Alaska cruise help

[ChefSusan]

If you can afford it, I highly recommend that you book a balcony of some sorts. Nothing like waking up and having the first thing you see be majestic snow-capped mountains, never-ending waterfalls, whales jumping 50 feet from your balcony, and sea otters saying "good morning!". It also came in very handy when going through Tracy Arm Fijord - did not have to "fight" the crowds to see the views, and we were able to hear what our naturalist (Michelle) was showing us.

 

Also book as early as possible - we booked our Alaska cruise back in November 2009, and not once did we have a price decrease - it went UP and UP!

 

Book your excursions privately - we did through Chillkoot Tours (Skagway) and Dolphin Tours (Juneau and Ketchikan), and were quite pleased with the personalized service that we got.

 

Regardless, you are in for one heck of a memorable trip!

[happylady]

We rented from Avis in Skagway and did this very same trip up into Canada. Reserve your car early online as you will see the Avis desk is in a motel room of a crappy motel with about 6 cars outside to rent. Nice little town and the scenery up to Emerald Lake is incredible.

 

We were supposed to do the May 11 cruise this last year. But due to a scheduling conflict for our son at Florida State, we had to cancel. I had already reserved a car through Avis after reading the unfavorable reviews on the other rental agency in town. I made them sometime in December and was able to get Chevy Impala.

 

Did you use the Murray Guide?

[Tapi]

Help me narrow it down a little faster. What is the cheapest crusieline to cruise Alaska with. I need to take 5 of us for a cruise next summer and need to do it on the cheap. Seattle or vancouver is fine. Thanks

 

As much as we love Carnival, and even though normally Carnival commands the lowest prices, we found Princess to be substantially cheaper for our Alaska cruise next year.

 

In addition to being cheaper, we're also sailing Saturday to Saturday (Carnival sails Tuesday to Tuesday), which matches my vacation assignment (my company assigns vacations beginning and ending on Saturdays).

 

Also, my parents will be joining us and they booked a mini-suite for slightly more than what they would've paid for a standard balcony stateroom (I think the difference in price was around $100pp).

 

Feel free to ask questions!

[buddylover]

May being the beginning of the Alaska season will almost always have lower fares and is NOT specific to CCL at all......Sept. as well will offer much lower fares than during the Alaska "peak season" of June July and August.

 

As an FYI... HAL and Princess were the pioneers of Alaska and in my opinion offer the best Alaska cruise experience as well as ships.

 

Totally agree.....Princess is truly one of the pioneers in Alaska...we went right after Labor Day....crowds on board and land were down, prices lower. However, the one negative to this time of year is that alot of the animals are already migrating inland, eagles have hatched, salmon runs are over, so there is less active wildlife to see. We really loved Princess and did a land tour package into Alaska first, started in Fairbanks and worked our way down to the ship through Mt. McKinley and Denali and then cruised down the inner passage to Vancouver. Great trip!

[AlanAllyn]

Be sure that you compare apples with apples. Look at the time in port. Be sure that you go to either Glacier Bay or Hubbard Glacier.

 

Since you are driving from Canada, the advantage of Vancouver over Seattle is that you don't waste a day with a stop in Victoria (often only 4 hours in the evening). All ships sailing round trip from Seattle must stop in Canada.

 

Also, most cruises from Seattle sail west of Vancouver island whereas most from Vancouver sail to the east. The scenery on the east is far better and the seas may be rough on the west side.

 

I've done Alaska twice in June when the prices are lower than July and August and the days are longer.

 

Check out the Alaska Ports of Call Board on CC; you will get a lot of good information from cruisers on all the major lines.