sharon_pei

Thank you all for your inputs. I double checked the shore excursion section of Whittier and there is no standalone transfer offered. There are only combo tours: Portage Glacier Scenic Cruise & Drive with Airport Transfer, 26 Glacier Cruise & Anchorage Transfer, Turnagain Arm, Wildlife conversation center and tram with airport transfer. Nothing else, but all these tours wouldn't make sense to us as we need to get to airport around lunch hour to pick up our rental car. I know i can book a third party transfer, but thought the transfer provided by princess will be worry-free on a hectic disembarkable morning.

I am trying to purchase transfer from Whittier to Anchorage airport with princess, by first calling the travel agent (Costco in this case -- i know i am not supposed to release the name of the travel agent but this is for the sake of explaining the sources of the information) and was told that there is no transfer provided by princess unless if you booked a back to back cruise with Princess. Then I called princess directly and their agent said there is transfer available but they can not process the purchase and it would have to be via a travel agent unless if you directly booked your cruise with princess. I called the travel agent again and still was told there is no such service provided. Oh well... Anyone else traveling with Princess can help clarify which one is the case and how to get transfer set up if it at all exists for one way cruise passengers? Thanks!

I appreciate the honesty too. but i can't easily find excursion that's budget friendly and interesting enough in Juneau. Mendenhall is still one of the low cost activity that allows one to appreciate the wonder of mother nature, according to many reviews I have read (at least the hike to the fall part). is that still the right understanding?

Now the discussion is getting to a level too advanced to a newbie 😄

Thank you for all your points of view. Yes this is for a 7-day cruise starting from Vancouver to Anchorage and most of us are American (and most of us are medically insured from our employer sponsored plans), but there are 2 of us who are neither American or Canadian but they are US permanent residents (I am not 100% sure of their medical insurance coverage though as they are retirees). 'Evacuation from the ship is at no cost to the patient' -- I didn't know this. is this true even for those without cruise insurance purchased? do we know this is for evacuation to the nearest port or to wherever there is enough medical facility to treat the patient? I am actually not sure if my employer sponsored insurance covers anything from an Alaskan cruise, but this is a good reminder to call and find out.

Looking into travel insurance for the upcoming 7-day cruise. According to my research, coverage offered by the cruise line has very limited medical coverage and is generally considered not enough for the elderly. So i am searching for standalone third party insurance coverage. As we will arrive Vancouver 1 day prior to the cruise start and also add 3 day dyi land trip after cruise end, I am not sure if I should buy 'cruise insurance' just for the 7 day cruise part or if i should buy coverage for the entire 11 days? As the insurance is specifically designed for cruise trips, would it make sense to cover the non-cruise part of the trip? And if not, if say for any reason the trip is interrupted in the middle of the cruise, the 3 day land trip is also not going to happen and how to handle that? 100% newbie question i assume.

I will give up # 3 on the list, but really want to bring fresh ginger to help with seasickness -- chewing on a piece of ginger really helps! is this not allowed?

I spent about 1 hour over the phone with princess's overseas customer support who had a very hard time understanding the problem to begin with. Then after many rounds of back and forth, she finally understood what was the issue and said the reason for it happening was the travel agent used a different email in the original booking than the email i registered with. She then said she merged the two and problem was solved. it would take 24 hours to have it updated in the system. I waited 24 hours and logged in. Problem is still there! i created another account using the other email she mentioned and logged into that one, again exactly the same thing. My reservation is nowhere to be found!

Got to use online chat, i see. i recently watched a tiktok complaint on the 'low-tech' nature of cruiselines and princess does testify for that.

using Chrome on macbook pro. is there an additional step to link your booked cruise to your account? i can't find where to do this step and it certainly doesnt automatically does the job

I am not sure what's the expected experience, but every time I log into my Princess account (web version, not that new app), it has nothing about my upcoming trip. I will have to go to booked guests tab and manually link my reservation EACH AND EVERY TIME to see my trip. Is this expected? or is it something about their website that I don't get it? It's such a pain to have to go search for the booking # along with re-typing name, DOB, etc every time. I don't even know what's the use of this princess account at all if it doesn't link to one's booking. So I wonder maybe there is something about it that I am not getting yet. Pls help. thanks!

something like this: https://www.amazon.com/NATCHILL-Chicken-Heating-Instant-Noodles/dp/B0B51T5HCD/ref=sr_1_3?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Oz4ADcv3EK05VvZ3gQjOZUyVh2_waBGxMqhUuzWHP9jlfQTD483fqOStKzRV3p5oA_fBRhscroSd8bvc0S8JFImtYIqJcYye1Mw2djyZkjH42ekVdoKdqCh5lnJ3H8KwUI2e1qEh3T0vyv0LuGUJFXQaT6lZ7iT44rcPagjyOz-usqujzLuzA1QvtXEhMLVfT3u3aB7bZq_b9eCCnNWsdOuCE0T3GjrBE9y8LRIkrkleyS6ZgdGWFyBSejUzwoC3BhSyBA1-MgQ0gmXQnil48r9SV7McuaybX5cz83bVA6U.31YLkKXiXlFdDZv3SNI4-q4LCEUWzHBxx5MmNWS2j3k&dib_tag=se&keywords=self+heating+food&qid=1714347502&sr=8-3

We are thinking of bringing the following. Anyone knows if any of these are not allowed by Princess pls? 1) a small piece of fresh ginger for sea sickness treatment 2). energy bars and possibly other snacks that we plan to buy in Vancouver for the dyi land tour after the cruise journey (Vancouver should have much wider and easier selections of food than Anchorage, and we will only have a 3 days after cruise and won't want to waste time on grocery shopping) 3). a few packages of those self cooking food (for the land tour part) that are sold on amazon. those would include a small pack of water in the package (very small though).

I am not sure about the $350/adult price quoted here: i am seeing a staggering $459.95/adult price in my princess app (for this June), which completely makes it a no-go. i'm sure its amazing, but life has many amazing things that won't take $$ like this. You can see that most people are not so crazy about how amazing this experience is going to be at this price point as all 20 tickets are unclaimed for.

Now i am a bit confused: in a different thread it was mentioned that it would take someone who is experienced in mountainous driving to drive this route and in case weather gets wet and foggy, it's not necessarily a safe drive. But a lot of people encouraging self drive have said the drive is easy and has nothing to be concerned of. Which one is true? For someone who isn't confident in long distance mountainous driving, is it something to avoid to be safe (since nobody has a crystal ball for weather)?

Quick Q on grabbing breakfast and sitting outside: at 6am would it not be freezing outside, or am I overestimating the brutality of alaska temperature?

Am i understanding it right that for those who stay in interior cabins, we would need to choose between going out to the deck to see glaciers vs staying indoor at 'visitor center' to learn from the park rangers? I can see why balcony cabins have a huge advantage here now.

would not a bear bell work better?

May i ask if one needs to worry about bear risk in any of these recommended places? We are planning to hit most of these and want to be conservative, but the fact that one can't bring bear spray back to cruise ship is a bothering us.

I checked ACT's schedule and it's pickup time is 8:45am. Is it too risky considering the disembarkation would involve 2600+ (for princess) people. so i am thinking using cruiseline's transfer could be a bit worry-free.

I saw a few threads about Princess transfers to get people to and from Whittier, but I logged into my account on their app and found no information about it whatsoever. Wonder how to book this transfer directly with Princess if its not in their new app?

we've booked Bennett lake tour via Chilkoot, but reading a lot of good experience of self drive makes me start to consider the self drive option, except that avis only has super expensive rentals left (~$400 for a day). May I ask from where did you guys get rental cars in Skygway?

Thank you for the detailed information. Does this mean for a scheduled 6am-3pm glacier bay stop, late risers can get up at 8am without missing glacier views? that sounds so much better!

Beginning my day at 6 a.m. is incredibly challenging -- it tends to leave me feeling disabled for the remainder of the day. I'm curious to know how much is sacrificed for night owls like myself who struggle to function before 7:30 at the earliest.

May I also ask if one needs to carry bear spray for this itinerary? Also, would we be able to take bear spray onto a cruise ship if we purchase one here and hopefully don't use it? We wouldn't do too much hiking this time: maybe this itinerary in Juneau (plus the hiking trails on the top of Mt Robert if nice weather), and Exit glacier vista hike in Seward. The rest would be guided tours or just stroll around vista points. So I wonder if its still a good idea to get bear spray and if so at which port shall we get it?