This unusual new Holland America itinerary is one you can't miss

14.03.2024 - 18:13 / thepointsguy.com / Holland America

These cruises are going to be rare ones, Holland America fans. So get ready to book before they fill up.

The Seattle-based line on Thursday announced an unusual new "Great Bear Rainforest" itinerary that'll take in portions of the western coast of Canada that cruise ships almost never visit.

But here's the catch: There only will be two departures of the new routing for now: One in 2025 and one in 2026.

The seven-night sailings, which will begin and end in Seattle, will be alternatives to a classic voyage to Alaska.

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The trips will only include one day in the Last Frontier state, in the port town of Ketchikan.. But instead of continuing on from Ketchikan to the Alaskan ports of Juneau and Skagway, as is typical for an Alaska cruise, the ship operating the sailings, the 1,972-passenger Noordam, will then head south into the immensely scenic narrow channels that cut through the western edge of British Columbia.

They are waterways that once formed the heart of what was known as the "Inside Passage" to Alaska but have been mostly bypassed by cruise vessels for decades.

"What we are doing with this sailing is we're offering the old Inside Passage," Paul Grigsby, Holland America's vice president for revenue planning and analytics, told TPG in an exclusive interview in advance of the announcement.

"It's an impossibly narrow area," added Grigsby, who oversees Holland America's itinerary planning team.

After tucking into Ketchikan for the day, Noordam will start the British Columbia experience with an overnight in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

It'll then cruise through the super-narrow Grenville Channel (so narrow you feel like you can reach out and touch its sides as you cruise through it) as well as the Johnstone Strait and Seymour Narrows.

A maiden call at Nanaimo on the east coast of Vancouver Island and a visit to Victoria, British Columbia, will round out the trip.

Grigsby noted that the Grenville Channel and the other narrow waterways that Noordam will travel through formed the safe route to Alaska during the gold rush days of the 1800s when the passage was plied by steamboats. But it fell out of favor with Alaska-bound vessels over time as ships became bigger and willing to brave the open ocean to get to Alaska faster.

Cruise ships sailing to Alaska in recent decades have almost always bypassed this old Inside Passage area so they could get to Alaska more quickly and spend more time there.

"Many of the earlier cruise ships would also go the same [narrow] route, but with changing times, with the need to get up to Alaska faster, they skipped this," Grigsby noted.

For the most part, the only time cruise vessels have entered