Alaska's Inside Passage + Denali Extension

Fly from your departure city to Ketchikan International Airport, meet your guide, and board the ship to begin your cruising adventure. Enjoy a welcome reception before dinner. D

Visit magical Misty Fiords National Monument, part of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska’s southern “Panhandle.” Experience the towering cliffs and glacial valleys, the narrow waterways and the awe-inspiring stillness. The fjords, steep sea cliffs and natural canals provide a fertile environment for marine and freshwater life. You may see grizzly or black bears, black-tailed deer, wolves and mountain goats. You’ll also make a port call at Metlakatla, Alaska’s sole community of Tsimshian, a Native people who left British Columbia in the 1880s. Metlakatla is now a living example of the blending of ancient and modern ways. B/L/D

Cruise into Frederick Sound, one of the best places in Alaska to see Humpback Whales. The whales pass through the Inside Passage every year and feed on the abundant krill, plankton and herring that thrive here. You may also see Orcas that cruise these waters, sea lions, harbor seals, and playful Dall’s Porpoises. From Frederick Sound cruise through Tracy Arm, surrounded by sheer glacially-carved granite mountains that rise to snow-capped peaks 10,000 feet above the sea. Waterfalls cascade of the mountains, and trees grow between the rocks at seemingly impossible angles. You’ll witness the active North and South Sawyer Glaciers calving, making thunderous sounds as they create icebergs of brilliant blue. B/L/D

Today, follow another of the routes that only a small ship can enter. Take the “inside route” through Peril Strait and Sergius Narrows to Sitka, on Baranof Island. Visit Sitka’s National Historic Park, founded to commemorate the Battle of Sitka in 1804, when Russia and the native Tlingit vied to own the territory. It is now home to the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center, with towering totems that keep watch over the temperate rainforest. Learn how the totems embody and perpetuate the history of a family, and have a chance to see otters, Sitka black-tailed deer and bald eagles. B/L/D

Glacier Bay, one of the highlights of the Inside Passage, is a National Park, Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The sheet of ice that once covered it is retreating, revealing its pristine beauty and rugged majesty. Glacier Bay National Park can be reached only by sea or air. The Spirit of Endeavor will glide through this wonderland, approaching the “rivers of ice.” Massive glaciers of all varieties—hanging, tidewater and valley glaciers—abound here, under the 15,000-foot peak of Mt. Fairweather. Witness them calving, as massive chunks of ice split off and thunder into the sea, shooting water hundreds of feet in the air. There are more actively calving glaciers here than anywhere else in the world, A National Park Service Ranger will join the ship’s naturalist guides to help you observe the flora and fauna that appear in the wake of the retreating glacier, and to spot mountain goats, harbor seals, brown and black bears, and other marine and terrestrial wildlife that populate this diverse landscape. B/L/D

Cruise up Lynn Canal past glaciers that cling to the mountains, and arrive at the ice-free port of Skagway. This town was the starting place for many of the early prospectors and has retained the flavor of its Gold Rush days. Enjoy Skagway’s spectacular natural setting and its evocation of those heady times, and continue down the 90 miles of the Lynn Canal to Haines, which is widely known through the work of artists drawn to its beauty. On the way you may be escorted by a playful sea lion or a Humpbacked Whale. B/L/D

Drive to Fairbanks, Alaska’s second-largest city, 150 miles from the Arctic Circle. Enjoy a delightful excursion on a stern-paddle boat that cruises the Chena and Tanana Rivers and a farewell dinner featuring Alaska specialties in scenic surroundings at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge.