Cunard's Queen Elizabeth has sailed her last Alaska cruise of 2026, closing out a four-month season that ran from May and ended with a seven-night roundtrip from Seattle. That final sailing called at Ketchikan in Alaska and Victoria in Canada — though not entirely as planned. Required maintenance pushed the Seattle departure back 24 hours, scrapping a scheduled stop in Juneau and scenic cruising in Endicott Arm.

It's a modest end to what was a solid summer programme. Across the season, the ship ran seven- to 11-night itineraries with stops at some of Alaska's less-visited ports — Sitka, Haines and Wrangell — alongside the big-ticket scenery: sailing the Inside Passage and past Glacier Bay and Hubbard Glacier.

Here's the part that matters for anyone eyeing an Alaska cruise with Cunard: the line isn't returning to the region in 2027 or 2028. With the whole fleet committed to Europe and the Atlantic next summer, Alaska fans will need to look elsewhere — or wait. The Queen Elizabeth herself has already moved on, now working a 21-night repositioning cruise to Miami via California, Mexico and Guatemala (Los Angeles, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Quetzal are on the list), plus the Panama Canal and Caribbean calls in Curaçao and Aruba.

From mid-October, the 2,092-guest ship settles into winter duty from Miami, offering nine- to 12-night Caribbean itineraries covering the Western, Eastern and Southern Caribbean through early 2027. Then it's back across the Atlantic to the UK for cruises from Southampton, followed by a Mediterranean summer with departures from Spain, Italy and Turkey.

Why care? If you've been waiting to book Cunard in Alaska, that window has closed for at least two seasons — the line's mix of formal British cruise traditions and glacier country won't be an option in 2027 or 2028. On the flip side, the ship's current winter base in Miami makes for an easy Caribbean plan, and its 2027 European schedule opens up Mediterranean options from three different countries. For travellers who like one ship with a rotating map, Queen Elizabeth's next 18 months offer three very different regions to choose from.

If Alaska is the goal this time next year, the usual suspects — Princess, Holland America, Norwegian and others — will keep sailing the Inside Passage from Seattle and Vancouver, often including many of the same glacier-viewing highlights Cunard just signed off on.