Alaska Cruise expertise?

would like to book an Alaska Criise for July.  Seeing a lot of promotions now .  Looking for a good information from recent travelers.  Also what is best booking source?  Any great cruise specialist travel agents?  TIA

I have travelled to and booked a number of people to Alaska on a cruise. I am happy to answer any questions (and can book you if you'd like but not an obligation!). My first advice is to do a one-way starting in Vancouver/Seattle and ending in Seward/Anchorage (or vice versa). You see much more that way and get deeper into glacier areas. Other than that, tell more about budget, who's going, your travel style and flexibility on dates. 

We are a family of 3 - including our 13 year old.  Looking for a triple with Balcony.  Possibility of including our 23 year old in which case - two cabins - only one of which would need to be a Balcony.  Our kids and ourselves are adventurous eaters . Quality over quantity.   We like good wine and occasional cocktails but are not huge drinkers. Nothing too stuffy.  Budget is open but not exorbitant.  Interested in the beginning half of July.  Cannot do last week in July.  TIA

bump

looking now. Was out all day. I'll post some thoughts here for everyone's info and pm you some additional pricing and details.

@deborahg went on an Alaska cruise recently and had a thread about it - https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/discussion/id/114749-Crowdsourcing-an-Alaskan-cruise

okay, back with some General info. You have three main choices if you want to do the North/South one way itinerary: Celebrity, NCL and Princess.  All are on fairly comparable, older, smaller ( mid- sized) ships so no huge reason to pick one for the newer ship, for example. For July, on Princess (Star & Island), I am having trouble finding a sailing that's still allowing 3 in a cabin. This happens sometimes as the ship gets full- they limit occupancy to 2 people. If your older kid comes, this would be fine and you can just book 2 per cabin but if only the 3 of you go, this will be a problem unless you want to book 2 rooms. And, of the three, Princess has become my least favorite lately. It's not bad but I think food and service has slipped while prices haven't. 

That leaves Celebrity Millenium and NCL Sun.

Celebrity is elegant, refined and possible a little bit "sleepy" in the evenings. It will have slightly better food in the main dining room than NCL. But, ship only has one speciality/fine dining venue French (extra cost) so it's a bit dull from a dining perspective. This ship has an indoor pool which might be important to you. I will say when we sailed this itinerary in July about 8 yrs ago, we had 70s weather and we were in the outdoor pools but in general expect temps that can range from 50-70 so this may be an important feature to you. Celebrity is not know for its kids programming although they are working to improve so if teen club/ activities are important to the 13 yr old, be aware. Celebrity is currently doing free drink package and doing $150 On board credit included in price.

NCL has improved a lot over the past few years to the point where I feel it has surpassed Princess and HAL and gotten on par with RCCL and celebrity in most ways. NCL Sun will be a bit more relaxed and a bit more fun/ lively than Millenium. NCL has excellent kids programming so your teen would have a good time with the teen program. Main dining room food is probably a notch below Celebrity but NCL has about 6-8 speciality restaurants on board ( additional fee)- Japanese, Italian, Brazilian steakhouse, regular steak house, French and a few others. And their speciality restaurants are very, very good. Better than any other lines speciality reataurants (exception of Remy on Disney Dream/ Fantasy- best at sea!).  NCL right now includes unlimited beverage package for 2 adults (unlimited beer, wine & drinks for 7 days) plus they are doing free speciality dining right now too- giving 2 adults 4 free visits each to any speciality restaurant on a 7 nt cruise.

In general, NCL will price considerably lower ( usually 1/3 less) than Celebrity.

I'll PM you some pricing.

Thanks for all responses so far.  Thanks Sac for finding that thread for me and thanks @conandrob240 for the detailed response.  I've pm'd you.

we are booked on the celebrity millennium sb from Seward to Vancouver with our 8 year old on July 29.  Did a lot of research.  Our first cruise.   Great itinerary.  In a sky suite which gets you access to new Luminae suite only dining room and Michaels club plus four free perks.