What We Packed For Alaska

I have been meaning to write this post for 7 months now!  Better late than never! We sailed to Alaska in May 2018 (trip report here), and I really struggled with packing for this cruise.  I am not a light packer, and there are 5 of us, and we actually started out in San Diego because we did a back-to-back with the 5 Night Pacific Coast repositioning sailing right before the Alaska one.  All of this means that it was very challenging to pack a reasonable amount of clothing/shoes but I think in the end, I did a pretty good job.  Hopefully this post will be helpful to people planning for an Alaska cruise in 2019 and beyond.

First, we did laundry several times on these cruises.  You can read all about the laundry situation on Disney ships here.  Obviously, this helped reduce the amount of clothing that we took.

Second, in this post, I am only going to talk about clothing, shoes, and weather gear specific to Alaska ports of call.  I’m not going to talk about our formal clothes or pajamas or flip flops.  I bring all of that stuff as well, but I talk about that in some of my other packing posts which you can find here.

Finally, remember that we sailed on the very first Alaska sailing of the season (5/21/18), and we had pretty cold temperatures.  I know that later in the summer the temperatures are warmer, so keep in mind your particular sail date as you read this post.  I highly recommend checking the forecast for each port city about 5 days before your cruise, and make any appropriate adjustments with your packing.

Here are the weather conditions that we experienced in our ports:

Endicott Arm

You don’t get off the ship here, but we were outside most of the day so I thought I should include it.  The day started off sunny and cold (30’s), and gradually switched to rain in the afternoon with a high in the 40’s.

Skagway

Sunny, but very windy and cold!  Temperatures near the ship ranged from 30s-40’s, maybe even reaching 50 by afternoon, but high up in the Yukon they held steady in the 30’s (you can read about our port adventure here).

Juneau

It rained off and on all day, with temperatures in the 40’s (although much windier and colder while out on the whale-watching boat, which you can read about here).

Ketchikan

We had heavy rain early in the day, and light rain the rest of it.  It was a little bit windy with temperatures in the 40’s (port adventure review here).

After much deliberation, this is is what we ended up bringing for each of us:

2 pairs jeans

2 long sleeve shirts

waterproof boots

either a fleece pullover (me) or a sweatshirt hoodie (everyone else)

lightweight coat

hat and gloves

I stuffed all of these inside of boots to save space when packing.

umbrellas

I brought a compact travel umbrella (like these) for each of us, though in hindsight I wouldn’t bring them again.  I stuffed some of these inside of boots as well.

rain jackets

We much preferred using rain jackets to umbrellas.  Before the cruise, the youngest 2 girls already had rain jackets (hand-me downs), but I had to buy them for the rest of us.  I bought my husband this Columbia Glennaker Rain Jacket, and myself and our oldest these Columbia Switchback III rain jackets. On our day in Ketchikan, we realized that one of the hand-me-downs wasn’t as waterproof as we thought, so we bought a replacement in a gift shop.  It was well priced and great quality.

2 backpacks

We brought the 2 sturdiest backpacks that we have to carry our stuff on port days.

binoculars

We did not take these off the ship, but used them on Endicott Arm day and from our verandah.  We already had 2 pair – a standard pair similar to these, and a compact/travel pair like these.

bug spray wipes

Although we didn’t end up using these travel wipes, I had them in our backpack just in case.