Millennium Alaska- Cruise Land Tour Questions 8/4/22

[Cruising to Retirement]

Booked on the Cruise Land Tour for Alaska - Millennium.  Was looking for info regarding the Land Tour portion of the Cruise Tour.  What is included?  Meals, Tours,  past experiences, free time, extra cost excursions, etc.  Any info or suggestions are welcome.  Greatly appreciated. 

[Jim_Iain]

I did the Land Tour in Alaska (from Anchorage to Denali and then joined the ship).   I will preface this with it was one of the best tours we have ever taken.    I do agree with you that there is so little information given before the tour.

 

I'll try to fill you in.    All of you hotel accommodations are included but meals are not included.  They do give you water on the bus and often pass the hard candy bowl.   

 

On the first evening they will have briefings in small groups as the fellow members of your tour arrive.   At this meeting they will be handing out luggage tags, schedules an a list of additional tours that you can purchase for each of the stops.

 

On our tour what was included was Hotel Rooms for each night, The bus driver and a separate guide,  Tickets on the scenic Rail portion of the journey.   We did not pay admission to Denali so not sure if there was a fee included for this.

 

At each top there is free time to wonder around and grab lunch. 

 

One evening we stayed at the Talkeentna Lodge which was a distance from town but the driver volunteered to take people into town who wished on his own time and stayed while they had dinner.

 

The extra tours ran anywhere from about $75 pp to some high priced ones for airplane tours.    We only took one tour, which was the extended Denali Park Tour and really worth the cost.   We got to see all the big 5.   The spotter (driver) had a digital movie camera and when would spot sometime would zoom in so you could see it on the tv monitors on the bus and you could then spot it yourself. 

 

Fell free to ask questions and in the mean time I'll see if I took a picture of the tours etc.

 

By the way they give you two colored luggage tags.  1 for the items you want set outside your room each evening and the other that remain locked on the bus.

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by Jim_Iain

[DCPIV]

What is your itinerary?  Where you are going will have something to do with what you are doing, of course.

 

We've done a couple of land tours before cruising, and I agree that they both were wonderful times.  Your transportation and rooms are covered (obviously).

 

Meals were covered to a very limited extent.  I do recall there being some sort of spread when we arrived in Fairbanks for our first land tour (a lot of folks were scheduled to arrive late, and they were ready to accomodate us).  That was something like 10 years ago, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's no longer included (or if my memory is inaccurate).  For our trip in 2018, we started in Anchorage.  I don't recall anything included for the first night, but the next morning's breakfast was covered (it may have been an allowance, but it was more than enough if that was the case).  We also had a meal included on the Alaskan Railway part of both trips).

 

Some tours were included, but some were not.  We went to Denali on both trips, and the tour was covered to at least some extent.  I believe the "half day" tour was included, but you could upgrade to the "full day" tour for not much extra.  Our visit to the wildlife center outside Girdwood (2018) and the Sea Life center in Seward (both trips) were included.  On our first trip, there was an included riverboat tour in Fairbanks on our first full day.

 

Free time varied from place to place and depended largely on when you would get into a town and when you were due to leave it.

[jeffndallas]

Celebrity website has descriptions of the various ports visited by both sea and land portions of their cruisetours. See https://www.celebritycruises.com/ports#alaska. 

 

Also I found a description of land portion of cruise tours in C's 2022 ALASKA & CANADA CRUISETOUR DESTINATION GUIDE. Just don't ask me how I wandered into whatever part of their website where I found the link!

 

We are going in August - Celebrity veterans; Alaska first-timers. Can't wait.

[Jim_Iain]

https://www.celebritycruises.com/cruise-packages/vacation-packages/cruise-and-land-tours

 

You can get some of the details from the link ... click the tour and / or destination and follow the links.   Will provide lots of information.

 

I dug up some of the documents from our 2016 land tour (old but gives a good idea)

 

This one shows the extra excursions and cost but remember that was 5 years ago.

 

Alaska_Cruisetours_2016-min-1.pdf

 

15042053_CEL_Alaska_Cruisetour_2016_1B.pdf

 

CruiseTour.pdf

 

15042053_CEL_Alaska_Cruisetour_2016_1B.pdf

Edited June 17, 2022 by Jim_Iain

[Cruising to Retirement]

Following- Great Info 

[Cruising to Retirement]

On 6/14/2022 at 10:54 AM, Jim_Iain said:

I did the Land Tour in Alaska (from Anchorage to Denali and then joined the ship).   I will preface this with it was one of the best tours we have ever taken.    I do agree with you that there is so little information given before the tour.

 

I'll try to fill you in.    All of you hotel accommodations are included but meals are not included.  They do give you water on the bus and often pass the hard candy bowl.   

 

On the first evening they will have briefings in small groups as the fellow members of your tour arrive.   At this meeting they will be handing out luggage tags, schedules an a list of additional tours that you can purchase for each of the stops.

 

On our tour what was included was Hotel Rooms for each night, The bus driver and a separate guide,  Tickets on the scenic Rail portion of the journey.   We did not pay admission to Denali so not sure if there was a fee included for this.

 

At each top there is free time to wonder around and grab lunch. 

 

One evening we stayed at the Talkeentna Lodge which was a distance from town but the driver volunteered to take people into town who wished on his own time and stayed while they had dinner.

 

The extra tours ran anywhere from about $75 pp to some high priced ones for airplane tours.    We only took one tour, which was the extended Denali Park Tour and really worth the cost.   We got to see all the big 5.   The spotter (driver) had a digital movie camera and when would spot sometime would zoom in so you could see it on the tv monitors on the bus and you could then spot it yourself. 

 

Fell free to ask questions and in the mean time I'll see if I took a picture of the tours etc.

 

By the way they give you two colored luggage tags.  1 for the items you want set outside your room each evening and the other that remain locked on the bus.

 

Great info- Really appreciate it-  Don't want to miss out on any special things while we are there--- Thanks

[Cruising to Retirement]

On 6/14/2022 at 11:16 AM, DCPIV said:

What is your itinerary?  Where you are going will have something to do with what you are doing, of course.

 

We've done a couple of land tours before cruising, and I agree that they both were wonderful times.  Your transportation and rooms are covered (obviously).

 

Meals were covered to a very limited extent.  I do recall there being some sort of spread when we arrived in Fairbanks for our first land tour (a lot of folks were scheduled to arrive late, and they were ready to accomodate us).  That was something like 10 years ago, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's no longer included (or if my memory is inaccurate).  For our trip in 2018, we started in Anchorage.  I don't recall anything included for the first night, but the next morning's breakfast was covered (it may have been an allowance, but it was more than enough if that was the case).  We also had a meal included on the Alaskan Railway part of both trips).

 

Some tours were included, but some were not.  We went to Denali on both trips, and the tour was covered to at least some extent.  I believe the "half day" tour was included, but you could upgrade to the "full day" tour for not much extra.  Our visit to the wildlife center outside Girdwood (2018) and the Sea Life center in Seward (both trips) were included.  On our first trip, there was an included riverboat tour in Fairbanks on our first full day.

 

Free time varied from place to place and depended largely on when you would get into a town and when you were due to leave it.

We are doing the 8/5 Millennium Cruise from Vancouver to Seward then Land portion from Seward to Denali and then Anchorage- Can't find much info-  Any more details are greatly appreciated... Tour suggestions, ideas, tips, etc... Thanks

[Cruising to Retirement]

20 minutes ago, Cruising to Retirement said:

We are doing the 8/5 Millennium Cruise from Vancouver to Seward then Land portion from Seward to Denali and then Anchorage- Can't find much info-  Any more details are greatly appreciated... Tour suggestions, ideas, tips, etc... Thanks

Taking Cruise Land Tour (1B )- !0 Night  total Cruise Land Tour- Seward to Talkeetna/Denali to Anchorage- FYI

[Jim_Iain]

We also took the 1B and loved it.    We were really lucky and the afternoon we arrived at Denali it was crystal clear and beautiful.    The Driver pulled over for a group picture and the Guide said when you see your guides taking pictures you know it's a spectacular day.

 

The next day for our visit it was overcast, drizzly and you couldn't even see the mountain so considered yourself lucky.  We sill enjoyed our visit and saw Bears, Wolves, Goats etc etc.while on the extended tour which I would recommend.

[DCPIV]

On 6/18/2022 at 10:05 AM, Cruising to Retirement said:

We are doing the 8/5 Millennium Cruise from Vancouver to Seward then Land portion from Seward to Denali and then Anchorage- Can't find much info-  Any more details are greatly appreciated... Tour suggestions, ideas, tips, etc... Thanks

 

It sounds like you are doing the reverse of our 2018 trip, so a lot of what I mentioned applies.  My wife brought up that she couldn't recall whether the meal on the train was included orr whether we had to pay.  Honestly, I'm not sure if I recall that correctly, myself, so I may have been wrong about that.

[Jim_Iain]

When we were on the train the meal (Breakfast) was at the passengers expense.   Havent looked at the reverse route but our tour originated in  Anchorage and it was a early morning departure.    They  did breakfasts it in groups as the dining car couldn't fit everyone at the same time.

[DCPIV]

1 minute ago, Jim_Iain said:

When we were on the train the meal (Breakfast) was at the passengers expense.   Havent looked at the reverse route but our tour originated in  Anchorage and it was a early morning departure.    They  did breakfasts it in groups as the dining car couldn't fit everyone at the same time.

 

Yes, they definitely brought us down in groups.  I expect we also did pay for the meal.

[K2explorer1]

I am doing land tour first then catching ship in Seward to Vancouver. Can anyone tell me what time the coach gets you to the ship? Also did you have to test for COVID prior to land tour even though flying from state to state?  Thank you

[Jim_Iain]

1 hour ago, K2explorer1 said:

I am doing land tour first then catching ship in Seward to Vancouver. Can anyone tell me what time the coach gets you to the ship? Also did you have to test for COVID prior to land tour even though flying from state to state?  Thank you

We did the tour pre-cruise also.    The arrival time at the ship varied and as I recall we arrived around 3:00 PM.     On the way to the ship we stopped in Anchorage for a couple hours and then on the way to the ship they stopped at the Wild LIfe park for staggering purposes.    They were scheduling the buses so they all would not arrive at the same time. 

 

I did the tour pre-covid so can't speak to the testing.  There is  recent thread on this at: