Alaska is one of the most popular cruise destinations in the world, so basically all enterprises associated with the industry (cruise lines, travel agencies, deal-aggregation websites, etc.) offer or promote Alaskan cruises, including Costco cruises. (Costco cruises aren’t really an “enterprise” in themselves, but are more like a division of Costco Travel, which provides travel-related service to Costco members.) There are a number of Costco cruises to Alaska on seven different cruise lines – Celebrity, Holland America, Royal Caribbean, Princess, Disney, Norwegian, and Regent Seven Seas – and below we sort what is available through, and how you can book with, Costco directly.
There are an enormous number of cruises to Alaska every year (at least during its season, April through September), and a large number of these can be purchased through Costco. (More on what “purchased through Costco” means in a moment.) Essentially any cruise to Alaska offered by the seven cruise lines listed above can be booked with Costco, and since these are seven major cruise lines, there are lots of Costco Alaskan cruises. Moreover, these cruise lines range from fairly standard lines (Royal Caribbean) to luxury lines (Regent Seven Seas), so the style of cruises are diverse as well. Obviously, there are gaps in what Costco offers (there are no Carnival cruises to Alaska, for instance, because Carnival doesn’t partner with Costco Travel), but overall you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a cruise that meets your specifications. Consistent with the cruise industry in general, there is a particularly high number of week-long cruises, but longer cruises (all the way up to two weeks) can be found as well.
As we explained in our guide and overview of Costco cruises, it is a little hard to define exactly what Costco Travel even is. Not much is lost if we simply refer to it as a travel agency for Costco members, however, as this is how it operates. Basically, if you belong to Costco, they can help you plan and book your cruise vacation, and they also offer some really good deals as well. So, if you are a Costco member and you want to go to Alaska, you have a pretty obvious place to start your search.
As for how you’ll go about this search, you’ll probably just want to start on the Costco Travel website, which essentially operates like any other travel deal site. There is a search tool that allows you to select the criteria of your vacation, including destination, so you simply select Alaska and the month you want to leave and the site will generate results. (You can expand your date range after the search in case you don’t know the month in which you want to leave.) One helpful thing about the site’s search tool is that you can further filter your results after your search. Rather than clicking through page after page of cruises (although this too can be helpful because you can sort by criteria like price), you can check off boxes to narrow your results. Perhaps you only want to depart from certain ports, for instance, or maybe you have a couple of favorite cruise ships that you prefer to sail on. Apart from any deals you might be able to find with the site (which will be especially good if you are an Executive Member of Costco), the benefit of using Costco is that you have a large staff of travel experts who can help you if you have any issues. So, you might book everything through the website and never have to talk to anyone, but there is certainly plenty of support available if you need it.
In short, Costco cruises to Alaska comprises a set that encompasses a large portion of the total set of cruises to Alaska. The only thing that makes them a “Costco cruise” is that they are booked with Costco, which could make the trip cheaper or at least easier to purchase. Otherwise, they are the same Alaskan cruises you could book directly with the cruise line or with another third party.
