Alaska cruisetour advice please

My husband and I ( from UK) are hoping to visit Alaska for the first ( and probably only ) time next year in 2019. We were hoping to do a cruisetour as we want to experience Denali and the land, as well as cruise down the inside passage. Any recommendations for cruise companies and itineraries would be very helpful. We are thinking of June/ July and want to cruise down to Vancouver.

In 2016 we were in the planning phase like you & we chose NCL northbound to Seward. Instead of cruise tour we rented a car in Anchorage & drove to Denali on our own. I was hesitant to do this but it was so easy driving & we stopped when & where we wanted to. We did Denali to Eielson Center. We also drove back to Girdwood & stayed at Alyeska Resort. I highly recommend a DIY instead of cruise tour due to the ease & flexibility. You can replicate any cruise tour for a fraction of the cost.

Alaska is not best seen on a point to point fixed tour. Cruise tours have limits and it's essential, you know the - details- of what you are looking at. Way too many people do not. Denali is about getting INTO the park. Take some time, and read up on the area, look at maps, look at the differences between the tour and shuttle buses. http://www.nps.gov/dena

Most cruise tours, miss the opportunity to enjoy and tour the Alaska embark/debark port, Seward/Whittier. Both these are gems loaded with superb touring.

Time is your best friend in Alaska- go for as long as possible, frequently underestimated. Being you claim this is a one time trip- especially important to be informed and figure out what you want before you get into any booking.

Read through multiple trip reports, especially independent. Differences will be noted.

I’d recommend checking the construction updates. Only one highway north and south, and although I’m not sure about the summer of 2019, this summer they are expecting hours long delays as the road will be a single lane for a large portion between Seward and girdwood. I would take the train this year just to avoid the traffic.

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We booked on Royal Caribbean due the fact no other cruise line( that I found) goes on a land tour that has you stay all the way into Denali at the Kantishna Lodge. For us it was all about seeing the Park.

Our cruise does leave from Vancouver and ends up in Seward. Then we do the 5 day land tour with 2 nights and 3 days at Kantishna.

Yes, I could have booked the land portion myself, but I liked the fact they had to do the leg work and I just have to show up and enjoy.

Ours is June 14, 2019.

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In 2016 we were in the planning phase like you & we chose NCL northbound to Seward. Instead of cruise tour we rented a car in Anchorage & drove to Denali on our own. I was hesitant to do this but it was so easy driving & we stopped when & where we wanted to. We did Denali to Eielson Center. We also drove back to Girdwood & stayed at Alyeska Resort. I highly recommend a DIY instead of cruise tour due to the ease & flexibility. You can replicate any cruise tour for a fraction of the cost.

Biojeep, this is what we plan to do in Sept. of this year. We spend one night in Seward, take the train to Anchorage, pick up a car and drive to Denali for 2 nights. Then on to Girdwood, where we are renting a condo for 3 nights, and seeing the sights in the area. Were there any highlights that you would recommend??

Alaska Wildlife Consevation Center outside of Portage & Alyeska Mountain, & tour to Eielson Center in Denali were highlights. The beautiful scenery & clean, refreshing air throughout Alaska is a highlight in itself. We are planning a return trip,our third, in May 2019. This time we will cruise to Seward & rent a car & concentrate our touring to the Kenai all the way to Homer. Let me know if you need any more information. Rent your car early to get low rates. I think I rented in December for our May trip.

My husband and I ( from UK) are hoping to visit Alaska for the first ( and probably only ) time next year in 2019. We were hoping to do a cruisetour as we want to experience Denali and the land, as well as cruise down the inside passage. Any recommendations for cruise companies and itineraries would be very helpful. We are thinking of June/ July and want to cruise down to Vancouver.

Holland America has a 20 day cruisetour that starts and ends in Vancouver and goes to Whitehorse and Dawson City in Canada’s Yukon Territory, to Fairbanks, 3 nights Denali, train to Anchorage and train to Seward to begin your 7 day cruise. If you have the time it would give you an opportunity to spend some time in Canada’s Yukon as well as Alaska.

My husband and I ( from UK) are hoping to visit Alaska for the first ( and probably only ) time next year in 2019. We were hoping to do a cruisetour as we want to experience Denali and the land, as well as cruise down the inside passage. Any recommendations for cruise companies and itineraries would be very helpful. We are thinking of June/ July and want to cruise down to Vancouver.

For a "one and only" I think it is important to pack as much Alaska, both the lower maritime ports you will visit on the cruise portion and the spectacular scenic natural beauty of the inland portion, into a comfortable and memorable journey. An excellent way for a visitor from abroad to do this is a cruisetour that combines both venues and removes the burden of detailed planning, optional excursions aside, on your part.

I recommend Princess because of the assured inclusion/access of Glacier Bay NP on the cruise and their excellent collection of Princess owned and operated lodges that are perfectly situated, have good amenities, are fully integrated into the tours, and fit the locale in design and decor. Cruise first going north and then enjoy the grandeur of Alaska as it unfolds on your tour progresses.

I further recommend the Princess "Connoisseur" type of cruisetour of 14-15 days (7 days on ship, remainder on land) as it includes a full-time escort that travels with your on the landtour, all breakfast and dinners on landtour, some lunch and snack surprises at the discretion of the escort, all attraction/park entry fees, preferred accomodations, all baggage handling, all gratuities (except for escort and driver), the fabulous train trip in special Princess scenic carriages, an important reserved excursions. Also, you get to relax and let some else do the driving, all while excellent narration that is supplemented with local experts as you visit key regional attractions.

The Connoisseur tours will appear to be costly but actually offer great value. Meals in Alaska are costly (far more than other US regions... more like UK prices appear to visiting yanks) and the included meals are at the top restaurants and include almost everything. I found the "list price" for some of the expensive seafood and big meat to top $100/pp if ordered a la carte.

Anyway, so check these out by ordering/downloading a few of the specialized brochures Princess has on their website, and enjoy your Alaska journey as we have always enjoyed our many visits/tours in the UK.

Alaska Wildlife Consevation Center outside of Portage & Alyeska Mountain, & tour to Eielson Center in Denali were highlights. The beautiful scenery & clean, refreshing air throughout Alaska is a highlight in itself. We are planning a return trip,our third, in May 2019. This time we will cruise to Seward & rent a car & concentrate our touring to the Kenai all the way to Homer. Let me know if you need any more information. Rent your car early to get low rates. I think I rented in December for our May trip.

Thanks!

Biojeep, this is what we plan to do in Sept. of this year. We spend one night in Seward, take the train to Anchorage, pick up a car and drive to Denali for 2 nights. Then on to Girdwood, where we are renting a condo for 3 nights, and seeing the sights in the area. Were there any highlights that you would recommend??

I'd suggest you determine activities before you randomly pick an area/days. 3 nights in Girdwood is a LOT of time. You have no other interests in Seward?

Perhaps figure out what you are going to do each day?

3 days in Girdwood could be great! Tons of hiking trails near by, trip to Whittier for kayaking or glacier tour. Portage glacier visitors center, The Alaska wildlife conservation center. Dinner at the double musky, ride the tram to the top of alyeska. Sooo many options!

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We've been considering a cruisetour to Alaska as well - probably 2020. While I've heard that Princess does a fantastic job, my hubby & our travel companions are not fans of Princess after our experience a couple of years ago. They've been leaning toward Royal Caribbean, so I'm wondering if their cruisetours are as inclusive as Princess'.

Look at john halls alaska website is kissalaska.com they offer all inclusive alaska package all meals all excursions everything is fully paid for expensive but well worth it when when you see all that is included went to the tour show was amazed at all they included even gives you a jacket with your name on it to wear

I would do my land tour as an independent DIY driving tour. However, if you do not want to drive, have you thought about booking your land tour and your cruise completely independently. That way, you can pick the best land tour and independently pick the best cruise w/o having to make compromises.

One thing to be very careful of is that you have to read the details of the land portion of any cruisetour very very very carefully. The cruise companies are very good at making you think that you will be getting a lot more than you actually get.

As an example, they have a train trip from either Fairbanks to Anchorage to Denali. They say that you have 2 days and one night in Denali which is technically accurate. What they don't tell you is that you get into Denali at noon or 1 PM on day 1 and you leave around midday on day 2. That is just 1 day in Denali in my book and you don't have the time to do much there.

They also pull other stunts like that one such as putting you up in a cruise line owned hotel that is far away from everything. For example, when they say that you will be able to see Talkeetna, they put you up in the Mt Mckinley Princess Wilderness Lodge which is 50 miles from Talkeetna.

Also, remember that distances in AK are far and you may end up spending half of your land time on a bus going from spot to spot.

Just be very careful when you decide what you want to do.

DON

My husband and I ( from UK) are hoping to visit Alaska for the first ( and probably only ) time next year in 2019. We were hoping to do a cruisetour as we want to experience Denali and the land, as well as cruise down the inside passage. Any recommendations for cruise companies and itineraries would be very helpful. We are thinking of June/ July and want to cruise down to Vancouver.

Our trip, which leaves in 9 days (holy crap!), will also likely be our only Alaska trip in the near future and was planned by an outside company. After researching what Royal Caribbean pre-tours offered (we only sail RCI), my wife decided there was too much she wanted to do/see so she found an outside company that planned a personalized 10-day land tour before our Southbound inside passage cruise from Seward to Vancouver. We're hitting Fairbanks, a few days in Denali, a stop in Anchorage, a couple days in Girdwood, and a couple days in Seward before embarkation.

I got in trouble for naming the company on here but our experience with them and specifically our consultant was amazing! She put together everything from hotel reservations to train tickets to some tours/activities. She even had restaurant recommendations in certain cities. Oh, and she also helped revise out itinerary 58 times (no exaggeration, the final document says revision 58).

Anyway, if you're interested, feel free to leave me your e-mail address and I'll send you the info. Happy researching!

I'd suggest you determine activities before you randomly pick an area/days. 3 nights in Girdwood is a LOT of time. You have no other interests in Seward?

 

Perhaps figure out what you are going to do each day?

Budget Queen,

I appreciate your input. We have almost 2 days in Seward (day we arrive and the next day before taking the evening train to Anchorage.) I didn't randomly pick Girdwood. We don't like cities, but do want a few restaurants available, and it sounds like it's at the base of the mountains, which is a plus also! We will be coming from Denali Lakeview Inn, and may spend the morning at Denali if there is anything that we missed. That will really just leave us 2 days in Girdwood. We have quite a few activities that we are thinking about.

• Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center
  
• Alyeska Tramway
  
• Cooper Landing-Alaska Wildland Adventures- scenic Kenai river float trip (We have the Tour Saver 2 for 1 coupon)
  
• Whittier &Prince William Sound?
  
• Portage Glacier cruise (another TourSaver coupon, but we may be glaciered out??)
  
• Hiking options, including Lower Winner Creek Trail, and the Byron Glacier Trail, as well as trail around Alyeska
  

We don't fly out until 11pm, so the last day will be spent in Anchorage. My husband and my dad will be biking the Coastal Trail while my mom and myself probably enjoy the Native Heritage Center. We may also stop at the Potter Marsh Boardwalk on the way to Anchorage.

Any thoughts/recommendations?

I'd suggest you determine activities before you randomly pick an area/days. 3 nights in Girdwood is a LOT of time. You have no other interests in Seward?

 

Perhaps figure out what you are going to do each day?

Budget Queen,

I don't mean to hijack the post, but I appreciate your input. We have almost 2 days in Seward (day we arrive and the next day before taking the evening train to Anchorage.) I didn't randomly pick Girdwood. We don't like cities, but do want a few restaurants available, and it sounds like it's at the base of the mountains, which is a plus also! We will be coming from Denali Lakeview Inn, and may spend the morning at Denali if there is anything that we missed. That will really just leave us 2 days in Girdwood. We have quite a few activities that we are thinking about.

• Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center
  
• Alyeska Tramway
  
• Cooper Landing-Alaska Wildland Adventures- scenic Kenai river float trip (We have the Tour Saver 2 for 1 coupon)
  
• Whittier &Prince William Sound?
  
• Portage Glacier cruise (another TourSaver coupon, but we may be glaciered out??)
  
• Hiking options, including Lower Winner Creek Trail, and the Byron Glacier Trail, as well as trail around Alyeska
  

We don't fly out until 11pm, so the last day will be spent in Anchorage. My husband and my dad will be biking the Coastal Trail while my mom and myself probably enjoy the Native Heritage Center. We may also stop at the Potter Marsh Boardwalk on the way to Anchorage.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

We have done one land tour on our own in a rental car. We have done one Princess cruise tour that had a 3 day land tour and 7 day cruise. We have most recently done the Princess 15 day connoisseur escorted cruise tour. That was fantastic and absolutely stress free. We have booked another one for next year along with friends. Having an escort who not only handled all the details but also gave us so much history and information about Alaska that we never would have gotten by renting a car and doing the land tour on our own. If you end up booking a Princess connoisseur escorted tour and your get the tour director that we had, Jack Curtiss, you will not regret your choice.

We did a driving tour of Alaska about 10 years ago (can't wait to go back). Drove from Anchorage, stopped in Talkeetna for an overnight at the Talkeetna Roadhouse (the rooms are above a restaurant and it was a really neat place to stay. Reindeer sausage for breakfast in the morning and cinnamon rolls the size of your head. Never smelled cleaner, sweeter air than in Talkeetna. Drove from there to Denali. As we were driving up the highway, a grizzly bear crossed the road right in front of our car. Simply amazing. Got lucky enough to see Denali - it's only visible about 1/3 of most days. From there we traveled to the South Pole/Fairbanks for a couple days. Then took the train from Fairbanks back to Anchorage.

I highly recommend a driving tour.

Our trip, which leaves in 9 days (holy crap!), will also likely be our only Alaska trip in the near future and was planned by an outside company. After researching what Royal Caribbean pre-tours offered (we only sail RCI), my wife decided there was too much she wanted to do/see so she found an outside company that planned a personalized 10-day land tour before our Southbound inside passage cruise from Seward to Vancouver. We're hitting Fairbanks, a few days in Denali, a stop in Anchorage, a couple days in Girdwood, and a couple days in Seward before embarkation.

 

I got in trouble for naming the company on here but our experience with them and specifically our consultant was amazing! She put together everything from hotel reservations to train tickets to some tours/activities. She even had restaurant recommendations in certain cities. Oh, and she also helped revise out itinerary 58 times (no exaggeration, the final document says revision 58).

 

Anyway, if you're interested, feel free to leave me your e-mail address and I'll send you the info. Happy researching!

Hi! I'd like the name of your travel agent, please. Thanks! Padnurse@att.net

If you are like me, I found it very overwhelming to try to figure out what was important to see and try and arrange it on my own. So we went with a cruise tour from Holland America. Just got back 2 days ago and it was by far the best trip we have ever done! The ship isn't what makes the trip, it's what you see out there..... As a matter of fact, it was our first HAL cruise out of 14 cruises and I wasn't all that impressed....not my fav line. But they do know how to do Alaska. Everything, and I mean everything was looked after. Denali was amazing and our 8 hout tundra tour was outstanding. Between the tundra tour and the train to anchorage we saw more wildlife than you can imagine and were lucky enough to see the top of Denali mountain 3 days in a row. Unheard of according to the guides. So my advice,...you will get lots of Alaska viewing by booking a cruise/tour thru a cruise line and possibly save yourself a lot of grief by letting them do all the arranging. Any questions, just ask

Hi! I'd like the name of your travel agent, please. Thanks! Padnurse@att.net

Me too, please. seaworthy@q.com

Hi! I'd like the name of your travel agent, please. Thanks! Padnurse@att.net

Us too, please..seaworthy@q.com

Just remember, OP, you will be driving on the "wrong"side of the road if you drive!