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Just one final note for future Connoisseur tour researchers that find this thread in their research. My wife researched and planned this trip for us and saw all these great positive reviews. Combined with our amazing tour experience last year in Italy, she thought this was a slam dunk. I think the nuance that is lost in these reviews is the profile of the person that thinks these are great. Based on seeing others on this trip, and our own experience, those that are not very mobile love this trip. I'd venture to say most others will hate it. The other healthy, younger, mobile folks we met in our group or other groups did not like it at all. And definitely don't bring any youngsters on a trip like this.

That’s funny. On the cruise we see adults acting like this is the first time without their parents and can drink and be fools all they want. “Give me alcohol and nothing else matters. “

I’ll just add that we are foodies and very spoiled to great food. The only great food we had was at Captain Cook hotel in Anchorage.

For us, money isn’t a factor. I can see the same scenery as looking out a bus window looking at YouTube, and certainly don’t need the cruise director to meet people. I think it comes down to whether you are mobile and like to explore. Those that like to sit and eat will love this.

Just to add a little more color, we had a nice conversation with a couple from Holland that was traveling on their own for a month. They had planned a stay near Denali, but had to divert to Copper River due to the fire (they thought Copper River was very expensive for the accommodations - they paid ~$200/night). Their itinerary had them going to Homer, Kodiak Island, Nome, and several other authentic places including inland villages. They have a friend that full time lives in Wasilla who advised them to stay away from all the cruise ship destinations. I wish I would have heard this advice before planning a trip here.

I didn’t realize there are other versions of the trip (without tour guid, without paid meals) until half-way through. But, correct, I wouldn’t recommend this for most travelers at any cost. Again, unless a person only likes to sit and eat.

Good point, but saving money for us isn’t really relevant. But this was not a cheap trip. I’m sure most on our trip paid less by planning ahead. By comparison, it was roughly the same price as a 13-day Insight tour of Italy last summer. But if the Italy trip was 5 stars, this was 2 stars by comparison. Very different experience. Sitting on a bus for days just to eat a couple 3-course meals, staying at 2-star resorts, and not have time to explore isn’t worth any amount of money to us. If a person values sitting and eating without much else, then I can see that they would enjoy this trip.

Our group of 24 was 70 (except 2 in 20”s, 2 in 50’s) and over that would not drive themselves around. Everyone (literally) said they would not do this trip again. As far as power backup, you are out of your league commenting on this. Regarding Princess, if you like great food and entertainment, all is not ok, although many from cities that don’t have access to great food and entertainment thought it was great. I have not been on a cruise yet that I thought was great. This did not disappoint. The itinerary? All the cruises mostly go to the same Alaska ports. All these ports are mostly seasonal workers with the same gift shops, mostly owned by foreigners. You aren’t seeing Alaska by going to these.

Coming back here to give our view after just coming back from a 6-day extended Connoisseur tour. In a nutshell, no, it’s not worth it. If you are 85 and can’t walk, or enjoy several days riding around on a bus/train with a brief stop in a couple 2-start resorts, then this tour is for you. For everyone else, you will be sorely disappointed. I won’t talk about the cruise itself since that’s not what is being asked. The tour is 90% sitting on a bus or train…days on end. The pace is painful. For example, today we drove from Copper River back to Anchorage to end our tour. It is normally a 3.5 hour drive, but we made it into a 7-hour all-day drive. I think the pacing is both to delay the arrival at the next destination to give time for the previous load to get out of the way, and the multiple stops attempt to give some justification for having a tour guide so they can talk about things and show videos. If you tour Alaska on your own, by all means you do not want to go to these Princess destinations, with perhaps the exception of Denali. These are old 2-start resorts - owned by Princess, staffed with untrained and unsupervised international workers. Lookup the cost of the resorts for staying on your own. We happened to be the unfortunate group this year that was impacted by a wildfire right next to the Denali resort resulting in lost power and water for the 2-days we were there. The park was also closed. We learned that the resort provides water to the whole area around the resort (their pumping station). The fact that the resort does not have the contingency plans to at least keep the water pump in service with the loss of power is nothing less than negligence. The resort manager should be fired on the spot. But it wouldn’t surprise me if that person isn’t a seasonal foreign worker with no experience. The tour guide was nice, but could easily be replaced by a recording on the bus. The tour guide has no autonomy and must answer to the Princess headquarters. That person is also a seasonal worker, and literally has no purpose other than to be an excuse to extract more money out of the traveler. This contrasted with an Insight tour, where the tour guide has full autonomy to make spot decisions for the benefit of the trip. In this Denali example, the tour guide could do nothing. They had no autonomy to make offsite arrangements for anything. No only would I never do another Princess cruise (did you know they are run by Carnival?), but by no chance would I ever do a land tour with them. I did not get to view and experience Alaska on this trip…it is like I never went at all. If you can walk, drive, and do things on your own, definitely do not waste your money on this trip. This is not Alaska…