Lee, Alaska is on our radar also for a future cruise. I am such a big Radisson fan that the Mariner will be the first ship considered. All the good reports on the Mariner experience make it tempting. That said, I love to research travel destinations so I probably will end up doing a lot of research on ports, etc. to determine what size ship will be best for us and what type of overall experience we want. FYI, we have friends who recently had a wonderful Alaska experience on a Cruise West ship, and I want to look into that line also. You can check it out at www.cruisewest.com. The ship Cruise West uses for Alaska is small, about 80 passengers, I think, so it would be a very different experience from the Mariner. As someone said on a different thread, "horses for courses."