WeatherFun

We booked a whale watching excursion from Havr and Marv as well. Our trip is next week. I have the same question. 

This is exactly the plan we had for our trip on Zuiderdam next Week. We also booked a private whale watching trip from Harv & Marv. I had worried we may get back to Juneau too late to catch the whale watching trip. Looks like we are good. Do you need to wear winter coat for Tracy Arm excursion? Thanks for the information. 

We will fly to Vancouver on July 2, stay in a hotel for 4 nights, then take Holland Alaska round trip from July 6 to July 13, fly back to US around 7pm on July 13. After reading many threads here, I come up with the following plans for our Covid testing before boarding the cruise and again before flying back to US. Please let me know whether this works. Thanks.

1) Order government issued free Covid-testing Kits. Then buy observed Test from  https://rapidtestandtrace.com/product/observed-test-for-travel/. This option is cheaper than eMed. Because Holland cruise requires test no more than 2 days, we could take the test any time on July 4 or later in the hotel room before boarding the cruise on July 6. 

2) Since the airline requires test no more than 1 day, we need to take the test on July 12 or later before boarding the flight back to US on July 13. We have bought Holland Premium Wifi Package. Will the signal at sea be strong enough for testing on July 12 or could we do the testing at port Vancouver on July 13 before disembark?

That is great information. Thanks.

Thank you so much for the detailed information. Maybe if we miss the first part of the show, we could stay there to watch the beginning of the 1pm show before leaving the show for the 1:45pm flight tour. 

Thanks for the information. I sent an email to the vendor and I was told our ship will be at Berth 3, which is approximately an 8-10 minute walk from the show location. They say we could keep our reservation at 11:30 and if we could not make it, they could rebook us to the 1pm show on the day we are there. But the problem is we have already booked a flight seeing tour to the Misty Fjords at 1:45pm, which could not be changed at this point. So we must make 11:30am show time or miss it. We have two questions. Thanks in advance for your help.

1) Does the port arrival time mean the time that passengers could disembark from the cruise ship or the time that the cruise ship arrives at the port?

2) When I checked shore excursion provided by the cruise, I saw departure times 11:15am on some of Lumberjack show related activities. Not sure what the departure time means here? Does it mean the time passengers waiting on the cruise before disembark or the time they wait at the port after disembark? If it is latter, then we could definitely make it. But it is also possible those excursion go to the Lumberjack show later. So passengers may not go to 11:30am show first and time is not that critical. 

Our Holland cruise of Zuiderdam was originally scheduled to arrive Ketchikan 10am on 7/11. But I just got the notification from Holland that it will now arrive 11am instead of 10am. We had bought 11:30am Lumberjack show tickets directly from the vendor and now wonder whether there is enough time to make it. 

Thank you all so much. I finally see it now. Not sure why HAL makes it so difficult to find.

Here is the screenshot under Gift & Indulgence. I also download HAL Navigator app. The Wi-Fi information there is not clear either, but it seems internet could only be purchased once on board. 

We have booked a early July HAL Alaska cruise - Zuiderdam. I have searched everywhere online, but could not find a link to buy Wi-FI packages offered by HAL. Even when I login in to my cruise account, there is no link. The only thing I could find is their 'Have it All' package, which I am not interested. I read somewhere that it is cheaper to buy Wi-Fi package before the boarding and want to know my options. Thanks for help. 

Our Holland American Cruise will be at Skagway on 7/9 from 7am to 9pm. We are interested in the following shore excursions, but could not decide which ones to take and best time of the day. 

1) Dog Sledding & Glacier Helicopter - 2 hours

2) Glacier Walk & Helicopter  - 2 hours

3) White Pass Rail & Bus Tour - 3.75 hours

Here are my questions.

1) This may be our only trip to Alaska. We could only choose one between Dog Sledding and Glacier Walk. Which one is more memorable?

2) I read that the helicopter tour sometimes get cancelled due to the weather. So I plan to take White Pass Rail & Bus Tour first thing in the morning and then the helicopter tour later. In case the helicopter tour gets cancelled, we could spend the time wondering around Klondike Gold Rush National Park. Does this make sense or it is better to take the helicopter first thing in the morning? Since we plan to take White Pass tour, so even if the helicopter getting cancelled in the morning, we will not be able to take it later. 

Thanks.

I just booked this excursion for our early July HAL cruise. I don't think May will be too early to book the trip.

I did not notice the price has dropped until my friend wanted to book the same cruise for her family. We were charged a little over $4000 for ocean view for 3pp, but now even the verandah only costs $3673. So I called the cruise and the rep told me she could not make the adjustment herself and needs to transfer me over to a pricing specialist. Since the rep could not get a hold of a pricing specialist, she asked me to call back later, which I did.  Then another rep told me he could make the upgrade, but the new price for verandah will be $4500. I told him the current online verandah price shows only $3673, but he said he could not give me the current price, only the price at the time of my original booking. Since HAL offers flexible cancellation with no cancellation fee, I told him I will just cancel my booking and rebook the same cruise later. He then told me I could not use FCC for the same cruise. I cancelled it anyway because I was so feed up with this rep's attitude. Apparently I was perfectly able to book the same cruise using FCC as I just did two days later. So if the cruise gives you too much headache, just cancel the cruise and book it again. 

We have booked a HAL Alaska cruise for this coming July. We plan to first take the Tracy Arm Fjord & Glacier Explorer shore excursion offered by the cruise in Tracy Arm and then do a Mendenhall Glacier Tour in Juneau later on our own by taking the blue shuttle bus. But not sure whether the schedule will work.

The cruise ship will be at Tracy Arm on 7/8 from 9am - 9:30am, then at Juneau from 1pm  - 10pm. The Tracy Arm Fjord & Glacier Explorer takes 6 hours, which means we will be at Juneau around 3:30pm. So the earliest we could take the shuttle bus from the port is around 4pm. I believe the last shuttle bus from Mendenahall Glacier is around 7pm. Will that give us enough time to tour Mendenhall Glacier? I also thought about the 4 hour Whale Watching & Mendenhall Glacier tour since our kids (11 and 14 years old) are very interested in animals. But I guess 4pm may be too late for a whale watching tour. Also since they will have already stayed on a ship for 6 hours earlier, will 4 hours more on a small boat be too much for them in one day?  Thanks for your help.