oaktreerb

Hubbard is a huge glacier. Glacier Bay is a national park where you will see more than one glacier. Some HAL ships sail into College Fjord which is beautiful. A lot depends on the weather. If the weather is nice, Kenai Fjords is amazing. You could probably skip Prince William Sound. You could visit the Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage, Exit Glacier, Seavy’s sled dog tours, drive up to Girdwood (Alyeska Resort tram). There’s not a lot to do in Whittier but you’ll see plenty of glaciers from the ship. There is also Portage Glacier tour in that general area.

HAL provides a lot of glacier viewing opportunities: Glacier Bay, Hubbard Glacier, College Fjord, and Tracy/Endicott Arm. With all the cruise lines competing for the Alaska market, glacier viewing is something HAL does well. It’s marketing. Some HAL ships provide multiple glacier viewing. You are guaranteed one. Not all cruise lines in Alaska provide a glacier viewing experience.

Good question. The program is new this year. Maybe @Crew News who is currently in Alaska can provide the answer.

Thanks for your report. I hope HAL will get this Alaska season going with some good entertainment in the showroom. I would guess that “The Origin Story”, Holland America through the years, was shown in the main showroom. There should have been some musical productions. Sitka and Ketchikan are good ports because they have plenty of places to visit around the port. Juneau is a good place for getting out of town to go whale watching!

Another beautiful day in Juneau!

Snow City Cafe is close to the Captain Cook for breakfast or lunch and very popular (you may have to wait). Glacier Brewhouse is also nearby. You can make reservations for a table or walk in if you are ok eating at the bar. Check out places to eat on Trip Advisor. There are lots of places within walking distance. We loved staying at the Captain Cook!

Those Mariner points for land tours helped us to get to 5*. If you are in a suite (double points) on the cruise portion you get double points for the entire cruise tour!

Great camera views. Interesting how the ships enter the Franklin dock stern first and swing the aft in. So far the weather in April has been pretty nice for the early arriving ships.

Do you remember the name of your rail car? Did you have a guide and a bar tender and a dining car? That does not sound like our experience unless for some reason you were not on a HAL rail car. Maybe the rail car was an older Princess rail car. HAL and Princess work together in Alaska and some of the older Princess rail cars are not very nice. We were in one between Anchorage and Seward a few years ago. I would not have wanted to travel to Denali in that rail car!

Did you take the Holland America or Princess rail cars? Seats are assigned and they are very comfy with lots of room between seats. Because of the dome viewing there is no overhead storage. The HAL busses are also very nice. We’ve been traveling in Alaska and the Yukon with HAL since 2005. The least comfortable seats were when we were put on the Princess rail car but otherwise the experience was pretty much the same as HAL.

@maggiev We have taken the train as part of a HAL cruisetour several times, most recently 2022. Your train seating will be assigned. When you begin the land part of your journey before you board the train you will receive a packet of information with your seating assignment. It’s all comfy and it is all scenic dome windows. You’ll have a guide for narration and a bar tender for drinks. You will be invited to the dining car for a very nice breakfast or lunch.

Just ask the TA for the HAL Booking Confirmation.

We enjoy the King Salmon in the Pinnacle. I find it exceptional.

The idea would be to fly into Fairbanks, bus to Denali, train to Anchorage, train or bus to Whittier to join the ship. Yes, it would be too far for someone who starts their itinerary in Anchorage as it would require backtracking and a waste of travel rime.

The line will probably start alongside the building by the drop off area. We dropped our luggage with the luggage handlers and got in line. It moves inside the building. Have your boarding pass that says “priority” and show it when someone is telling you where to go. The line snaked through the inside area until we saw a “cut off” for priority boarding. There are a lot of people with priority boarding. You will take the cut off and go through security and check in and be directed to the “seating area for priority boarding”. This was in January/February and the ship didn’t start embarking until close to noon. President’s Club were boarded first and then the rest of us in priority boarding.

If you have paid for Club Orange or if you are in a Neptune Suite on a ship that does not have a CO dining room you will have a separate priority entry line to the main dining room. I don’t know if you will get a special CO menu (you should) but if you don’t see the CO entree listed, just ask your server what the CO entree is. Even when eating in a CO dining room on the Koningsdam the servers sometimes had to tell us what the special was.

Neptune Suites also receive Club Orange dining perks. When boarding the ship with priority status you sometimes have to politely remind port staff that you have priority boarding. If you print your boarding pass you can easily show the “priority” designation when you ask if you are in the correct line.

yes

It gives me hope for some EXC experiences on our June Westerdam Alaska adventure!

If you don’t get fixed dining assigned prior to boarding you can go to the maitre ‘d onboard and ask to be assigned to a specific table at a specific time for the length of the cruise. You will be assigned to a table in the open dining level of the MDR. No problem.

Which ship?

It’s intimidating because there are a lot of choices. The first time we went to Alaska we did a 10-11 day cruise tour. i wanted to see Glacier Bay, Denali, and the Matanuska Valley. Our TA chose a great HAL short cruise tour for us that took us from Fairbanks to Denali to Anchorage to the ship in Seward at that time. We have been back many times over the years!

Holland America has the D5L which begins with an overnight in Fairbanks and a bus ride to Denali, two nights in Denali with the Tundra wilderness Tour, scenic train to Anchorage overnight, scenic train to Whittier to join the ship. If you start in Anchorage and go to Denali you have to return to Anchorage to join the ship in Whittier. The bus ride from Fairbanks to Denali is maybe 4 hours, between Denali and Anchorage whether bus or train is a full day. I think this itinerary would be the best use of your 3-4 days. @MtnSeaGirl

How many days do you have for precruise? Do you want to do a cruise tour or plan your own land tour? If you look at Holland America offerings for 2025, the itineraries will probably be the same for 2026. You will want 2-3 nights in Denali, Fairbanks is optional but included in some tours. Alyeska would be a nice place to stay if you do your own tour and have a car. You want to cruise on a ship that sails through the inside passage to Vancouver. Glacier Bay is amazing and a national park, Skagway is Gold Rush history with national park exhibits. Sitka is beautiful with Russian history and is very scenic. Most ships stop at Ketchikan and Juneau. Hope that helps you get started on your research!

Those with interior cabins will have to go out of the cabin but most ships have indoor windows for viewing like from the Lido or the Crow’s Nest. Some ships open the bow of the ship so people can see the glaciers and visit with one of the rangers. Your ship may have a promenade deck for outside glacier viewing. A balcony is nice but many people prefer to be able to move around the outside decks for a closer panoramic view. The rangers will set up a table inside with merchandise for purchase.