回复：Alaska Cruise - a few more things to ponder

1) Car rental - compare all rental car companies prices and search for discount codes - discount codes can save you 20 to 30% in many cases. If you dont take the car, remember to cancel your reservation. I remember when we went, National stated on their reservation about 24 hour cancellation, and if not, they charge you one day for no show. Although I dont know HOW they can charge as there is no CC input on the reservation. I suppose they can still send you a bill for payment and if you ignore it, in theory they can hand it to collection agency. In practice, who knows? However, it is always a common courtesy to cancel your car reservation if you are not going to use it.

After you make reservations (on car or hotel) keep checking them frequently - prices could change to your favour. The hotel we booked at ANC was initially at $90 a night but it fell to $75 a night on one day when I checked it and I immediately cancelled and rebooked, saved $50 total for 2 nights.

The road conditions are generally good - the only troublesome spot is the frequent roadwork and your windshield may be damaged by the loose gravel in roadwork sections. Check if there is low cost insurance for windshield only from the rental car company and only buy that if you are worried. Otherwise, you can just rely on your own car insurance or your CC coverage.

2) It is better to do a combination of Cruise and Landtrip on one go, as the airfare to Alaska is not cheap. You can easily do the land portion on your own and no need to join the cruisetour offered by Cruiselines. I would suggest do the landtrip first and then board the cruise after you have done the land trip. You wouldn't be able to return your rental car at Whittier anyway, and it is possible at Seward but would cost you an arm and a leg for one-way drop off fee - not worth it. If it is the first time you go, you may want to pick Princess solely for the Glacier Bay NP. Holland America is for mature folks and if you are a family with kids, you will feel out of place.

Save your money by choosing Inside Cabin. The balcony cabins would cost twice as much as Inside but do not neccessarily offer advantage, when it rains most of the time. You cannot use the balcony any way but you pay twice as much. Choose NEW SHIPS - it would make your cruse experiences that much more enjoyable than an old ship. Personal favorites would be the 4 ships from Princess: Diamond, Sapphire, Coral and Island. Coral and Island are just a wee bit smaller than Diamond and Sapphire, but carry almost 1,000 less pessangers so you feel a lot less rush in the usually crowded time (arriving ports, breakfast and lunch at buffet restaurant, show time, for example).
The Radiance of the Sea of Royal Caribbean also is a gorgeous mid-size ship. It probably is the best ship to go to Alaska as most of the public areas are glass wall only so you can see out from most everywhere on the ship. The 8 deck high Centrum (trademark of RCCL newer ships) is by far the most beautiful among all cruiselines.

For those who want to know more about cruises, strongly suggest you visit the site cruisecritics.com - it has a wealth of information for cruise in general, member reviews on various ships/itineraries, plus you can go to the boards and check out Alaska forum to find many useful tips.

3) You can do better to book your own air then let the cruiseline do it. Booking one-way actually may be cheaper than book an open-jaw roundtrip. You just need to play around on sites such as Travelocity, Orbitz or Expedia to see what suits you the best. There is NO particular site or routing that would work the best, plus airfares change very frequently - just play around to get an idea of a ballpark figure then pounce once you see a good deal. If you rely on others to tell you what are the good deals without doing homework yourselves, chances you will never find one as you have no clue.