Silver Muse: 14-Night Alaska from Vancouver

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.

Skagway cruise port is the northernmost major stop on most Alaska Inside Passage cruises and one of the best-preserved gold rush towns in the world. The town sits at the head of the Lynn Canal fjord, wedged between the Coast Mountains and the Taiya Inlet, with a population of about 1,000 permanent residents that balloons with each cruise ship arrival.

Seward is the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park and serves primarily as a turnaround port for one-way Alaska cruises between Anchorage/Whittier and the Inside Passage. The small town of about 2,800 residents sits at the head of Resurrection Bay on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, surrounded by mountains, glaciers, and the cold waters of the northern Gulf of Alaska.

Hubbard Glacier is not a port where passengers go ashore. It is a scenic cruising destination in Yakutat Bay at the northern end of the Gulf of Alaska, where ships slow to a crawl and spend several hours in front of North America's largest tidewater glacier.

Juneau cruise port is the capital of Alaska and one of the main stops on Inside Passage itineraries. The town sits on a thin strip of coast at the foot of Mount Roberts and Mount Juneau, backed by the 1,500-square-mile Juneau Icefield and surrounded by the Tongass National Forest.

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.