ships such as the Princess cruise line have formal nights that require that you are dressed in formal attire for dinner on those nights. Also during all other times larger ships require resort casual attire where as with the smaller cruise ships such as the Cruise West, blue jeans and such are the normal attire.

The cost of the smaller ships is different from the large cruise ships. A smaller cruise ship such as the Cruise West will run you around $3,800 for 8 nights in an ocean view stateroom. A larger ship like the Princess will run around $1,200 for 7 nights.

If you are wanting to see the remote areas of Alaska then a smaller ship is the answer for you. The Cruise West Alaska cruises will almost always take you through remote and narrow areas such as the Wrangell Narrows and even the Peril Straight. Also on a smaller ship you will get the chance to stop at ports that the larger ship lines can not access. A very amazing experience that the smaller cruise lines offer is the chance to anchor near a out of the way cove and take the gangway onto shore.

The cruise schedule on a smaller ship is different from that of a larger ship line. So depending on what type of schedule you want will help determine what type of cruise ship size is right for you. The smaller ships may change its schedule to accommodate the majority of the passengers, such as a desire to spend more time whale watching or sightseeing of other wildlife. Also with being a smaller ship the captain of the ship is able to get close to glaciers or even get close to waterfalls. All of these things are not able to be done with larger ship lines.

Larger ship lines offer a lot of amenities such as casinos, spas, dance halls and many more activities for you to enjoy on your Alaska cruise. The smaller cruise lines do not offer things like a casino. But gambling is not allowed in Alaska so the larger cruise lines will close down the casino anyway while in Alaska and only open them back up during the times when the ship is in international waters. The smaller cruises focus more on the Alaska trip and what it has to offer than what kind of entertainment they offer that is resort style.

The size of the smaller ship lines such as the Cruise West is around 295 feet long and around 5000 tons. This allows for you to be closer to the marine life that you will see during your Alaska cruise. The larger cruise lines such as the Princess is around 900 feet long and around 77,000 tons.

So end the end the size of cruise ship you go with and the cruise lines that you choose from will be based on what you are looking for in your Alaska cruise.

More information on Alaska Cruises
1. Alaska Cruise Tour Packages
2. Ports of Call
3. Shore Excursions
4. Alaskan Glacier Cruises
5. Alaskan Cruising with Kids
6. Charter a Private Yacht for Your Alaskan Cruise
7. Large Ship vs. Small Ship: What size ship should you choose for your Alaskan Cruise?
8. What Not to Do on your Alaskan Cruise
9. What to Take on Your Alaskan Cruise
10. What to Wear on Your Alaskan Cruise

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