Review: Zuiderdam Inside Passage, July 14-21, 2012 (with photos)

[solocanadian]

What was the price of this excursion with Allen Marine, please.:) Great pictures by the way.

[spacepotatoes]

What was the price of this excursion with Allen Marine, please.:) Great pictures by the way.

 

Thank you!

 

I just double checked our confirmation to make sure I was giving you the right price. It was $214 pp for the Tracy Arm excursion. Kids are cheaper but I don't remember how much or what the cut off age was.

[Susie51]

Great pics! They bring back wonderful memories.

[spacepotatoes]

Skagway

 

We booked the Yukon Bus & Rail excursion through Chilkoot Charters. We chose the tour that started at 8:30 AM but there is also a 7:30 AM tour for you early birds. Chilkoot has several options for getting you to the Yukon. This is what our excursion involved: http://www.chilkootcharters.com/yukonrail.htm

 

The excursion was great, start to finish. The guide was friendly and knowledgeable (and used to work for HAL driving their motor coaches back in the day!), it was a small group, we got to see lots of beautiful things, and never felt rushed or crowded. We'd highly recommend it. The website doesn't give prices but our excursion was $176 pp.

 

We were picked up at the dock by our guide, Bruce, and discovered we were the only Zuiderdam passengers on this tour. Almost everyone else was from the Infinity. We picked up a family from the Princess dock and then headed out. We were in a small mini-bus and there were only about 22 of us, I think. It was a perfect sized group.

 

Bruce drove us through town, explaining the history as we made our way to the Klondike Highway. We stopped at many of the scenic overlooks along the way and Bruce was very laid back. He kept to his schedule but we never felt rushed. The scenery was beautiful the entire way up; I couldn’t stop taking pictures because there was always something nice to look at! We even got lucky and saw a bear.

 

 

Very scenic dock

 

 

A field of inukshuk

 

 

 

A bear along the highway

 

We had a restroom stop at the train depot in Fraser on the way up and our passports were checked on the bus. We then continued up into the Yukon, stopping at Emerald Lake before heading back to Caribou Crossing for lunch. The lunch was bbq chicken, roasted potatoes, and coleslaw. There were homemade doughnuts for dessert. Everything was good. We had some time to visit with the animals and I got to do one of the things I’d really been looking forward to: play with the husky puppies! Unfortunately, the puppies weren’t that interested in playing with me, but they were fun to see anyway.

 

 

Emerald Lake

 

 

 

Puppy!

 

Where the puppies were

[spacepotatoes]

Skagway, continued

 

We had a short stop in Carcross (there wasn’t much to see), then headed back to Fraser to catch the train. We (the Chilkoot group) had our own car on the train and there was narration for the trip back to Skagway. For much of the ride, the train tracks follows the highway that we’d driven up earlier, so you get to see some of the same things again from another perspective. It was neat experience, also very beautiful scenery.

 

Train in Fraser

 

View from the train

 

 

 

The train ride was about 1.5 hrs, which we felt was enough. Passports were checked again when we got back to the depot in Skagway. It was about 4:45 when got there. Bruce picked us up and gave us the option to get off the bus in town or go back to the ship. If you do this, or any other tour that ends this late, don’t go back to the ship if you plan to do any shopping! We assumed that the shops would be open later since the ships were in port late so we got back onboard and had dinner. When we went back out around 6:30, just about everything was closed. We had a quiet walk around town and called it a day.

 

Downtown Skagway

 

Skagway was our favourite port. This excursion and Glacier Bay completely made the cruise for us, the rest of it was icing on the cake!

[spacepotatoes]

Glacier Bay

 

This was the most spectacular part of the cruise and now that I've reached this part of the review, I don't know where to begin! There are not enough words to do justice to the beauty of Glacier Bay. From the moment we stepped out on deck, it took my breath away. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

 

What I saw when I first stepped out on the Promenade deck

 

 

The water was like glass

 

Margerie Glacier, up close

 

Margerie calving

[spacepotatoes]

Glacier Bay, continued

 

The bow was open for viewing during Glacier Bay. We moved up there after the ship left Margerie. It was the perfect spot, there were very few people still there at that point.

 

The Lamplugh Glacier and Mt. Cooper

 

 

Johns Hopkins Inlet

 

 

Almost looks like a photoshopped Caribbean picture, doesn't it? Amazing.

 

 

 

 

Reid Glacier

 

The daily Explorer has a schedule for Glacier Bay so you'll know when to go out and see the glaciers. For our sailing, Margerie Glacier was at 9:45 AM and Lamplugh was at 11:45 AM. But I'm willing to bet that once you step outside, you won't want to go back in!

 

The cupcake tea was held this afternoon as the ship headed out of Glacier Bay. While we were in the MDR enjoying that, we noticed that we had some company...

 

Whale tail!

 

All in all, a perfect day!

[spacepotatoes]

Ketchikan

 

This was our "Relax and Catch-up on Shopping" port; we had no excursions planned. Good thing, too, since it rained the entire day. We were considering the Misty Fjords boat tour (also operated by Allen Marine but must be booked directly through HAL) but were glad we passed.

 

Once again, we were docked at the farthest berth from the centre of town but in Ketchikan, this is not a big deal. It's an easy walk along the waterfront to get to the Visitor's Centre and the main shopping area. We bundled up, took our umbrella, and headed out.

 

At the Visitor's Centre, you can pick up a map for a self-guided historical walking tour; that was our plan for the morning. We also did some shopping along the route. If you have a sweet tooth, I highly recommend stopping into Ketchicandies. We brought home one of their 1 lb Signature boxes and it has been such a treat. The chocolate is fresh and very good.

 

We had hoped to walk to the Saxman Village but since it's 2.5 miles one way, we decided against it. After a couple hours of walking around in the rain already, we'd had enough. We got back onboard and headed to the Terrace Grill for lunch. This was the one day I was able to get a prime spot in the Exploration Cafe (in the photo posted earlier) since most people were still off the ship, so I spent the rest of the afternoon there reading and enjoying some cookies :D

 

The Ketchicandies store is on this street, on the left. The store at the corner on the left has very reasonable prices on a lot of souvenirs, and they've got bottled water for 99 cents should you need it.

 

Creek Street

 

More of Ketchikan

[spacepotatoes]

Final Thoughts

 

Well, Ketchikan was the last port and that brings me to the end of my review. This cruise really exceeded our expectations. We didn't know what to expect with Alaska, being so used to traveling to warmer places, but it was incredible. We would like to go back some day and see more of it. The itinerary was perfect for us. It had a good balance of port time and sea days/scenic cruising. We felt that it allowed us to choose how active, or not, we wanted the trip to be. We saw a lot of beautiful things but also came home relaxed; I managed to read two novels on this vacation!

 

Do we have a new favourite cruise line? Almost. HAL was wonderful for us and felt like a good fit. The open seating worked surprisingly well (we found it frustrating on Carnival) but we still missed NCL's Freestyle. The day time activities were great but we missed NCL's evening entertainment. The conclusion we came to was this: if there is a cruise line out there that combines the best of HAL with the best of NCL, there we will find our cruising nirvana :D

 

Will we back on a dam ship in the future? Absolutely! But it may be a while. Unless some amazing deal comes up, we probably won't be cruising again for a year or two since we'd like to start a family. Once we do get back into traveling again, we may go for the more family-oriented and budget-friendly lines. But HAL will always be an option, and if the itinerary and price are right, we'll be there in a heartbeat!

 

Thanks for sticking it out and reading this far! If there's anything I missed or something you want to know that I didn't address, just ask :)

[dobiemom]

Great review, thanks for taking the time to share your trip with us! ;)

[aloisia]

I loved your review, the details, format & photos! Very helpful in our planning.

Thank you for posting! :)

[mudscraper]

Great review. Thank you.

[Copper10-8]

Awesome review, food porn;) and pics! Glad to hear you had a great time on Zuidy!

[RuthC]

I've enjoyed every post; every pic. Thanks for all your efforts in putting this out for us.

[kazu]

Really great review and wonderful thread:):) Thank you so much for all of your work.:):)

[Crusin Kelly]

Thanks for your postings... this made me remember our trip there several years ago... Oh the beauty ! ! Thanks

[alibabacruisers]

Thank you for your very interesting review and pictures. We have been contemplating our first Alaska cruise and have found your info great!! Was your cruise 7 days?

 

Barbara

[ialwayswanttocruise]

Thanks for the excellent review, in 5 weeks today we will be embarking on this very cruise.We are doing almost identical shore tours, and seeing those pictures was amazing we were excited before now we are bursting :)

 

Good Luck with your family plans, we are actually cruising for the first time without our children this trip. They are all now over 18. All of our previous cruises have been with the children and they as well as us have had fantastic holidays. :)

 

Sharyn

[Joan G]

Really enjoyed your review probably one of the best I have every seen. Very organized and the pictures wow! I will be boarding her a week from today.

[maxout]

Great review! :D

 

spacepotatoes, What camera and lenses are you using?

[spacepotatoes]

Thanks for the wonderful feedback! I'm glad the review was helpful; it was fun reliving our cruise :)

 

The DH and I are out of town this weekend so I'll be back tomorrow evening to respond to some of the comments and answer questions.

[Shebba]

I've really enjoyed your review and pictures. Makes me long to return to Alaska. We've cruised there twice, once with HAL. That Oosterdam cruise to Alaska was one of our TOP cruises. It was amazing! We've also sailed on the Zuiderdam (to Panama) and loved the ship and her crew.

 

Thanks again for sharing your trip with us!

[papergypsy]

We did this cruise in 2009. We love HAL and look forward to doing the Panama Canal cruised on the Zuiderdam some time in the future. She is the best DAM ship on the water!

[spacepotatoes]

Thank you all again for the great feedback! I'm sorry it's taken a little while to get back to answer some questions. Life has been getting in the way of CC time but I'm back :)

 

Thank you for your very interesting review and pictures. We have been contemplating our first Alaska cruise and have found your info great!! Was your cruise 7 days?

 

Barbara

 

Yes, it was 7 days (Saturday - Saturday). We just added an extra 3 days at the beginning to explore Vancouver.

 

Thanks for the excellent review, in 5 weeks today we will be embarking on this very cruise.We are doing almost identical shore tours, and seeing those pictures was amazing we were excited before now we are bursting :)

 

Good Luck with your family plans, we are actually cruising for the first time without our children this trip. They are all now over 18. All of our previous cruises have been with the children and they as well as us have had fantastic holidays. :)

 

Sharyn

 

Thank you! We are very much looking forward to introducing our little ones to cruising some day, though I'm sure it will be quite different from what we've been used to as just the two of us.

 

Have a great time on the Zuiderdam and in Alaska!

 

Great review! :D

 

spacepotatoes, What camera and lenses are you using?

 

We had two cameras with us, a DSLR and a high-performance point and shoot. The DSLR is a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi, with just the kit lenses (18-55 mm, and 55-250 mm). The lenses had a UV filter on and depending on the conditions, a circular polarizing filter as well to cut out glare. The point and shoot is a Canon PowerShot SX200 IS.

[gigianne]

Fabulous review - thanks so much for taking the time to post.