Alaska via Cruise or land tour?

I'd definitely agree that a cruise ends up being more expensive in Alaska.

Wife and I did one for our 10th anniversary and went all out; helicopter ride over the glacier and then ice climbing on the glacier in Juneau, puddle jumper to go to the Traitor's Cove bear viewing (Bear Viewing Tours | Island Wings Air Service), and rented a Jeep in Skagway and drove up to the Yukon (Emerald Lake).

It was the trip of a lifetime though. Absolutely amazing. With a cruise ship you can actually get to see massive glaciers calve in front of your eyes. It was breathtaking. And we also went and got a balcony and saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-100 whales. We don't fish, but in Ketchikan it was insane the amount of salmon in the river there. It literally just looked like a river of salmon. Which also made the bear watching amazing; I could sit there forever watching those fuckers catch fish.

For time of year, you're basically limited to June, July, and August. Depending on the year, you can probably get away with May and September.

I went on an Alaskan cruise this summer and enjoyed it. Cruises in general only give you a brief buffet style sample of the places you visit. As a plus you don't have to plan as much of an itinerary other than excursions(can cost more than the cruise itself depending on what you want to do). I think excursions alone was $3000+ for 3 people for the trip. Mainly because the helicoptor/dogsledding was $500 a person. Skagway Grizzly Falls Ziplines was great. Some ziplines just buckle you in and let you go with nothing special to do on the way down. This one taught you to do tricks like full flips off the ziplines. At one stop we went to a campground and canoes for the day but that was mainly possible since we had family that lived there and had stuff setup already. It was just a glimpse of how a non cruise trip would also be a blast with renting out a campground or cabin. The salmon fishing was fun. I've mainly done deep sea fishing in the gulf/keys so it was nice to have to actually fight the fish. Due to the nature of the cruise you can't get out early in the morning when the fish are really biting though since you don't dock super early in the morning. We did have the fishing boat to ourselves though which was nice since whatever line bit we could easily share and let everyone have a turn. Otherwise if you are sharing a boat I can see how not everyone may have a great experience if they aren't getting the bites. We still had 5 salmon we were able to freeze and send back home. Princess cruises is one of the few cruises allowed to go to glacier bay national park if that's one of the top things you want out of it. I wouldn't be surprised if they are already 80% booked for next year. Depending on what port a cruise leaves from you may be able to take a glass domed train ride (was a 4 hour ride for us) which was pretty cool too.

For what it's worth, maybe not much, my one grandmother did this in the early 2000s. She did a long cruise and long train ride after them a cruise back, something like a 10 day in a sleeper car and had observation dome seats on the ARR. She apparently loved it so much she bought my brother and I some insanely expensive model railroad kit thing from the gift shop and mailed it to us from Alaska in the middle of the summer for some reason. This was not a very generous person mind you, she was just that moved by it I guess. She went back a few years later and did a winter one I think. She did buy the super expensive first class everything though.

Cruise seems fun and all but I'd really like to do the train at some point as well.

I live in Alaska if you have any questions.