But the lure of Alaska — the “last frontier”, the land of “fluffy” bears, show-off whales and excitable dolphins — was too strong. My children, aged 13 and 16, are still animal-mad. They don’t want a water park or a kids’ club, they want a grizzly bear. As navigating the Inside Passage involves more floatplanes and ferry schedules than my menobrain can compute, the only faff-free way to do it was aboard Cunard’s elegant Queen Elizabeth on a conveniently timed sailing slap-bang in the middle of the summer holidays.

Queen Elizabeth entered the Cunard fleet in 2010

Booking was the easy bit. Prepping was another matter. I found myself at sea long before we left dock, navigating a baffling array of dress codes and shore excursions (we leant into the “we’re only here once” mentality and booked a trip for each of the three port stops). Alaska in summer is a meteorological practical joke. It’s warm. It’s cold. It’s raining. It’s sunny. It demands a “layering” strategy that would challenge a Sherpa, while the ship’s formal dress code — strictly enforced in all cabin grades on gala evenings — requires black-tie elegance. You need the North Face puffer jacket but you also need to look like you’re ready for a ball.

My husband, facing the prospect of a tuxedo on his holiday, was dubious. “Fine,” he conceded. “As long as we see a bear, catching a fish, with an eagle on its head, it’ll be worth it.” I smiled patiently, embracing all of Virgin Atlantic’s hold allowance and secretly adding another pair of shoes.

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Sleepy in Seattle

We started in Seattle, a city driven by very expensive caffeine, and made a mini-break of it. Two nights at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, a downtown grande dame, and its Cheers-esque lobby bar with lively happy hour; bright and elegant diner (its smash burger, £19, still reigns No 1 in our family league); basement Shuckers oyster bar, cloud-soft beds and beehives humming on the rooftop made for a relaxed base to explore the waterfront. From quayside cocktails at Elliott’s Oyster House (from £11; elliottsoysterhouse.com) to the fishmonger theatre of Pike Place Market to the psychedelic and stomach-churning masterpiece of the Gum Wall (eschew a latte from the “original” Starbucks and opt for one from Ghost Alley Espresso, from £5, instead), we took Seattle at a stroll. The Space Needle’s vertiginous city views (from £36; spaceneedle.com) and an absorbing wander through the otherworldly psychedelia of Chihuly Garden and Glass (entry from £26; chihulygardenandglass.com) were just a tram ride away, before pizza at Serious Pie (mains from £13; seriouspieseattle.com).

Seattle’s Space Needle, left, and Mount Rainier, right

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The ship, however, was calling. I was new-girl anxious about boarding but embarkation itself was a masterclass in efficiency. By noon we were ensconced in our suite, our luggage delivered by our butler (part of the services offered in the Queens Grill — the highest and poshest of Cunard’s four tiers of accommodation, which includes fine dining in the Queens Grill restaurant, an exclusive bar and lounge and, in your cabin, a minibar stocked with your choice of spirits), and the Seattle skyline was fading into the horizon.

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The restaurant team, led by the warm and wry Rose, soon felt like family. Our fellow guests were mostly friendly, older Americans who had sailed this route so many times they probably had their own personalised napkins. The predicted ennui at eating in the same place every day didn’t materialise, helped by the fact that every dish — genuinely without exception — was delicious. Favourites included Asian noodle salad and a warm Bakewell tart with crème anglaise. I spent 20 years of my younger life as a vegetarian but on this ship I had prime beef every which way. We flirted with the alternative dining options — Steakhouse at the Verandah (cover charge £40pp) offered a spectacular view of Ketchikan at twilight, Frontier (cover charge £35pp) showcased delicious Alaskan delicacies (pan-fried Arctic char with buttered cucumber got the thumbs-up) and the kids made daily pilgrimages to the main Lido buffet for snacks of nachos and churros. But we secretly pined for our regular table by a window on the port side, watching for passing marine life and the secret supplies of salted caramel ice cream Rose kept the 13-year-old plied with.

The Queens Room aboard the ship is used for gala evenings

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Sea days and silence

I wasn’t sure how we’d deal with more than one sea day at a time but, rather than cabin fever, there’s a quiet novelty in having nowhere to be. If you’re not seasick, that is. Which, unlike the rest of the family, I wasn’t. So as the sea mist cleared and the others became better acquainted with the bathroom, I spent the morning on our balcony under cloudless blue skies, enjoying some rare peace and quiet watching the coastline of British Columbia unfurl behind us like a green ribbon. Eagerly waiting for rafts of comical sea otters, floating as if in a cold bath, playful schools of dolphins or even a surreptitious whale’s tail, I was rewarded on every count.

Once sea legs (and tummies) were established, we went full cruise. We got to grips with the corridors and lifts (so many lifts), and swerved the tea dances, but engaged in highly competitive games of padel, table tennis and bowls. We spent hours whale-watching. The entertainment team even put on a football match in the Golden Lion pub for my husband and son. (It’s amazing how many West Ham fans you can find in the middle of the Pacific — but don’t let that put you off.)

And then there were the two formal gala evenings. For our first Ice White gala the ship was transformed into a shimmering sea of silver and blue. The Masquerade gala felt like a scene from Bridgerton, if the show featured guests from Idaho in masks hastily sourced from Amazon. The boys, initially grumpy about the tuxedos, were won over within minutes. Far from being a frosty, formal affair, the fancy outfits made for some great people-watching over martinis at the art deco gin bar. One element that I’d secretly (and unfairly) dreaded — the on-board entertainment — ramped up even further on these nights with the irresistible Irish acoustic band Blackthorn Duo and the effervescent O-Town Motown singers keeping the party atmosphere going into the night.

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Sitka and the great white silence

Sitka, the “Paris of the Pacific”, gave us our first feel of feet on Alaskan soil. This former Russian capital of Alaska is a place of Tlingit heritage and towering Sitka spruce, and where our “otters, raptors and bears” excursion introduced us to orphaned bears and birds of prey — including bald eagles at a rehabilitation centre for injured raptors. An island boat tour took us even closer to those cute “little” (160cm long) sea otters bobbing in the kelp.

But nothing prepared us for Glacier Bay. We sailed through scenery so CGI-perfect it didn’t look real. It was blazingly beautiful. I sat on a sunbed, legs wrapped in a blanket, drinking hot chocolate under a surreal 22C sun.

For hours the only sound was the thrum of the engine and the visceral roar of “white thunder” as ice calved off glaciers and crashed into the water. It’s a beauty that feels fragile. It sparked urgent, slightly panicked conversations with the teenagers about global warming. My husband, meanwhile, ignored my pleas to wear SPF and ended up so red-faced he met with Rose’s feigned disapproval over dinner.

Glacier Bay is a Unesco world heritage site

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Finally we hit Ketchikan, the “salmon capital of the world”. We bypassed the touristy kitsch of Creek Street, once a hub for crime and prostitution — not to mention some ferocious female entrepreneurs — for a trip to Neets Bay Bear Observatory, a streamside salmon spawning platform with limited visitor numbers, and a popular feeding spot for bears in summer. A tetchy start when a party from another cruise were late joining our 36-passenger boat — Cunard passengers, it seems, are not in the habit of waiting for anyone — morphed into a spectacular hour-long boat trip. We zipped through the brightest blue waters and the Tongass National Forest — a world of a thousand greens — and there they were.

We watched in bewitched silence as four brown bears stood on the rocks of a rushing salmon run. They were selective. They didn’t just eat anything; they picked a female fish, sliced it open, scooped out the eggs and tossed the carcass back like a picky diner at a buffet.

“Look!” whispered my husband, pointing at a bald eagle perched in a spruce tree directly above the bears.

“That’s pretty much the scenario you hoped for,” I pointed out.

“Better than,” he admitted.

We ended in Victoria, British Columbia, which felt almost too civilised after the wild north. An ebike tour worked off the “beef every which way” and the churros, ending at Fisherman’s Wharf — a colourful, bustling collection of float homes and street food at the heart of the working harbour — for tacos and beer.

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The cruise hadn’t just taken us into the wilderness: it had helped us to get under the skin of it. Thanks to the expert and intuitive guiding and respectfully curated itineraries, we felt as connected to its culture and history as its wildlife. We left with our hearts as full as our suitcases — and considering I packed four pairs of boots and a ballgown, that is saying something.

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Claire Irvin was a guest of Fairmont Olympic Seattle, which has room-only doubles from £260 (fairmont.com); Cunard, which has eight nights’ full board from £1,519pp in a Britannia Balcony Stateroom, departing on 1 July from Seattle (cunard.com); Virgin Atlantic, which has return flights to Seattle from £1,450pp (virginatlantic.com); and Holiday Extras Meet & Greet airport parking at London Heathrow, 11 nights’ from £184 (holidayextras.com)