huskyguy

Two quite different experiences. The dog sledding is all about the dogs - you don't really see the glacier except from the helicopter. The glacier walk is all about getting up close and personal with the glacier.

The Sanctuary is on one of the top decks. There are lower decks that are completely open across the stern.

The Sanctuary is the entire aft of decks 12, 14 and 15. I never found an aft location during the 3 weeks I spent on the Island Princess, nor do I see one on the deck plans ( http://www.princess.com/deckPlans.do?shipCode=IP )

The easiest place to catch the HoHos is at Canada Place (the pier), so it's about equal.

A coin toss will work for you now - they're all excellent. In recent years we usually stay at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle, for 2 main reasons - the upper-floor corner suites are awesome (!), and we get extra-special service for being Club members. In ugly weather, they all may be an awkward distance from the pier, though - too far to walk and not far enough for a taxi. I've seen some very good rates at the Pan Pacific recently.

Island Princess and Coral Princess (sister ships) have completely open aft decks that provide great 180 degree + viewing.

Aft on these ships is The Sanctuary, which has a hefty fee for its use.

We've been buying at the Taku Smokery at the foot of the Mt. Roberts Tramway for many years, and have always been happy with their products.

This is a bit of downtown Carcross now, with the Visitor Center on the left, and Caribou Crossing Coffee, one of the 7 new shops.

Unless they’ve had a massive building boom in the last 11 months that’s what it pretty much looks like on google street view, at least to me.

Their images are from June 20, 1010, and the building done since then has totally changed the look of the downtown.

If you want to know what Carcross looks like and what’s there go to Google street view ...

It looks nothing like Google Maps/Earth/Streetview thinks it does, either (their images are from June 20, 1010).

Downtown Carcross looks VERY different now. There's a new retail complex that has several food outlets, and the bakery isn't swamped anymore so the quality is back up where it started.

In those photos, the "llittle museum and housing for workers" is actually a Native kindergarten and Indian band office, and the "train station" is a Native carving shed.

It depends on which port and even which dock. The first consideration may be that the tours being offered are the few that nobody else wanted. Generally there are tour brokers - individuals or companies - rather than actual operators, so the biggest discount you'll get, if any, is a bit of their commission. At Ketchikan, the visitor center at the main dock has a half-dozen operators, at Skagway, M&M Tours, who has the city's tour-broker contract, is who you'll see first at the Broadway and Railroad docks. In Juneau there are brokers' kiosks everywhere.

Jueanu has moose just not very many.

I've seen moose on the highway a mile from downtown Skagway, but...

There's pretty well no chance of seeing a moose on that itinerary. Moose viewing requires a one-way cruise with some time in the Alaskan Interior.

The real deals appear after final payment date for a given sailing - 60-90 days depending on the line. Norwegian Sun June 2nd sailing is $349 oceanview at the moment.

There are a couple of photos at a competing site (so the URL wouldn't post) - it Googles, though.

It's the smallest balcony on the ship, but it's still usable. A much bigger problem for me would be that it's one of the noisiest cabins on the ship, beside the atrium and elevators, and right above a couple of bars.

Check to see if your library has the Alaska Milepost. If so, make copies of the 2 or 3 pg outlining the SOUTH KLONDIKE HWY. It will provide the milepost number for various stops, viewpoints, places of interest, etc

It's similar to this guide, but will be more current:

http://www.bellsalaska.com/myalaska/klondike-highway.html

More complete and current than either is http://skagwayroadlog.com/

Perspective - the amount of money it will cost to make any changes will be huge. What you would gain by doing it would be an 8-hour bus ride that USUALLY produces great wildlife sightings - BUT I've occasionally been on very poor ones. I don't think that it's worth the cost or gamble, never mind the huge amount of work - everything, particularly accommodations for a group, would be hard to book this late. It's going to be an awesome trip just the way you have it - pretend to yourself that you never talked to us!

I recall reading past threads where people said if they cancelled their cruisetour, you also lost your cabins on the ship. Basically you had to start from scratch. Which might not be a bad thing .......

They're leaving in 6 weeks....

Do you think if we were to be able to switch to a day longer land tour, where we have one FULL day in either Denali Princess Lodge or McKinley lodge, that we would be better off?

 

In terms of having the time to get to the good wildlife part of Denali, are we better off choosing the tour that has the full day at McKinley? or the other side at Princess lodge?

To get to the good wildlife area you need 2 nights at the Denali Princess - no other option works. Even then, most of us recommend that you ditch the Princess tour and take the longer NPS shuttle to at least Eielson. Unfortunately, I'm pretty much certain that you won't be able to make that switch at this late date - it's basically an entirely new booking.

I'm sorry to say that you simply don't have time to get into the good wildlife part of Denali - from the Toklat River to Eielson Visitor Center. The Natural History Tour that you'll have included sometimes produces wildlife, but not consistently. And although there's a small chance of seeing wildlife on the way to your next lodge, it's not very likely. The drivers do point stuff out, but there's not much stuff to point out (it's beautiful scenery, though).

I've never heard of any charter transportation available at Denali, so I'm sure that you're out of luck there. What has attracted you to the Kantishna Experience? I was hugely underwhelmed, and consider anything past Eielson (well, I suppose Wonder Lake was worth seeing once - "tick") to be time poorly spent. If your family includes kids, the boredom factor will be even bigger.

I feel that we only saved $50 after the cost of the book.:confused:

Only??? That's like 9 free beer on board! :)

... is now ice-free :)

Maybe a better idea is to wait till the last moment to book this one

 

Benefit from some ??? ACCURATE REGIONAL WEATHER FORECASTING ???

There simply is no reliable weather forecasting for SE Alaska. It may be right for the next day but anything beyond that is as reliable as a guess.