Carnival Cruise Line Announces New 14-Day Alaskan Cruise

Carnival Miracle

Carnival Cruise Line announced Wednesday that the company would be offering its first-ever 14-day Alaskan adventure cruise in September 2017.

Launching from Long Beach, California, the Alaskan cruise will take place on the Carnival Miracle ship, and will make a stop at UNESCO World Heritage Site Glacier Bay, as well as Carnival Cruise Line’s first-ever visit to Icy Strait Point.

The ship will depart for the journey on Sept. 2 and return Sept. 16.

In addition to stops at Glacier Bay and Icy Strait Point, the Carnival Miracle will also visit Alaskan ports in Ketchikan, Skagway, Juneau and Sitka, as well as a stop in Vancouver, British Columbia.

There will be a plethora of activities for passengers to enjoy at each port, including helicopter sightseeing, hiking, canoeing, kayaking and even alpine lake snorkeling. On the ship, guests will be able to sample Alaskan cuisine and enjoy local entertainment.

“A Carnival Alaska cruise is like no other and with this exciting new 14-day Carnival Journeys adventure, combined with the wide variety of seven- and eight-day voyages, we’re offering guests an incredible array of opportunities to get an up close and personal look at this beautiful sailing region,” Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy said in a statement.

Carnival Cruise Line will also be offering 38 seven- and eight-day Alaska voyages in 2017 and 2018 which will operate either round-trip from Seattle or from Vancouver to Seattle. The journeys will stops in Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan and Victoria, British Columbia, as well as a full-day cruising Tracy Arm Fjord or Glacier Bay.

Paddlewheeling in the Pacific Northwest

By Michelle Baran

When you think of paddlewheeling, most likely it’s Mississippi that comes to mind, not the Pacific Northwest. But when the 223-passenger American Empress relaunches on the Columbia and Snake rivers in April, it will bring to at least two the number of paddlewheelers sailing along the scenic western routes, paddlewheelers with a somewhat storied and related history in the region.

For U.S. river cruising enthusiasts, the relaunch of the American Empress, which has been dormant since 2008, is likely an exciting offering. The paddlewheeler is undergoing a complete renovation and interior overhaul so that it can once again sail along the rivers it originally plied when it first launched 10 years ago. MichelleBaran

The American West Steamboat Co. introduced the American Empress — then a 235-passenger vessel called the Empress of the North — in Alaska on Aug. 10, 2003, as a reproduction of a 1800s-era paddlewheeler. The vessel’s inaugural 11-day Inside Passage cruise from Seattle to Juneau marked the first overnight sternwheeler cruise in Alaska in more than a century.

In October 2003, the Empress began sailing along the Columbia and Snake rivers out of Portland, Ore., alternating itineraries between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. In 2006, Ambassadors acquired American West, and the Empress of the North became a part of Ambassadors’ Majestic America Line fleet.

On May 14, 2007, the Empress ran aground en route to Glacier Bay from Juneau. There were no injuries, but the vessel incurred damage to the hull and took on water, causing it to list. After repairs, the vessel returned to service that summer and sailed until the collapse of Majestic America Line in late 2008.

When the Empress relaunches in April, it will join one other paddlewheeler on the Columbia and Snake rivers: the 120-passenger Queen of the West, a fellow Majestic America alum, which American Cruise Lines acquired from Majestic as it was unloading its assets in 2008.

The Queen of the West was originally launched in 1995, also by the American West Steamboat Co., which was founded that same year. Also in 1995, the American Queen launched too, which is now owned by the American Queen Steamboat Co.

So, it would appear, what goes around comes around. Just like a paddlewheel.