CruiseTipsTV's review of Alaska

Cruise Tips TV has many helpful reviews from her various ships and trips. In this series, Sheri shifts focus to some of Alaska's most popular stops. As always, it is well worth your time if when you research your next Alaska cruise.

Popular Cruising's Disney Cruise Line's Frozen Theme Cruise

There's never too much Frozen for Disney fans. As the above video from Popular Cruising shows, Disney worked in the blockbuster movie into its onboard entertainment, dining and even adult experiences.

This video is a bit different for Popular Cruising. Instead of a longer presentation with narration, Popular Cruising uses just images, music and video to highlight this Frozen cruise. But the shorter clip still makes it clear that Frozen is everywhere.

WSJ spotlights a different sort of Alaskan cruise

Size does matter. As the major cruise lines build bigger and bigger ships, they are leaving behind passengers who want an intimate experience and leaving behind destinations that cannot handle thousands of passengers at once. Consider Alaska for a moment. Despite hundreds of options every summer, none of the big ships can disembark in Glacier Bay. A small line like Un-Cruise Adventures can. That line -- featuring small ships without the glitz -- served as the subject of this interesting Wall Street Journal review.

On Un-Cruise passengers still get excellent food and top-notch service. But instead of a post-dinner show or gambling, they are more likely to hear a talk on the next day's stop.

As much as they try to cater to everyone, the big cruise lines cannot offer what the small ships can. Fortunately there are more companies popping up to fill the void. The companies enable people who want to see a different side of a destination -- like Alaska -- in a different way.

SilverSea first to sail to new Alaska port

After years of all the same ships seemingly sailing to all the same ports, there is a new Alaskan port this summer. SilverSea will stop twice this summer in the small Alaskan town of Yakutat. There is no cruise dock, so approximately 120 guests will tender to town to get a slice of Alaskan life experience. There won't be the usual Alaska excursions because the town is not ready for them. This is the first time they've allowed any modern cruise ship to visit. Instead the passengers will get to see some local performers, tour a fish processing plant or see some local wildlife.

Yakutat took these baby steps with SilverSea after avoiding cruise lines for decades. Now the changing economy and the need for economic diversity and tourism dollars has the town open to the idea of cruise passengers. In addition to the two stops this summer, there are also two planned for 2016. If those prove popular and profitable, you can expect more stops in the future, bigger ships and likely a full cruise dock.

Cruise passengers often get a bad reputation with tourism boards. The stereotype is that they are boorish, don't spend enough, boom into town and then leave. We know that is not true and the people of Yakutat will find that out this summer. This is the start of growth in their city and the chance for SilverSea to offer an exclusive destination.

Royal Caribbean's "big" plans for Alaska

USA Today shared the news of Royal Caribbean's Alaskan expansion. The company will bring their new Explorer of the Seas to Alaska in summer 2016. The ship is part of the Voyager class series and will be the biggest to sail in Alaska.

The ship can accommodate up to 3,840 passengers and will have all the mega-ship offerings you'd expect. Plus it will have the first ice skating rink in Alaskan waters.

The USA Today feature also includes a slide show tour of similar Royal Caribbean Voyager class ships.