This is a very important question asked by most people thinking of taking their first Alaska Cruise and there are really several parts to the answer:

Where should we board the ship?

Embarkation ports for trips to Alaska are usually Vancouver, Seattle and less often, San Francisco.  You can also sometimes get one or two early season re-positioning cruises that offer a sailing out of Los Angeles.  Whether you choose a US port or a Canadian one is dependent on which is easiest to get to and what you want to see along the way.  US ports can be easier and cheaper to get to for Americans looking to travel to Alaska, although you will want to confirm that as you look for a sailing.  You should also know that a number of cruise lines that sail out of Vancouver offer bus transfers to and  from the Vancouver pier to the airport in Seattle.  Just fly into Seattle and let the cruise line take care of getting you to Vancouver.

Ships sailing from San Francisco usually take passengers on an eleven day cruise rather than seven day itineraries offered from more northern ports because of the further distances travelled.  Additional stops out of San Francisco may include Astoria, Washington and Victoria, British Columbia.  Beyond that, the ports of call for ships leaving from all departure ports are about the same. 

One of the biggest differences is the route to and from Alaska.  Ships departing from the USA tend to take a route in open water to the west of Vancouver Island on both the outbound and inbound legs of the cruise.  Ships departing from Vancouver usually follow the sheltered eastern side of Vancouver Island up and back.  If you Google images from "Johnstone Strait" or "Canadian Inside Passage" you will see how magnificent the scenery is and how narrow the navigation channel is - it feels like you can reach out and touch the mountains on either side of the ship.

Ships leave Vancouver between 4:30 and 5:30 pm, which means you will not see the "Canadian Inside Passage" on your way north.  You will be awake the next morning about the time the ship clears the north end of Vancouver Island and enters open water.  Coming south, on your last full day at sea, you should clear the north end of Vancouver Island about noon or 1:00pm.  From then until sunset you are in for a wonderful view of some of the most spectacular scenery on earth.

Should we do a round trip or sail one way north/south?

The simplest way to go is round trip - and it is often the cheapest.  The advantage to the round trip is that you start and end in the same place so everything is familiar and relatively easy. 

Doing an entire northbound itinerary means you will be dropped at one of two Alaskan ports - Whittier or Seward and then be transported to Anchorage where you can head off on your own or take a conducted land tour to see some of the Alaskan sites by train or bus.  Once done, you can fly home from Anchorage without a great deal of difficulty.

Another option is to fly up to Anchorage, do whatever kind of touring you would like and then sail south to Vancouver or a port in the US.  Flights to and from Alaska are just as easy to find and not as expensive as you might think.  Spending a few days in an around Anchorage, a town of 250,000, is quite interesting even if you don't take a land tour.  The divided interstate highway out of Anchorage headed for Fairbanks is easy to drive on, so renting a car and touring on your own is a distinct possibility.

What ports should we try to see on our cruise?

The breakdown goes something like this:

• Cruise ports you are almost guaranteed to see:  Juneau, Ketchikan and Skagway.

• You will probably also get to see a combination of the following as well:  Hubbard Glacier and/or Icy Strait Point, or Glacier Bay.  I have never seen an itinerary that included both Hubbard and Glacier Bay but it is probably out there somewhere.
  

• If you are north or south bound, you may get to spend some time in College Fjord as well.
  
  

There are other possible port stops if you are on a special cruise itinerary, but these are uncommon and include ports like Sitka, or Haines.  If you can find a cruise that stops in Sitka (often on a north or southbound cruise) you will not be disappointed.  This used to be the capital of Russian Alaska and the history is all over, including a Orthodox church set into the middle of main street - yes, in the middle of the road.  This is the port to take a marine tour to see rafts of sea otters and other marine creatures.  No other port gives you such access to otters.  There is a wonderful raptor rescue centre to visit and a totem pole heritage centre next to a  forest where totem poles are scattered around for visitors to find and admire.

A previous blog gives a little more information about Alaskan ports.

As you can see, there are many option available to you.  Select an embarkation port that is convenient for you once you understand what you get or give up with a particular itinerary.  Watch too for special one of a kind itineraries that can take you to the Aleutian Islands or all the way to Japan.

We are always interested in hearing about a trip you may have taken, the ports you visited and whether they provided interesting things to see and do.  Feel free to add a comment if you would like.

For many people the quick answer to this is "yes".  With smart phones now equipped with cameras that resolve north of 8MP, the picture quality is getting pretty good.  Yes, the size of the sensor is tiny and the grain in the image if low light images can be distracting, but since most of us will not be making large prints, the results can be quite good. 

A real indication of just how good smart phone images are, iStock and Getty Images have begun to allow contributors to submit pictures taken on contributor's smart phones.  I have had a number of my iPhone images accepted and some have sold as well.

The advantage to these cameras is that they are always with us so the chances of "capturing the moment" are very good.  Without an optical zoom - and even with a telephoto add on, you are not going to use these for hunting land animals or birds, but for people pictures and landscapes they preform quite well. 

It is now possible to download a number of very good apps which will improve the photos you can capture.  Some even help you with the presentation of your final images.  I have been playing recently with these apps on my iPhone.  The same ones, or similar, exist for Android phones:

Simply B & W: an easy to use program that lets you convert your camera or photo library images to very credible black and images.

Layout: an great way to, ah - layout your images with good looking frames around them.  Display individually or in groups as seen above.

Pro HDR: takes to differently exposed images in a fashion closer to true high dynamic range rather than tone mapping a single image.  You have to be pretty steady or brace the camera, but the results look pretty good.

Dynamic Light: a great way to tone map a single image to give some subtle to extreme HDR effects.

Distressed FX: provides some subtle to extreme option to give a grunge effect to your images.

645 Pro: is a great camera app that turns your iPhone into a "regular" digital camera with all the usual controls and behaviours you would expect, including a histogram, GPS data visible on screen, film and filter simulations, various metering modes, AF, AE and WB locks as needed.  A really interesting way to interact with your phone's camera.

Pano Camera: a very simple to use app that will create panoramas up to 360 degrees wide.  Simply take your first image and then line up the automatically generated targets for the next shots.  The final image is pretty good considering it takes next to no time to do and doesn't require a tripod.

Whether you use your camera in "plain vanilla" mode or tarted up with an app or two, smart phones today provide a great alternative to a compact digital camera.  If you don't need a telephoto, if you aren't using it in exceedingly dim conditions and if you don't make large prints, this may be all the camera you need.  If you haven't tried some of the photo apps out there, treat yourself, they cost very little and can add a great deal of versatility to your photography.

Do you have a favourite camera app?  A hardware add on?  Why not share your experiences here in the comments.