I apologize if you took my posting as criticism or somehow suggesting your answer was not appropriate. There is not right or wrong here, but a matter of lifestyle and preferences, and your sentiment was sweet and one I constantly remind myself when taking pictures. Perhaps my response was off topic, but I felt a counter perspective would be helpful.
However, I do think the question is not centered on to take pictures or not, but is rather gear centric, because he mentioned as a reason not to bring the heavier gear because of how good cellphones are getting. He was essentially asking if people would see a quality difference essentially cellphones which he carries and more advanced cameras which he prefers not to carry. He was asking people that had been on Alaskan cruises for their thoughts, my guess is he was hoping someone was going to say,'my cellphone was good enough, amazing trip, amazing pictures.' But instead he got,'you are going to see such amazing things, you will regret not having the better gear' because the simple truth is gear does matter.
But is the cell phone good enough? only cell phone users (exclusively) can answer that.
I use my iPhone all the time, don't deny its good enough for most occasions, but in the picture books I put together with a mixture of pics from two the cameras systems, its obvious which camera took which.
My best advice to the OP was what I did on the same journey, avid photographer for years with dslr, then I stopped carrying it for whatever reason (right around the transition from film to digital and I wasn't impressed with digital and then a decade later a once in a lifetime trip came up (Japan) and I had the same question, camera phone or digital mirrorless.. I rented a good digital mirrorless with a 28-80 mm telephoto, f2.8, and went for a walk along the coast including a small fishing village, taking similar pictures with both. The questions I had would I see a quality difference, and would it be enough for the extra baggage. In short, I did see a difference. Pictures were sharper, focus was tack on, the dynamic range and the depth of field was better. It was enough for me, I bought the camera and never regretted it. okay my bank account regrets it a bit.
Now the question I face, going on an Alaskan cruise is what long range lens to take. Most long lenses are expensive and heavy. There are some with higher f stops that are lighter and less expensive that are tempting... but again will there be a big quality difference? I should rent one and fine out I suppose.
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