Just off Legend 7/5-7/12 to Alaska

[gwenslibrary]

Hi all - we just got home from our first ever cruise and our first trip to Alaska! We traveled with our family of four, which includes two teenage boys. I know I had a million questions before we went, so I am happy to answer any questions that anyone reading this might have!

 

We flew in the night before our cruise, which happened to be July 4th. We stayed at Cedarbrook Lodge, close to the airport, mostly because everything downtown was SUPER expensive for the holiday weekend. However, even though finding our hotel online was kind of an accident, I CANNOT recommend it highly enough! This is more of a resort than a hotel - it sits on several acres of land. Our room was gorgeous, and the view outside our window was all trees. There is a beautiful outdoor hot tub, which was nice for the first night of our trip. The hotel is situated into several separate buildings connected by covered walkways. Each building has a common room like a living room, and in this living room you can get all kinds of free snacks 24/7 - chips, malted milk balls in various flavors (apparently their specialty), yogurt, small containers of Haagen Dazs ice cream, bottled water, etc. It was VERY nice. And their breakfast, which was included, was amazing! They gave us a free ride from the airport to the hotel. They also partner with Seattle Express, so we used them for our ride from the hotel to the port. It was $15 each.

 

The driver on the shuttle made the ride to the port go quickly by narrating the whole trip there. We arrived at the port about 11, breezed right through all the technicalities, and we sat in the FTTF waiting area for about ten minutes before boarded about 11:15. I purchased FTTF when we booked our cruise and kind of forgot about it, but as the week went on, it was more and more worth it. Not only did it get us on the boat faster, but our luggage was already delivered when we got on board. Also, we got in our room right away, rather than waiting several hours. We also liked later in the week when we needed to use guest services a couple of times that we were able to walk right past the twenty people in line and go to the separate counter for FTTF guests, meaning we never had to wait. It was money well spent!

 

When we got on board, we headed to the Lido deck, enjoyed lunch, walked around the boat a bit, and then when everyone else started getting on and things started getting a bit crazy, we headed to our room and enjoyed the view from our deck.

 

I won't give the whole play by play of the week since you can probably read that elsewhere. But I will give you a few things that worked well for us.

 

We were in cabin 6279, which is an extended balcony that wraps around behind the elevator. Because it sits in a funky way, we had a HUGE balcony - one lounge chair, a small table, plus three other chairs. My son brought a portable hammock he owns, and several times he strung that up on the balcony to relax. We had the room set up with a king sized bed, one kid slept on the couch which turns into a bed (and was long enough to be comfortable for him at 6'4"), and our other son slept on the fold down bed. We asked our room steward to put away the two kid beds during the day so we could enjoy the couch as a seating area, and he happily did that and then made them back up at night. It was a really great room, with much more space than I was expecting. PLENTY of closet/drawer space for all four of us - we did not lack for room at all. The one thing I would say is that we would not have enjoyed this trip as much without the balcony. We spent SO MUCH time sitting out there rather than trying to get railing space on the shared decks. We saw tons of whales, seals, etc all from the comfort of that balcony. Several of the days it was so nice out (think 84 and 75 degrees!) that we actually had the balcony door propped open most of the day for nice fresh air. There was plenty of space for all five of our suitcases under the bed.

 

We did not book any excursions ahead of time. For our family, just the cost of the trip for four was a huge deal, and spending $1000 every time the boat stopped was not an option for us. The one thing I really didn't like on the boat was the constant sales pitches for excursions. I am not sure if this is just a Carnival thing or if all cruise companies do this - I would be curious to find out. We went to a presentation on day 2 given by Jen, the cruise director, that was supposedly to tell us info about all the ports. In reality, it was an hour of being told that if we didn't have an excursion we would miss everything and that we shouldn't have bothered doing an Alaskan cruise, and then a big sales pitch about the excursions they could book for us. She literally said that if we went to Skagway with no excursion planned, we would only be off the boat for an hour and an half and then come back disappointed. We had decided not to do excursions, but I think by the time we got off the boat in Skagway, we were almost depressed in advance thinking we would have a terrible day! We found a lovely visitor center a couple of blocks into town, told them that we were looking for fun options in Skagway that were free or inexpensive, and the staff there were FULL of ideas! We ended up spending about 10 hours off the boat - we bummed around in shops, found a great coffee shop/deli to relax for a bit, and then we went on a great hiking trail right off downtown. It was a beautiful and challenging hike - we have great memories of our time in Skagway.

 

While we were in Skagway, we learned something else new about cruising - that in every port, the people there would have offers for excursions you could do in your next port! Even though we didn't intend to do an excursion, we ended up booking a Juneau excursion while in Skagway - whale watching and a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier. Carnival was offering a similar excursion for about $269 per person - we ended up paying $130 per person! The company was called Juneau Tours. The excursion was awesome, but the point of me mentioning it is that if you are in the same situation we were where it seems like the excursions aren't financially possible, you might get a good last minute deal!

 

Our favorite days by far were our sea days - particularly the one where we were in the Tracy Arm Fjord Wilderness Area. By the time we got to Ketchikan, all the shops were the same and we were kind of "over" port days. We like being out on the water with the motion of the boat.

 

We did enjoy the food on board, but I will say that we were ready to stop eating it. We don't eat out much in our real lives, so even though the food was good, at a certain point we were all ready to be able to throw some burgers on the grill and roast up some veggies. :) The food WAS mostly good though - plenty of fruits and veggies, etc. I would say about 50% of the time the food wasn't as hot as we would have liked, and the meals in the dining room took a LONG time. Probably our favorite place on the Lido deck was the chinese food line. We weren't fans of the pizza. Also, as the days went on, it was frankly a little off-putting to see people eating so much food all day long.

 

We also made good use of the exercise facilities on board - they were generally pretty busy, but we found if we went in the afternoon there wasn't any issue getting on machines. Beautiful view for working out, that is for sure! You also get over 200 steps in just walking from the front to the back of the ship, and we tried always to take the stairs - all good exercise!

 

We absolutely LOVED the musical shows at night. We liked the final one "Epic Rock" so much that we went to both showings of it! Those eight performers are super talented!!! We also enjoyed the PG comedy performances.

 

One final thing - even if you think it won't be interesting, I would highly recommend going to Michelle's presentations (the naturalist). We learned so much, and I think that listening to what she had to say really enhanced our trip.

 

That's it! I'm happy to answer any questions!

Gwen

[Clarea]

Enjoyed the report, thanks.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[tonit964]

It's too bad you went on a cruise to Alaska and didn't really want to see Alaska.

To each his own. :)

[morleystanwood]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I look forward to any and all reviews from others before our trip at the end of August.

[batkaplan]

Thanks for your review...we are leaving from Seattle on 7/26---celebrating my upcoming 65th with my son....

[mondello]

We were also aboard this cruise; FYI: we were actually in Endicott Arm as Tracy Arm has been skipped many times this season due to too much ice in the water.

 

Once you get over the sticker shock of how expensive Alaska is, the excursions need to be budgeted for to enjoy all there is to see.

 

The small boat excursion in Endicott Arm was just fabulous, getting up close and personal with the 200 feet high face of the glacier is so amazing. Not to mention the only bear we saw the whole cruise was on a super steep hillside spotted from the small boat excursion.

Edited July 15, 2016 by mondello

[gwenslibrary]

Hi all - I'm sorry if I gave the impression that we were anti-excursion -that wasn't the case at all. I'm sure that all of the excursions that people experienced were great! My point was just to offer an alternative to people who couldn't afford to add excursions on at every port - to give some reassurance that huge amounts of money didn't need to be spent in order to enjoy the beauty of Alaska.

 

I definitely understand that there were some parts of Alaska we didn't see because we didn't do tons of excursions. But I also know that even if we had done every excursion available, we still would have only scratched the surface of what Alaska had to offer.

 

For those who have big excursion plans - that is awesome! For those who don't, just know that every minute we were on the boat we were overwhelmed with the beauty of God's creation around us, whether it was a day where we saw nothing but open water or a day where we had mountains and whales outside our door. We loved the excursion we took, but we also have great memories of hikes we took through nature, the beautiful waterfall at the Mendenhall Glacier, the historic buildings and the things we learned about the days of the gold rush, AMAZING fish and chips from a shack in Juneau. . .Alaska is truly a beautiful place, and I expect we will return in the future to spend time in the interior.

 

It was an amazing vacation!

[RuthlessBoss]

It's too bad you went on a cruise to Alaska and didn't really want to see Alaska.

To each his own. :)

 

You are way off base with your thinking. Just the sheer beauty seen from the ship or in port is sufficient.

[sjn911]

So glad to hear of your cruise..and agree totally with you can get Alaska any way you do it,,,I think you did a lot and well!!

 

My gratitude to your report and that you had such a great time...and that they had a naturalist...for many I have known in Oregon it is a once in a lifetime experience and so glad Carnival has an option...and a good one. Odd to say but Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon or Paris and London IMHO..lol..you are never done...I have not don Alaska on this list yet but folks and some family have cruised 2 times and nephew and dad worked there in youth.

[watermelonqueen99]

Thanks for posting! We're doing Alaska on the Legend in April, we can't wait! :)

[mara93]

We were on the same sailing & it was fantastic.

 

Wonder if we were on the same excursion in Juneau? We did the 7:30am trip.

 

Endicott Arm was indeed beautiful. I did the small boat excursion (by myself as my husband thought it was quite pricey) & it was marvelous!

[crazycruzer68]

Thanks for your review. It's great to know we will still see Alaska without breaking the bank. We said August 16

 

 

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[stjlo]

Thank you so much for your review... especially about your cabin! We have the same cabin booked for August 2017 and we are also travelling with two teenagers so I was so happy to read that you were comfortable. I changed my sail date to get that particular cabin and I'm so happy I did!:)

[stjlo]

One more question... were the pools open (and the slide) when you boarded the ship? We got FTTF also and am anxious to get on the ship, have some lunch and enjoy the pool before it gets too crowded.

[mondello]

One more question... were the pools open (and the slide) when you boarded the ship? We got FTTF also and am anxious to get on the ship, have some lunch and enjoy the pool before it gets too crowded.

 

If I remember correctly last week, they closed the retractable roof over the middle pool and hot-tub beside the Lido deck buffet right before we sailed from Seattle. The forward pool and hot-tub were exposed all week.

 

The pools are open but the weather can be pretty "iffy." Overcast and breezy is very common. We took our boy up to Lido to swim and the slides were closed, not sure why? Never did get to ride "Green Thunder."

 

Kids rule the pool and hot-tub under the roof, from what I saw. I don't cruise for swimming as the pools are so very tiny.

 

Serenity area was pretty windy but we did have some nice weather during the week. We don't use Serenity as our boy is only 8.

Edited July 16, 2016 by mondello

[alabamaprincess]

Thank you for your review. We are looking forward to our cruise coming up in August.

[erewhon]

Thank you for reviewing your cruise.

[batkaplan]

I cannot wait to see the beauty of Alaska! I am looking forward to sitting at night on the deck and seeing the big, beautiful starry skies!!!

[GranthamMommy]

Thank you for your review. And I'm so happy you enjoyed your first cruise. If you loved cruising, you will go again and learn your cruise style.

 

We are planning our 10th cruise, first for Alaska, so thank you.

 

Cheryl

[gwenslibrary]

One more question... were the pools open (and the slide) when you boarded the ship? We got FTTF also and am anxious to get on the ship, have some lunch and enjoy the pool before it gets too crowded.

 

I am not sure if the pool was open right away, but they did close the retractable roof over one of them while we were still in port I believe. We used the hot top almost every day - generally right when it opened in the morning, and mostly for the novelty of being in the hot tub with sub amazing views! The hot tubs have a bit of a glass surround, so the weather isn't an issue. The pools, however - I have no idea how people were actually swimming in them - they were FREEZING!!! My kids were daring each other to jump in and then run back to the hot tub. So we didn't use those much. :)

[gwenslibrary]

We were on the same sailing & it was fantastic.

 

Wonder if we were on the same excursion in Juneau? We did the 7:30am trip.

 

Endicott Arm was indeed beautiful. I did the small boat excursion (by myself as my husband thought it was quite pricey) & it was marvelous!

 

Nope - we were on the 8am. Wasn't it great?

[shutuph]

Ron the same cruise.it was amazing. I can understand concerns with expensive excursions but there are some ways to save especially for families.We rented a green Jeep in skagway and as I go over my pictures this was a highlight. It is often cheaper to book on your own then through the cruise ship. We did decide to do the small boat in Tracy's arm terror but that was planned. I agree to see Alaska any way you can,figure out your budget and go.another saver could be your cabin. We did a 4k picture window. We choose carefully and we're between life boats. My best picture of the glacier was from our room. ( Had to get ready for the small boat) if you can't t afford a balcony I recommend considering a carefully chosen 4k.

[cincicruisers]

Thanks for sharing with us.

[nealstuber]

Thank you, we sail this Tuesday in an extended balcony. We pre booked a package excursion for all thee ports, but really 2 of the three tours are just samplers. Your tips about the visitor center and Green Jeep are especially appreciated.