Originally posted by Lee:
Wish I'd thought of that! Sounds great! Is Glacier Bay restricted only to HAL and Princess?
The National Park Service issues a limited number of permits each year, and Regent must be too small, or too new to Alaska cruising (compared to the others), or not as environmentally sound to qualify.
The number of cruise ships entering the bay during the prime season of June through August is limited to 153, with no more than two per day, in order to protect park resources. Up to 92 additional ships are authorized in May and September.
About half the allowed trips are alloted to lines which have historical rights that pre-date the current system, and the rest are awarded under a competitive bidding process. The NPS recently signed new 10-year contracts for the next decade of cruising with four cruise ship companies: Princess, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Cruise West. From what I read, Regent did not submit a bid -- and therefore won't likely have a cruise that visit Glacier Bay until at least 2020!
Originally posted by kirky5:
I never looked closely at the itinerary. I have only been to Glacier Bay, but some people I know have been to both Glacier and Hubbard, and they liked Hubbard better, so who knows?
Lynn
From comments I've read over the past year of researching our upcoming Alaska trip from people who have visited at least two of the big three -- Hubbard, Glacier Bay and Tracy Arm -- each has its champions, but more people seem to name Glacier Bay as their top destination among those three. We tried to work it into our post-cruise itinerary for this June, but flying there and back took too much time, and we'll have to save it for a future visit to Alaska!
-- Eric
