Oceania Riviera: 16-Night Transpacific

Vancouver cruise port is the main gateway to Alaska, and nearly every Alaska cruise that runs the full Inside Passage route starts or ends here. The terminal is at Canada Place, a distinctive sail-shaped building right on the downtown waterfront.

Ketchikan cruise port is the first major stop on most Alaska Inside Passage itineraries coming up from Seattle or Vancouver. The town sits on Revillagigedo Island in Alaska's southernmost panhandle, wedged between the ocean and steep forested mountains.

Sitka sits on the outer coast of Baranof Island, facing the open Pacific rather than the protected Inside Passage. This gives it a different character from other Alaska cruise ports: more exposed, more wild, with ocean swells and offshore islands visible from town.

Icy Strait Point is a privately developed cruise destination adjacent to Hoonah, a Tlingit village of about 800 people on the northern shore of Chichagof Island. Unlike most Alaska ports, this is a purpose-built cruise facility operated by Huna Totem Corporation, the local Tlingit Alaska Native corporation, meaning tourism revenue stays in the indigenous community.

Whittier is a tiny town of about 220 residents on the western shore of Prince William Sound, serving as the Gulf of Alaska embarkation and disembarkation point for one-way Alaska cruises marketed as departing from or arriving in Anchorage. Anchorage itself is 60 miles north by road, connected to Whittier through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the longest highway tunnel in North America (2.