Suggestions Please

Hello All...

Let me introduce myself... I'm Lee and my partner is Howard. I am a Western Australian, born and bred and Howard originally comes from Yorkshire in England, but has been in Aus for over 25 years, so I call him my Aussie who talks funny ;p

We are busy working on our travel bucket lists and next year we have decided that it is time to go to Alaska:cool:. It will be a once in a life time trip as there are still so many other places on my "Need to go to" list"

We have cruised with Princess in the past, one cruise through Indonesia and another to Papua New Guinea. We really enjoyed our cruises and decided to go with Princess in Alaska. We have booked an Off the Beaten Path NB7 Cruise Tour starting in Anchorage on 15 May next year, on Coral Princess. I did heaps of research before booking and I think this will provide us with a great experience, and I think the Coral will be a perfect fit for us, having previously loved the smaller ship (Dawn Princess) when we did our other cruises.

Coming from Western Australia is a huge trip (both in distance and $$), and I don't sleep (at all) on planes so after a bit of research we have decided to fly via Hong Kong, with a 2 day stop over on the way to Alaska and 1 day on the way home. We also stop over in Vancouver for 1 night on the way to Anchorage.

This being the only time we are likely to get to Alaska we want to do and see sooo much... I have never seen snow, so I guess that will change :D... things that are high on our list are to see bears, whales and Orca... would love to walk on a glacier... learn a bit about the native culture and also the gold rush era... would like to do either helicopter or float plane fight-seeing... while I would really love to do the glacier with dog sledding I don't think this is within our budget unfortunately...

This is where I am going to need some help/suggestions....

1. We get in to Anchorage 2 days before our cruise tour starts and I am looking for some recommendations to things to do and see while we are there...

2. Looking for suggestions on the best places to do and see the things on our list above...

We will have a full day and a half free at Copper River Princess Lodge

Little to no free time in Fairbanks or Denali as tours are included, plan on extending the tour in Denali to the longer one if available.

We are also at McKinley Princess Lodge but only for half a day so not sure what we could fit in there...

Our cruise ports are Skagway (7am - 8.30pm), Juneau (6.30am - 5pm) and Ketchikan (10am - 6pm)

3. We will also have 2 days in Vancouver at the end of our cruise before flying home, so suggestions for what to do there would be great as well.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give us :)

Since whales are high on your list, the whale watch and salmon bake combo excursion in Juneau was one of our favorites. We saw six different humpback whales. But you are coming in May so you may want to research if the whales have made their way to Alaska yet - I think they have but can't say as I was there in August. They tend to hang out with their food sources.

I would suggest doing the longer tour in Denali. We went on the shorter one and wished we had taken the longer one. We did do a whitewater rafting excursion while at the Denali lodge and was a blast! Our departure time on the river was 6:30pm and it was light the whole three hour trip. So be sure to account for the sunrise and sunset times as you go further north. I liked the Denali lodge better than McKinley lodge and Fairbanks.

Fairbanks riverboat tour and panning for gold was a very long but satisfying day too.

We did not do a flight on to a glacier. So I can't recommend any trips there.

You are definitely in for a treat if you've never seen snow! In May there should be plenty enough left for you to possibly walk in some if you're in the right place.

I do have a Denali warning for you. The road into the park isn't fully open until after the 1st of June. Since you're going with the organized tour there they would know this but might not fully explain it to you. If you want to see what you might can expect there is some good information here at the official Denali web page: Denali Bus Tours

Since you have a couple days in Anchorage at the beginning I would suggest renting a car. Unless you plan on only visting the very downtown area you'll need your own wheels to make visiting easier. There are rental companies with offices downtown or at the airport. Anchorage is about 300,000 people but doesn't feel hectic to me. A place I stumbled on to last year was the Eagle River Nature Center east of town (the town of Eagle River - about 15 miles north of Anchorage) on Eagle River Road. Very spectacular scenery! There are walking trails plus some wooden platforms built over the river in a few spots - lots of photo ops there. Maybe 30 minutes from downtown Anchorage to the north.

You should also consider driving south out of Anchorage on the Seward Highway to at least the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center - May is probably too early for bears in the wild but the conservation center has several in a natural setting plus caribou, wolves, musk ox, etc. The drive to the nature center is very scenic as the highway is hugging the coast of the Turnagain Arm. You'll also pass near Girdwood where there is a tram to the top of a mountain with an incredible view. Navigation in a car is very simple - even better if you use a GPS (the one in your phone?).

In Skagway a good local tour company is called Dyea Dave Tours. I've been on his Emerald Lake Tour over into the Yukon twice - nice, nice people. A ride on the White Pass & Yukon Rail Road is pretty cool too. A tip on that is to ride the train in the afternoon (if your schedule allows) because the mornings can be foggy and overcast - that will hopefully burn off by the afternoon for excellent scenery. Dyea Dave dropped us off for the train at Fraser, BC - it's about a 90 minute train ride back to Skagway. We passed through what appears to be the middle of winter with *TONS* of snow and frozen lakes everywhere. Very special.

I do have a suggestion of a couple things to do in Vancouver. There's a virtual reality ride on top of Canada Place (the cruise ship dock) called "Fly Over Canada" that's very, very cool. Very realistic and you'll get a good look at a nice variety of Canada. We liked it so much we rode it twice! If you've never had the #1 Canadian dish to eat you should try poutine! There's a little poutinery on Davey Street in Vancouver called "La Belle Patate". EXCELLENT! A friend of mine owns a sister of that eatery by the same name in Victoria on Esquimalt Road. In Vancouver I love the #18 Extreme or the #20 Supreme. :D

Good luck! You're going to have a fantastic time no matter what you do!

My suggestion for your 2 days in Anchorage is...don't stay in Anchorage lol. Head south on the Seward Highway, My husband and I stayed at the Alyeska hotel in Girdwood. Gorgeous scenery, beautiful hotel, great food, etc. Anchorage for us was just a big city, which did not appeal at all. We did however enjoy Vancouver a lot.

Orcas - you may get lucky, especially if you take a small boat cruise before boarding your ship, as in May they're feasting on lots of delicious baby seals. The big whalewatching company, Major Marine, even offers Orca-focused trips mid-May to mid-June, out of Seward - I think all the Princess ship use Whittier though, where the day-trip options are the '26 Glacier cruise' or shorter variants, but you still have a chance of seeing Orcas and other marine wildlife around. If you don't see them at the beginning, your best chance actually comes at the end - we have resident Orcas that you can see out of Vancouver, and while it's never guaranteed that you'll see them on every trip over peak season (April-October) most local companies advertise 95%+ success. You can also keep taking free trips over and over until you do see a whale of some flavour.

Bears you also have a good backup down here - there are two grizzlies in captivity on Grouse Mountain, so even if the Alaskan bears don't come out when you can see them you will definitely be able to find Grinder and Coola as they leave hibernation by the end of April (it's even free if you hike up the Grouse Grind, or if you're not in fabulous shape for hiking then pay for the cable car!)

Humpbacks you will be unable to avoid seeing unless you try really, really hard - by May there are already many of them up feeding near Juneau, so if you don't see enough of them on your pre-cruise Orca whale watch, book another trip in Juneau (or just book one anyway, the more time on the water the better your chance at seeing them do something interesting).

What else to do in Vancouver needs more info from you - unlike the teeny-tiny AK towns, we're a large city with pretty much anything and everything you could ever want to do in the urban jungle, plus a crapton of nature right on our doorstep. Aside from the bears/whales/snow you already mentioned, what floats your boat? Fancy dinners, the theatre? Galleries & museums? Shopping? Parks & gardens? Even if you aren't too jetlagged to make use of your 1 day pre-cruise, you've still only got 3 in total which isn't even close to enough to do it all, so priorities need to be established!

We book whale watching in Juneau through a newer company we found on the internet (Alaska Tales) and were very happy. Young staff, modern boat.

Whale watching tends to take place in a localized area (where the whales are) and once some are spotted, the area will quickly have six tour boats all stationed to watch the same groups. Basically they watch each other until someone finds something worth seeing. They aren't allowed to get very close deliberately so if you have a close encounter, it's supposed to be accidental.

Thanks everyone for your great suggestions... the hard bit now is deciding which activities to do :)

I might offer a somewhat different idea relative to Anchorage....give up a day and book a tundra tour up to Barrow. For one thing, you will be above the arctic circle (they give you a certificate!) and for another, it's just a very unique part of the world. We only had 1 day to ourself in Anchorage, and sacrificed it to go to the far north. Got to see Denali from the air, which was pretty neat. Granted, the tundra tours are not cheap, and you wind up getting up REALLY early for the flights..but it is among the most memorable places we've ever been to.