As a child of the eighties, I grew up in an era rife with jokes about in-laws. Mother-in-laws, in particular. The complaint went that they were overbearing, impossible to please, and a constant strain on one’s marriage. Wikipedia suggests mother-in-law jokes date back to Roman times. We don’t hear them much anymore. Whether because of political correctness (nah) or because younger generations finally recognized how lazy the jokes were (yep), you’re unlikely to encounter one these days unless you stumble upon some old Jeff Foxworthy clips on YouTube. Or a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Though I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with my father-in-law (we agreed I wasn’t good enough for his daughter – I joke, sort of – and little else), I get along with my wife’s mother wonderfully. And always have. We’ll talk on the phone, go out to lunch when she comes to visit, and spend hours in discussion – most often about topics we share little common ground. Books, politics, religion, etc.

In short, I love her. I do. Enough to even join her and the rest of the family on a 7-day Alaskan cruise.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: A cruise to Alaska doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice. And you’re right, especially since she was paying — thanks, Ruth — but you have to understand my wife and me. We’re not cruise people.

Allow me to explain.

The Ruby Princess docked in Skagway, AK.

Last week’s cruise through the Inside Passage from Seattle to Alaska was our sixth time cruising. This includes a trip aboard a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship to Cozumel and Key West for our honeymoon many years ago, a Viking river cruise along the Danube with my wife’s grandmother, and several shorter jaunts on various lines. Of them all, the only one we hope to repeat was our 2014 trip aboard the Queen Mary 2.

We absolutely loved our trans-Atlantic crossing aboard the QM2, but that’s an entirely different beast than an Alaskan cruise. For starters, Cunard runs the ship as an “ocean liner” and not a “cruise ship.” And they aim to differentiate their crossings from cruises. Importantly, there were no ports of call, just a final destination. It’s also British, which largely exempts it from America’s ceaseless race to lower the quality of an experience (see also: airlines).

I woke most mornings at 4 a.m. and headed to the ship’s cafe, where I enjoyed the quiet and got some writing done.

Tastes being personal, I’ll allow the numbers to speak for themselves. Pretending that everything else is equal, the Ruby Princess, which we took to Alaska, packs up to 400 more passengers on board, despite having fewer crew (the ship is nearly 200 feet shorter in length, but several decks taller than the QM2). With an average of 25% more passengers per crew member than aboard the QM2, service suffered. Especially in the dining rooms, in which the wait staff ran around as frantically as servers at a TGI Fridays on a Saturday night – and with all the etiquette, to boot.

No offense to the servers in the weeds. I’ve been there.

Perhaps if fewer crew were assigned to running the hallway-clogging “sidewalk sales” and more to the kitchen and dining staff, the difference wouldn’t have been so stark. Another passenger, upon seeing the barrage of tasteless, infomercial lectures listed on the ship’s daily schedule, joked that she expected the next announcement to be prefaced with, “Attention Wal-Mart Cruisers.” An apt observation. Of course, Cunard and Princess generally attract different clientele with varying standards. And that’s great. There should be options at every price point, but Princess was far from cheap. My eyes bulged like a Looney Tunes character when I saw the ticket price.

We hired guides through Above & Beyond Alaska for a 6+ hour canoe and glacier trek trip to Mendenhall Glacier, definitely the highlight of our time in Alaska. The same tour, offered through the cruise ship, included a 30% markup. Always book directly — and local!

Our main complaint about cruises, however, concerns how they alter the ports they call upon. In my opinion, they ruin them. Setting aside the crime of dumping plastic into the ocean, commercial tour operators like Carnival (owner of Princess Cruise Lines) and the other giants completely disrupt the nature of the ports their passengers wish to visit. Not only does it force existing small businesses to bend to the will of commercial tourism – more t-shirt shops, anyone? – but, in the case of Skagway and Ketchikan specifically, the cruise lines even own many of the retail shops they deposit their passengers at. And the ones they don’t own are forced to pay exorbitant fees to be listed in the shopping guides the cruise lines hand out. That’s right, you just flew to the Pacific Northwest to take a cruise to Alaska, all so you can visit one of the myriad jewelry stores in Skagway owned by the very same cruise line you just rode in on. With no deals to be had.

Hit the trails in Skagway and leave the crowds behind. A splendid 6.5 mile hike (round-trip) to Upper Reid Falls offers plenty of solitude and is easy to follow.

But it’s not just about the shops. The cruises are vinegar dumped into the local flavor. We saw this first-hand in Barbados years ago. After a week of traveling throughout the island, being treated wonderfully by the locals, we finally made our way to Bridgetown, a popular port of call for passing cruise ships. At once, the behavior of the locals changed. We were white, comparatively affluent Americans everywhere we went on the island, but there, near the port, we were treated like bags of money, like suckers. No more camaraderie. No more island spirit. How anybody could have enjoyed their time ashore without getting as far from the port as possible is beyond me. And the same goes for Bar Harbor, in Maine, home of Acadia National Park. Up to three cruise ships a day park in the once-quaint town, choking the streets with pedestrians, driving up prices, and making life a nightmare for the locals. Yes, a few shop owners benefit, but at what cost to community? After an hour in Bar Harbor’s downtown during our bike tour, I was left wondering why anyone would ever choose to return.

This is the world of commercial tourism. And it’s not just the cruise lines though. Bus tour companies include mandatory shopping stops at specific stores, not because the goods are, well, good or because the prices are fair, but because those store owners lined the tour guide’s pockets. And tourists blindly go along, merrily letting themselves be taken for a ride.

I know some will say that the cruise ships benefit the local economy, and they do to an extent, but the local economy best benefits when passengers make an effort to ignore the obvious attractions and seek out the locally owned shops and restaurants, not highlighted by the cruise company. When everyone overpays for crab legs and salmon at the restaurants the cruise director points them to, they’re only benefiting the cruise line – and cheating themselves of a more authentic experience.

Cruising to a glacier provides some surreal juxtapositions.

Despite everything I just said, we had a good time. Because we did our homework.

Any vacation is what you make of it and we did our best to travel independently within the structure of the ship’s itinerary – and my mother-in-law’s requests. This meant taking self-guided hikes, seeking out smaller craft breweries like Devil’s Club in Juneau and Klondike Brewing in Skagway, and hiring outfitters externally from the cruise ship for small group forays into the backcountry.

On board the ship, the family did an incredible job of balancing the desire to hang out as a group with the need to be flexible. As the only ones without children, my wife and I were the night owls of the group and also the only ones dressing formal and eating on a less rigid schedule. We partook in a couple of the premium dining options on board the ship, if for no other reason than for the better service, and tried to make the most of the ship’s lackluster entertainment options.

A clan house at Totem Bight State Park, outside of Ketchikan.

Most importantly, everyone got along. The kids (aged 3 to 7) had a great time, and we got to hang out with family we typically only see once a year. It was a real treat!

I was asked on Facebook if the trip was something I would recommend. While it’s easy for me to say I wouldn’t, the answer is meaningless unless you feel the same about travel as I do. For many people, an Alaskan cruise is the perfect vacation. They don’t want to see the backcountry, they don’t want the hassle or hard work of planning an independent trip, renting an RV, and hiring guides and outfitters. Not to mention being bearanoid. For most of the people in my social circle, extended jaunts off the beaten path, far away from port towns, is the only way to visit Alaska. Or anywhere, for that matter.

We took the cable car out of Juneau to get some hiking in on Mt. Roberts before hiking to Devil’s Club Brewery.

A cruise is the antithesis of that. Fortunately, a balance can be struck.

At the risk of writing the most obvious sentence ever, Alaska is an enormous place. An Alaskan cruise is a tease, a tiny morsel of an appetizer, in which visitors “see” Alaska no more than someone can claim to have “read” War & Peace by scanning the cover blurb.

But nobody should base their decision to go on my words alone. Deep down, most people probably already know how they like to travel. If they like to travel. If they prefer a resort-style vacation.

In our case, this time, the only thing that mattered was that my mother-in-law had a great time. And she did. She even got to see some orcas.

Don’t believe me? Check out that smile.

My wife (left) with her mother, sister, and niece.

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