InternetAgeTraveler

There are a lot of choices. It’s a big place with a lot to do. Decide on your priorities and go from there. When we were planning, we gathered a variety of options and sat down and decided what we all wanted to do. It worked out for us and was a fantastic time. Although pretty sure we could have chosen something completely different and said the same thing.

Our review here, with the land portion starting on page 2

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2647072

The crab fest (Ketchikan) doesn’t fall into the cheap category. People love it but unless you can eat a lot of crab, it’s no bargain (in my opinion). We elected to have a crab lunch downtown and at $50 was worth it.

As for excursions, they do run more. It’s a short season, and a captive audience. Cost to run many of these excursions are a lot higher too.

Check out my review for the Jewel this year plus the older Pearl review both in my signature. We did the same ports between the 2.

The key is doing things you think you will enjoy and remember as part of the adventure to Alaska.

Since Seward is 1,400 miles away from Seattle, the choices are limited. The easiest and fastest is shuttle/train to Anchorage and flight to Seattle as noted above. Some people elect to sail back on the cruise ship but that obviously is considerably longer and more expensive.

I think the reason people were skeptical of the post was the shear distances involved and the lack of what portion confused you.

I had same issue with spaces (see my Jewel review below). But people handle it well and almost not noticeable.

Tagish Lakes Kennel has dogs and puppies on display but the only way to see them is driving on your own out of Skagway. More photos and videos in links in signature.

It would be helpful to other posters to know your itinerary.

The key to planning is to identify the things that you want to do, prioritize them and then match them against the cruise offerings. Itinerary is the key thing to work out first.

The weather is unpredictable even a few days in advance much less a year. So knowing when next year to plan is a challenge. The price list for the cruises are also available to review once you pick out the itinerary that you want.

If a helicopter tour is on your priority list and the only way that you could see doing it is to save money on the cabin, then by all means do that. A balcony is nice and for the right people is a good decision it may not be for you and you may get more enjoyment out of doing other things.

You can do guarantee and hope for something better or you can compromise and do an ocean view. When we sailed in 2010, we booked ocean view but watched and when a sale dropped the prices, we grabbed a balcony. This year, we booked the balcony a year in advance and prices didn’t drop much. But one of the other people in our roll call did say the get a good upgrade on a guarantee rate. I prefer knowing well in advance where our cabin is but again, that is why your preferences not mine have to drive your decisions.

I think I answered most of your questions in my trip report so give it a view and glad to answer a few of your specific questions.

1 - Still time for planning.

2 - we’ve done 3 cruises and always done Glacier Bay and although the weather didn’t cooperate this year, i still recommend it

3 - balcony always gets debated as it is quite a bit more. But if you think it was worth it on past cruises, Alaska is likely the same. The odds of their being something to see is pretty large. While people are right, you should go in deck to see things too but it so nice to just be able to look outside.

4 - once school starts, the prices drop and September is going to have less hours of daylight and more chance for rain so rates should be good

5 - I like northbound as the cruise kind of builds but either way is going to be great. Adding a land tour adds to the trip beyond the cruise but can also be done in either direction. If you are not doing the land tour, than round trip cruises are an option

Balconies Definitely comes at a premium. The thing about Alaska is that at about any time there can be something to see compared to other destinations where you mostly see water. So it’s “nice” to have the ability to see without going. But there are a lot of people who choose to save money and use the lounges for watching.

Also note that there are multiple options depending on your adventure level. The upper portion is more of a float with some rapids and the lower gorge section with more rapids. With their ages, you could do either although the discounts usually apply to the upper portion.

We did the gorge through Nenana Raft Adventures and were very satisfied.

Check out our review and photos in signature.

We did our first land tour on our own this year following sailing on NCL Jewel and found it to our liking. As others noted, when we saw something we wanted to see, we had no issues turning around. There were 4 of us to divide the cost and it came out a LOT less and we did what we wanted to do. We chose B&B over hotel. You can read it about starting on page 2 of our review in my signature.d

We did the train/bus tour through Chilkoot on our first trip to Skagway and it was fun. The train is historical and was not long just going to the Frazier/summit area. This gave us enough time to do another excursion in the afternoon. The day trips seemed too much (especially since we had our kids with us).

On our subsequent two trips, we chose a rental car which gave us a lot more flexibility to do what we wanted to do.

However as noted there is plenty to do and you really should do what you want to do not just what others have.

Pictures and notes from all in my signature.

We are a group of 14 and will be on the Jewel in a couple of weeks. Any suggestions on how to communicate with each other while out at sea? I've read to download the NCL app., but I'm not sure if this works on the Jewel. Also, another app Whats App. Has anyone had good luck with either of these?

Thanks for the wonderful trip report...good job!

The app offers device to device for $10. Any other app would require internet access that isn’t cheap, There were times it might have been useful but managed without. In port and sailing around the cities,we could do regular texting although a few didn’t make it through and we had no way to know. On our past cruises, we tried the little personal walkie-talkies with limited success. We did a few sticky notes on the door.

One small is oddity that some notifications make it through the ship WiFi so even if you are just connected but not paying, you can still get iMessage and other notifications like mail, You can’t respond but at least you get them.

With a group as large as yours, my recommendation is just pay for device to device and communicate away (although we didn’t )

Check out Tagish Lake Kennels. Since they don’t do large tours, Michelle suggested just stopping in since it is tough to know your exact schedule.

Some details in our trip report and in photos..

I just happened to be on the Legend at that time and took a picture of your beautiful ship so here you go :-)

 

In a great twist of fate, another poster took a photo of the Jewel from the Legend to match the one I took of them.

I just happened to be on the Legend at that time and took a picture of your beautiful ship so here you go :-)

 

A belated thank you. This is really a cool twist of fate. I even tried to look for me taking your picture.

We did this too in June of this year although we booked direct through their website because NCL wanted $50 more person. That worked out well for us as the 4 of us were the only ones in our group.

Details in our review and photos in my signature.

There is also free WiFi at CarCross outpost if you phone supports WiFi calling. I was able to use skype but don’t remember how good it was since I wasn’t interviewing for a job.

I would wait. For example, if the weather is bad enough, your helicopter tour will be canceled. Maybe the weather will be okay!

 

I think you’re having pre-cruise jitters. I bet you’ll all wind up loving your cruise. Best of luck!

Agreed, the forecast for the week with the clear weather comparison pictures was also rain and clouds.

We also considered a week out canceling our midnight sun ATV ride because we didn’t want to ride in the rain.

It was our favorite.

Check out the Jewel and Pearl reviews in my signature. Also plenty of photos in the album.

June is a great time of the year to go (any time is though)

As soon as you decide is best advice. We specifically wanted Harv & Marv so booked well in advance. We could have waited but we knew we were booked and didn’t have to worry that some large group filled it.

We actually had booked all of our planned activities before the end of the year. In at least one case, we ended up being the only ones that did.

See trip report for details below.

You can get glaciers in both and Juneau has Mendenhall too. Tracy arm isn’t a guarantee because the glaciers are at the end and not always accessible for various reasons. Glacier Bay is one of the natural wonders of the world In my opinion. But a lot depends on what you really want see. Check out YouTube; their are high res videos of both. You can also see my signature for pictures (the ones from previous years are clear weather). Which does bring up another possibility that it can be cloudy in Glacier Bay too.

I posted a trip report that mentioned our cruise portion but I realize I didn’t mention the land portion. It would be applicable to anyone wanting to do one so I thought I would share that too.

Fortunately, it started just after the start of page 2 so you can start reading there if you don’t care about the cruise portion

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2647072&page=2

Thanks for the great review (and dallies)! We are doing the same itinerary in August, and your review is very helpful.

 

One question about dinners and shows; You mentioned that the meals in the MDR’s were about two hours, but what about the specialty restaurants? I’m trying to figure out the best time to schedule meals in the specialty restaurants if we want to see the evening shows.

 

Thx

They ran about the same. Le Bistro and Moderno was somewhat depending on us, drinks and appetizers, main course and dessert (ok, too stuffed at Moderno to have desserts). Teppanyaki ran according to their cooking schedule and they allocated 1.5 hours between reservations. We tried to eat between 6 and 7 and attend the 9:15 show. That actually worked pretty well because even on port days, we were on board by then.

Posted some but not all photos

for your enjoyment - captured from the NCL Jewel (see review below) as we passed in the night :)