nparmelee

I have mixed luck with online, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Once it worked for one, tried another one and that didn't work. Now I just call.

Good luck!

We called up and they added the Ultimate Life to our existing reservation. We see the onboard credit and the excursions option now, but not the bev package yet, will give it a few more days and check again and then call again if necessary.

Closest other airport is Long Beach, but both are within 30 minutes of San Pedro. Day of week would be a possible factor for traffic. LA stinks for that. I think you would be fine, if a week day, just disembark as early as possible.

I just got this brochure in the mail yesterday. Does not include the cruise we have booked so it means not much for us.

It is about 125 miles from Anchorage to Seward and that takes about 2.5 hours to drive each way, that's why the costs are high. The cheapest way is probably one of the Anchorage to Seward buses. We are opting for the train, cheaper class is just over $100 each.

A quick Google search shows the Timberline Bar & Grill at the top of the tramway. It's possible that because of where the street access is a map would show it in the wrong place. The alaska.org site says - From Cruise Ship Dock: The tram departs from South Franklin Street near Downtown Juneau, which is directly across from the cruise ship dock.

And don't forget, every town is small drinking town with a fishing problem!

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I agree about the float trip, back when we took it they marketed it as a whitewater trip and that was REALLY disappointing! Not nearly what anyone of us expected even if it had been marketed as a float trip. It was just OK. And yes, the Tundra Wilderness is longer in Denali but is much better, in my opinion.

We like Oceania a lot, you can take aboard any wine you want at embarkation and at ports, just the corkage in public venues as others have said. If they did a one way for Alaska I'd have looked at them for our upcoming Alaska cruise. Dubrovnik has a fantastic little restaurant down by the water near the wall, I think it was called Orseolo or something like that. X's prices are getting closer and closer to O these days.

We reserved with Midnight Sun Car rental in Anchorage. Reasonable prices, off airport so less fees.

Less luggage, more time, independent excursions rather than ship ones (it works for us, not for all, everyone needs to decide their own comfort level), always a one way for us since we usually like time at both ends, always a balcony for us as we love our evening pre-dinner wine out there, morning coffee, wind down time at the end of the day no matter what the weather.

And another vote for Rome Cabs. Stefano is really good at customer service.

Locanda Orseolo!!! Loved it! Fantastic breakfast too.

It's going to depend on the weight. Most will include an ice pack or dry ice and ship 2-day.

We saw them all over the place in mid-August on our last trip, and while YMMV, I would bet you will see them even on your other excursions.

Sorry for the delay in details, our Denali trip in 2004 was with Denali Raft Adventures. We did have booties with our dry suits and if they are operating under the same name, absolutely would not hesitate to go with them again. In comparison, the Mendenhall Glacier float in Juneau which at the time was advertised as white water, was not and I would not do that again. I think there were one or two little rapids on the Juneau trip and we were all disappointed in that but we all loved the Denali river trip.

If this is the Mendenhall Glacier float trip, it was a lot of float and very, very little rapids! So not worth it! Beautiful scenery, but a very slow float. We did a white water in Denali that really was white water and my 6 and 8 year old nieces at the time said that was so much better than the slow float.

Amazing, I'm definitely gonna do this! What kind of shoes did you wear? Water shoes or sandals? And what was the name of the rafting tour you did? Do you remember ?

It's been a while so I'll have to look up those answers tonight at home. I think the dry suits had feet so we didn't have shoes on at all. Getting feet wet would have been very cold and miserable! I wore Tevas and hikers most of that trip, but pretty sure not on this particular fun. We had one camera with us in a waterproof enclosing so I still have the photos and can check. The few photos that made it to our personal website don't show the whole outfit so I need to search. We did have life jackets on top of the dry suits. Our heads, faces and hands were exposed so we could feel how cold the water was and be happy to have the dry suits! In our case, we had to rush back and get our luggage and get to the train to Anchorage and I know we didn't have cold wet feet all afternoon. It may have been the same group and tour mentioned by olemissreb. I'm sure tour names have changed in 13 years, possibly even company names.

We ranged in age form 7 to 70, family group. None of us had a problem with it and we just all had a really great time. They put is in dry suits, it was August and we were warm before we got in the raft and started off. We laughed almost the whole way and all of us got wet so the dry suits were appreciated.

We did it back in 2004 and it was one of the highlights of the trip for all of us, and that was a group of 10. Very fun!!!!

Alaska is one of those trips where many spend extra days getting up to Denali, out to Kenai, exploring more of Alaska either before or after the cruise. We're taking 2 weeks off for our Alaska trip. There is nothing stopping you from taking off a Thursday to Wednesday either.

We have our Anchorage car reserved with Midnight Sun Car rental, very reasonable on the prices. Off airport but a short cab ride away.

We're getting to Anchorage on the 27th and taking the train down the morning of the 2nd for the same cruise you are on. Our situation is different though and we are visiting family for those first days. We'll be doing lots of short day trips from Anchorage in the morning and spending the evenings with the family.

Not to hijack the thread but my wife is interested in purchasing smoked salmon, not the canned jerky type (although I plan on buying some of those tins) but the frozen ones on our September cruise and having it shipped home. The only issue is that we disembark on 9/9 and we are spending a few days after in Seattle. Would there be any issues? Or should we plan on a neighbor accepting the package?

We order seafood fairly often from Alaska and if you are having the frozen shipped home, they can set the shipping date when you make arrangements so you are home first. They usually do 2 day shipping for that type of order and pack it with dry ice or ice packs and it has always worked out for us. For this trip, if we ship something home, our dog sitter will plop it in to our freezer for us. If you opt to use the neighbor, make sure to include something for them! ;)

Our first Alaska trip was in mid August, we needed light rain jackets in Skagway, Ketchikan and Juneau. We also needed shorts in Anchorage and Denali. The year we will be there late May through early June and will probably pack very much the same as the last trip.