Alaska Cruisetour on Noordham

[jstallter]

Hi!  We’re taking an Alaska cruise tour in July on the Noordham and have a few questions in regards to the actual logistics of the travel. I have done exhaustive research on Holland Americas website, and I have even requested a travel consultant through Holland America but as yet, have not been assigned one. If any of you have done an Alaska cruise tour with HAL, I would appreciate some feedback. I’m curious about the feedback I’ve heard about the WestMark Anchorage hotel…not good and I wonder if there are other options. I don’t understand how our meals are paid for on the Land part of the tour and I’m not sure about all of the logistics in getting to and from the different places on the land tour. The cruise is not an issue…!  Any help, guidance or suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks in advance. 

[Crew News]

4 hours ago, jstallter said:

Hi!  We’re taking an Alaska cruise tour in July on the Noordham and have a few questions in regards to the actual logistics of the travel. I have done exhaustive research on Holland Americas website, and I have even requested a travel consultant through Holland America but as yet, have not been assigned one. If any of you have done an Alaska cruise tour with HAL, I would appreciate some feedback. I’m curious about the feedback I’ve heard about the WestMark Anchorage hotel…not good and I wonder if there are other options. I don’t understand how our meals are paid for on the Land part of the tour and I’m not sure about all of the logistics in getting to and from the different places on the land tour. The cruise is not an issue…!  Any help, guidance or suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks in advance. 

If you are onboard the Noordam before the land tour, make sure you attend the briefings. 

 

The Westmark Hotel was not one of the best in Anchorage.  The best is Captain Cook Hotel the HAL sometimes uses.  I would choose the latter if possible.

 

The only free meal that I remember was on my bus rides from Seward to Denali. The rest of the meals are paid by you.  There are restaurants at all of your stops. The Denali Mckinley Resort Lodge has the Karsten's House Restaurant with good prices and huge portions.  There is an optional meal plan that is way overpriced, does not pay for all meals, and requires you eat the most expensive items on each HAL menu to recoup some of the cost.

 

You will receive luggage tags for bags you will be sending to the next stop.  Before you arrive at every destination, you will receive an itinerary and luggage tags for the next movement of your luggage.  HAL is very efficient with your logistics on the land portion. 

 

Here is a link to the HAL Alaska Tour tips: 

 

https://www.hollandamerica.com/content/dam/hal/marketing-assets/manage-my-cruise-already-booked/faqs/Tour_Tips.pdf

Here is a link to my photo reviews of Denali that includes maps, menus, cabins, restaurants, etc.

https://rogerjett-photography.com/place/alaska-2/denali/

 

For anything involving flying, I strongly advise you book early as seats fill quickly.

Feel free to ask lots of questions to help in your planning.

[Alphen]

We have done a Land-Cruise Tour Y1L last year on Nieuw Amsterdam, you might find some usefull information on the semi live report we have done here;

 

 

[Mary229]

@Alphen did a wonderful job of describing the adventure.  It helped us prepare for our tour.  The Westmark is not the best hotel but it is ok, it is not derelict.  There are a few good restaurants across the street and one in the hotel. 
 

We had included excursions and chose the ones with a meal.  The meals on the excursions were good and bountiful.  I agree with @Crew News about Karstens.   We shared meals there and they were very good.  

 

You will  traveling by motorcoach except where noted. If using the Denali train it will be a private car with lunch included .  This is one of the few included lunches.  We had a charter flight (Boeing 737)  from Fairbanks to Dawson.  We were supposed to take the narrow gauge down to Skagway but the train had a shortened route last summer. 
 

Be aware all entry into Denali is by a National Park service concessionaire. This is dictated by the park service.  It will be a school bus.

[jstallter]

Such helpful information. Thank you so much!  

[dfilpus]

Two details in the above post that were different in our experience:

1. On the train from Anchorage, lunch in the dining car was at our cost, not included. 
2.. The statement that entry into Denali National Park is restricted to the tour buses is misleading. Entry into the INTERIOR of Denali National Park is restricted to tour or shuttle buses. There are free shuttles from the hotel to the Visitor Center in the park and free shuttles that run around the first dozen miles of the Park road. For example, you can take free shuttles into the park to visit sled dogs kennel. We did not even use the shuttles, but walked from the hotel into the park along trails and had encounters with moose there.

[Mary229]

1 hour ago, dfilpus said:

Two details in the above post that were different in our experience:

1. On the train from Anchorage, lunch in the dining car was at our cost, not included. 
2.. The statement that entry into Denali National Park is restricted to the tour buses is misleading. Entry into the INTERIOR of Denali National Park is restricted to tour or shuttle buses. There are free shuttles from the hotel to the Visitor Center in the park and free shuttles that run around the first dozen miles of the Park road. For example, you can take free shuttles into the park to visit sled dogs kennel. We did not even use the shuttles, but walked from the hotel into the park along trails and had encounters with moose there.

Did you take the cruise-tour provided by HAL or did you travel independently?

Edited February 3, 2023 by Mary229

[rajkr74]

On 2/1/2023 at 8:27 PM, jstallter said:

Hi!  We’re taking an Alaska cruise tour in July on the Noordham and have a few questions in regards to the actual logistics of the travel. I have done exhaustive research on Holland Americas website, and I have even requested a travel consultant through Holland America but as yet, have not been assigned one. If any of you have done an Alaska cruise tour with HAL, I would appreciate some feedback. I’m curious about the feedback I’ve heard about the WestMark Anchorage hotel…not good and I wonder if there are other options. I don’t understand how our meals are paid for on the Land part of the tour and I’m not sure about all of the logistics in getting to and from the different places on the land tour. The cruise is not an issue…!  Any help, guidance or suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks in advance. 

We did a Land/Sea tour with HAL a few yrs ago (2016) and enjoyed it. This link is for the review we did after the tour and even though its a few yrs old there is info that we hope might be useful to you.  We did the review since we did not see any reviews done by CC cruisers before and after our cruise.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2295567-alaska-sea-land-cruise-6-29-16-review—y2c/

[Alphen]

1 minute ago, rajkr74 said:

We did a Land/Sea tour with HAL a few yrs ago (2016) and enjoyed it. This link is for the review we did after the tour and even though its a few yrs old there is info that we hope might be useful to you.  We did the review since we did not see any reviews done by CC cruisers before and after our cruise.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2295567-alaska-sea-land-cruise-6-29-16-review—y2c/

One we used as one of our research bases for our land and cruise tour and found very helpful!

[dfilpus]

3 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Did you take the cruise-tour provided by HAL or did you travel independently?

A HAL cruise tour.

[Mary229]

14 minutes ago, dfilpus said:

A HAL cruise tour.

Umm.  Then ours were markedly different.  

[Alphen]

18 hours ago, dfilpus said:

Two details in the above post that were different in our experience:

1. On the train from Anchorage, lunch in the dining car was at our cost, not included. 
2.. The statement that entry into Denali National Park is restricted to the tour buses is misleading. Entry into the INTERIOR of Denali National Park is restricted to tour or shuttle buses. There are free shuttles from the hotel to the Visitor Center in the park and free shuttles that run around the first dozen miles of the Park road. For example, you can take free shuttles into the park to visit sled dogs kennel. We did not even use the shuttles, but walked from the hotel into the park along trails and had encounters with moose there.

Depending on which route you take, there are more train options that can be part of the Land/Cuise Tour program.

On our trip in 2022, lunch on the Mckinley Explorer Denali-Talkeetna-Anchorage, was included. Our second train during our land portion, was the Mckinley Explorer from Anchorage to Whittier, which had lunch at our own cost.

[Haljo1935]

Cruise tours can be structured in many different ways, so you'll need to consider there may be differences from your itinerary as you read through the responses on this thread. There could be bus, train or planes involved.

 

We did: Noordam May 2022.

Itinerary: cruise first; land after

Land stops (in order): 

1st stop Denali by train McKinley Explorer

2nd stop Talkeetna by bus

3rd stop Annchorage by bus

 

Travel Food:

Train to Denali (which was scheduled to be 6-7 hours took almost double that due to engine failure & medical evac) was BEAUTIFUL, lunch, drinks, snacks were at our expense. Dinner was not provided or offered since it wasn't planned for us to be on it.

Nothing provided on buses and nothing available but you can take your own.

Meal package - offered but not recommended, options are limited (you don't get to select from full menu) and tend to be only the higher priced items, we did the math and it was just not worth it. There are different meal packages such as breakfast only, dinner only, etc, none are worth the crazy high price.

 

Hotels/food:

Denali - McKinley Chalet, lovely with many food options, restaurants also available within walking distance

Talkeetna - don't remember the name but it was nice, only food option was at the hotel, food was good, breakfast was buffet with good choices

Anchorage - Captain Cook, very nice, restaurants were good, reservations required for the top floor restaurant, others did not need reservations. There were a few options available w/in walking distance but we only found 1 that was open. This was the only place during the entire cruise (including the ship) where we could get crab - it was expensive but husband had to have it and said it was great). Breakfast menu was great - many options with HUGE omelettes

 

Land excursions:

Denali - arrival night ATV excursion was canceled due to train delay (never received the refund HAL said was issued), very limited options 2nd day due to departure for Talkeetna. We took shuttle to the park and hiked for a couple hours - many places still frozen but it was awesome

Talkeetna - only shuttle to town day of arrival had already made last run, it's a couple miles but we didn't want to walk so nothing to do. Next day no excursions offered - we took shuttle to town, walked around, went to Ranger Station and saw a hiker briefing in process.

Anchorage - very limited excursions offered, the one we were able to get was canceled because the lake was still frozen. We took a cab to the zoo then spent the rest of the day (8 hours) sitting in the hotel lobby with many other people waiting for the shuttle to the airport.

All land excursions except the first night in Denali (the ATV that was canceled) were arranged through the hotels or independently- none were offered through HAL and all hotels didn't offer them. It was confusing and not explained in advance, we kept asking before the cruise and while on the ship when we would select excursions but never received anything on them. TA said we would get a packet with all that info and that we would have a guide join us when we transferred from ship to train who would be with us for the duration of the land portion but that didn't happen either. So maybe we didn't get any excursion options because the guide was the one who had them? Most of the limited offerings are not feasible due to our arrival/departure times.

Because there were no excursions offered in advance and our flight home was 9pm, we had arranged for a rent car in Anchorage planning to just go to the airport after hotel check out, pick up the car and spend the day exploring. But when there was no transportation to the airport we canceled the rental. After what we spent getting to/from the zoo, we should have kept the car and paid taxi fare to airport to pick it up. But when we canceled, we didn't know there wouldn't be anything available. Ugh...

 

Luggage:

Very small carry on allowed on the train and bus, you'll receive luggage tags for your big luggage that will meet you at your final hotel (for us that was Anchorage). You get 1 luggage tag for 1 large luggage that will meet you at each of the other hotels along the way. The process was not explained very well in any of the materials but we did finally get an excursion person on the ship that was able to explain it. It does require some advance planning and shuffling of suitcase items so you can have what you need in the land stops. Our 1 large bag was not located until the end of the trip so I had to improvise.

 

This was our first Land Cruise - it got canceled twice due to Covid, so maybe if the world was "normal" we would have had a different experience,  but we'll never know. We were very excited looking forward to this for so long, but we have canceled the other 2 we had booked and will do cruise only from now on. The cost was almost double a cruise-only fare, such a disappointment to know we could have taken another Alaskan cruise (which we LOVE) for what we paid to sit in a hotel lobby...

 

I'm sure your experience will be vastly different and hope your camera fills up with pictures!!

[Alphen]

15 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

Cruise tours can be structured in many different ways, so you'll need to consider there may be differences from your itinerary as you read through the responses on this thread. There could be bus, train or planes involved.

 

 

 

Luggage:

Very small carry on allowed on the train and bus, you'll receive luggage tags for your big luggage that will meet you at your final hotel (for us that was Anchorage). You get 1 luggage tag for 1 large luggage that will meet you at each of the other hotels along the way. The process was not explained very well in any of the materials but we did finally get an excursion person on the ship that was able to explain it. It does require some advance planning and shuffling of suitcase items so you can have what you need in the land stops. Our 1 large bag was not located until the end of the trip so I had to improvise.

 

 

As stated by you, indeed the structure of tours can differ from tour to tour, ours was land before cruise, Vancouver, Whitehorse, Dawson, Fairbanks, Denali, Anchorage and cruise from Whittier. We had luggage options; we could label luggage that you could sent from Fairbanks to the ship, but you could also choose to have your luggage with you all the way. In all cases, luggage was handled by the tour organisation and always either waiting outside your room at the new tour stop, where is was also picked up at the end of your tourstop.

[Mary229]

4 hours ago, Alphen said:

As stated by you, indeed the structure of tours can differ from tour to tour, ours was land before cruise, Vancouver, Whitehorse, Dawson, Fairbanks, Denali, Anchorage and cruise from Whittier. We had luggage options; we could label luggage that you could sent from Fairbanks to the ship, but you could also choose to have your luggage with you all the way. In all cases, luggage was handled by the tour organisation and always either waiting outside your room at the new tour stop, where is was also picked up at the end of your tourstop.

Exactly.  We never hauled our luggage after baggage claim at the airport. It was a very good service with care taken.  2 weeks with HAL and never a blemish.  

[spally]

jstallter - 

We're on the same cruise in August.  Same frustrations. I'd like to book an excursion in Denali, but don't know arrival time or when our Tundra Wilderness Tour will happen.  I see options here for meal plans in Denali, but Holland America has sent us no information about that at all, and I see nothing on the website.  I've attempted to call Holland America and they won't give me information, referred me to the travel agent we booked with - who is just as much in the dark as we are.  I realize we're 90 days out, but if we wait until the last second - the excursions will be sold out.  FYI, we are cruise first, land last. Let us know when/if you get information!

Edited May 8, 2023 by spally
added information

[Mary229]

1 hour ago, spally said:

jstallter - 

We're on the same cruise in August.  Same frustrations. I'd like to book an excursion in Denali, but don't know arrival time or when our Tundra Wilderness Tour will happen.  I see options here for meal plans in Denali, but Holland America has sent us no information about that at all, and I see nothing on the website.  I've attempted to call Holland America and they won't give me information, referred me to the travel agent we booked with - who is just as much in the dark as we are.  I realize we're 90 days out, but if we wait until the last second - the excursions will be sold out.  FYI, we are cruise first, land last. Let us know when/if you get information!

The tours offered on your manage my cruise page will gel with your tour schedule.  If you have HIA evening tours are a great way to get a free meal. .  They will send you something, to get equitable value from the package you must eat 3 meals a day on the package.  My agent instead bought me vouchers as a gift.  I will tell you the meals at Karsten’s at the lodge are very good and we ended up splitting meals once or twice. The breakfast buffet is generous even with reindeer sausage.   I think Roger has a menu posted on his website.  Google “Roger Jett Photography “. If not simply google Karstens in Denali.  

[spally]

47 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

The tours offered on your manage my cruise page will gel with your tour schedule.  If you have HIA evening tours are a great way to get a free meal. .  They will send you something, to get equitable value from the package you must eat 3 meals a day on the package.  My agent instead bought me vouchers as a gift.  I will tell you the meals at Karsten’s at the lodge are very good and we ended up splitting meals once or twice. The breakfast buffet is generous even with reindeer sausage.   I think Roger has a menu posted on his website.  Google “Roger Jett Photography “. If not simply google Karstens in Denali.  

when you say "The tours offered on your manage my cruise page will gel with your tour schedule", do you mean if I look at my itinerary, and click "Buy Shore Excursions" it will only show me options that won't conflict with the Wilderness Tundra Tour?  Why would they not just show the tour as part of the itinerary?

[Haljo1935]

4 hours ago, spally said:

jstallter - 

We're on the same cruise in August.  Same frustrations. I'd like to book an excursion in Denali, but don't know arrival time or when our Tundra Wilderness Tour will happen.  I see options here for meal plans in Denali, but Holland America has sent us no information about that at all, and I see nothing on the website.  I've attempted to call Holland America and they won't give me information, referred me to the travel agent we booked with - who is just as much in the dark as we are.  I realize we're 90 days out, but if we wait until the last second - the excursions will be sold out.  FYI, we are cruise first, land last. Let us know when/if you get information!

Like you, we were cruise first, land last. We never received anything from HAL on meal options, learned through their tip guides there are meal options but not what they were. Our TA didn't have info on them other than pricing and a recommendation to not purchase them but I was successful after multiple attempts in reaching a HAL Excursions (not Guest Services)  person who explained the options (breakfast only, dinner only, breakfast & dinner, no lunches at all) - we chose to not purchase any of them and after seeing the limited menu felt we made the right choice. Food was very expensive everywhere but we did have more choices than we would have w/meal plans.

We NEVER had an option to book land excursions  - TA said we should receive something from HAL and both HAL & TA said a Travel Host would join us when we transitioned from ship to train who would present options. That did NOT happen and if it had would mean we couldn't choose excursions until the land portion had started, which seemed strange. So for us the land portion was an extremely expensive disappointment - not at all HALs usual service nor what they're known for in AK. 

The only excursion that was booked was in Denali  - HAL automatically booked it for us for the night our train arrived. It was canceled due to the delay in our arrival (train broke down, we were 6 hours late arriving) we have yet to see the refund. Dinner that night was at the McKinley Chalet - they kept the restaurant open for us.

We did go on a self guided hike in Denali the next morning before we got on the bus to Talkeetna  - no charge, rode the provided shuttle (school bus) to park entrance.

We write the disastrous catastrophe up to everyone trying to get back to business after Covid but will never do another land cruise; we're sticking to cruises only (just returned 2 days ago from AK 🤤).

I suggest you call the Excursion number, not Guest Services, and continue to call until you reach someone who will answer your questions. Do tell them you know your TA has to handle transactions and that you are only looking for info/answers; that is how I finally got answers about meal options. Also, we received an email for upgrading the room at Denali (McKinley Chalet) that had a different number on it - you might try talking to them when you get that email. 

Good luck - regardless of the upfront pain, it will be beautiful once you're there.

[Mary229]

3 hours ago, spally said:

when you say "The tours offered on your manage my cruise page will gel with your tour schedule", do you mean if I look at my itinerary, and click "Buy Shore Excursions" it will only show me options that won't conflict with the Wilderness Tundra Tour?  Why would they not just show the tour as part of the itinerary?

Right.  The tour is included in your package.   Likely  it will end late morning to noon.  You can then be dropped either at the lodge or the visitor center.  If you are the hungry type go to the lodge and you can catch the shuttle back to the visitor center later where you can hike, look at exhibits or catch another park run shuttle to the kennels.  And still have time to get back for your evening excursion.  The snack offered on the Denali tour is a sugar feast, not for me

Edited May 8, 2023 by Mary229

[oaktreerb]

3 hours ago, spally said:

when you say "The tours offered on your manage my cruise page will gel with your tour schedule", do you mean if I look at my itinerary, and click "Buy Shore Excursions" it will only show me options that won't conflict with the Wilderness Tundra Tour?  Why would they not just show the tour as part of the itinerary?

yes, it will only show excursions that you will be available to book…when you are not on the TWT.  Can’t answer the “why”.