Princesslodges Experience

[cusematt4]

Hi All,

 

We are working on planning a first time trip to Alaska and remain incredibly torn and confused on what to do.

 

We locked in a decent cruise-only rate on the Sapphire Princess for June.  Princess Air and Princess pre-cruise land tours are significantly more expensive.

 

We are interested in doing a pre-cruise land tour for 2-3 days and nights.  We would be open to seeing Anchorage and Denali.

 

Option 1:

Pre-cruise Princess land tour - we are looking at AB3 and EB4 for Anchorage + Denali.

-It would be nice to have everything organized and planned out including transfers to the ship.  It would also be nice to be on a tour with others on the cruise with us.

-To cancel and rebook with the land tour attached to it would be approximately $6,000 EXTRA for 3 nights of a land tour or $8,000 EXTRA for a 4 night land tour

-All lodging seems to be included, in addition to transfers and a couple of tours

-There seems to be a lot of downtime, with a bunch of time to either do nothing, spend more or book additional tours

-There are not any meals included

 

Option 2:

-Put the $6,000 towards a non Princess pre-cruise land tour

-Put the money towards a blue or yellow PrincessLodges rail tour for 2-4 nights that includes lodging, where we could likely buy the rail/lodging + food and a couple of Denali tours for the same $6,000

 

Questions:

-Do the Princess pre-cruise land tours include a tour guide throughout the entire trip?

-Is $6,000 for 3 nights without food or additional excursions really worth it?

-Has anyone done both a Princess pre-cruise land tour and a non-cruise land tour?  If so, which would you recommend?

-Has anyone booked a rail tour with Princesslodges.com?  This seems to include the same lodges in Anchorage/Denali/Mount McKinley but would be substantially cheaper.  We could likely book this + food and excursions for the same price or cheaper.

-If we booked with Princesslodges.com and not the pre-cruise tour, how would we get from Anchorage or Denali to Whittier?  Should we transfer the night before and stay in Whittier or the morning of?

 

Thanks so much for any help with this and insight from experience.

[WisCruiser2]

I'm sure more will chime in with their experiences and preferences but here's my two cents. As I stated in reply to your other post, we liked having everything taken care of for us on the cruisetour and enjoyed staying at the lodges. On the train there was a "guide" doing commentary in each car. We also did some by bus so the bus driver provided that.  Doing the land portion first gave us an opportunity to meet others who would be on the ship with us, which was nice. With the cruisetour you can opt to have meals included or not - we didn't and that way we weren't tied to the lodges for meals (except for Copper River), which suited us. 

 

Tha Alaska rail goes to Whittier - I don't know if the railtour includes that or if you can book it separately.

 

I think it might depend on your comfort level for a first trip to Alaska, along with your budget. We figured if we were going all the way to Alaska we wanted to see more than just the cruise part.

[NavyVeteran]

I don't know if you can book a Princesslodges tour ending in Whittier. I can't speak about these tours, since I haven't taken one.

If they won't take you to Whittier, one option would be to book a tour ending in Anchorage, and then booking a one-night pre-cruise hotel with transfer at the Captain Cook as an add-on to your cruise - with your choice of a bus or (more expensive) rail transfer to Whittier. You can add the pre-cruise hotel and bus or rail transfer by calling Princess or your travel agent.

[cusematt4]

Hi All,

 

While we were hoping to book a pre-cruise land tour with Princess before our first trip to Alaska, we cannot justify an additional $7,000 from the cruise only fare.  Especially since the land-tour only includes lodging and transport with 1 guided tour.  It's unclear if it would include a guided tour throughout the 3 days/nights, and all food and excursions at each destination are an additional cost.

 

We still do want to go down 3 or so days prior to our first time Alaska trip/cruise.

 

It is very difficult to find information and reviews on what seems to be a Princess Cruises subsidiary company called "Princess Lodges".  They have their own website called PrincessLodges dot com.

 

-Does anyone know if this company is actually owned by Princess cruises?

-Has anyone done a rail tour with this company?  If so, how does it compare to the pre-cruise land tour?  It would be significantly cheaper and would go to the same destinations for the same amount of time (i.e. - a combo of Anchorage, Denali and/or Mt. McKinley

-Does anyone know what the difference is besides not being with a tour group of people who will be on the cruise and having the cruise connection transfer organized?  Even the lodges at each location seem to be the same.

 

We would appreciate anyone with experience doing a rail tour through this company to see a little of Anchorage and Denali for 2-3 nights as reviwes are hard to find, but they seem to have a number of rail tours and tours in general daily from May-Sept.  The money we'd spend on this + food and a couple of excursions would still likely come to substantially less than the pre-cruise land tour additional cost without food/excursions.

 

Thanks so much.

[SCX22]

You pay for convenience with Princess.

 

In college I did Denali NP with my friends.  We rented a car, drove to the park,  and stayed at the non-Princess lodges and Inns.  Remember Denali is a NP and you can visit it like a NP--Princess doesn't have to be in the equation.  Think of it as Yosemite NP.  Google Denali National Park lodges and your options will populate.  Not sure what the availability is now, but back then we booked the lodges a year in advance.

 

Not quite sure what you have in mind when you say spend time at Mt McKinley.  You will see Mt McKinley anywhere in the Park.  You can't miss it.  Unless you plan on hiking up the mountain (which takes weeks), no real point in getting that close.  It's better seen from far away.  Mt McKinley is the mountain.  Denali is the name of the peak of Mt. McKinley, which the NP is named after.

Edited September 27, 2023 by SCX22

[Guest ldtr]

While one can book with Princess Lodges or for that matter even book a single night at a Princess lodge, one can do their own thing by renting a car and booking hotels on their own. 

[beg3yrs]

Like @SCX22 said, you pay for the convenience. That said, DW and I did the 17-day Connoisseur tour in Alaska in 2022 and for not having to do much planning, it was great.

 

Yes, the "company" is owned by Princess. The lodges are owned by Princess, even the rail cars and buses are owned by Princess. You'll also see that Holland America has properties and their own buses too. Since it was 2022 and everyone was just coming out of COVID restrictions, I have to say services were hit and miss as there were so many staffing issues. They even closed their Copper River lodge early in the season so they could shuffle the staff to the other under-staffed lodges. However we did find their dining options to be excellent. Food (and everything else) is expensive. The tour leader took care of everything, he was great. Definitely a Princess employee too. Our tour was a mixed bus / rail tour with only one day of the ten land days being by rail. Honestly, I felt the one day was enough though.

 

In our case, we didn't have any experience doing an Alaskan land tour and letting a company handle it all for us worked out well and we thought it was worth the extra expense.

[indexcards]

for our 50th anniversary we went on a Tauck tour of Alaska which included 7 days land and 7 day Princess cruise from Whittier to 

Vancouver.  It was not cheap but it included 1 night in Anchorage at capt Cook and two night each in 3 Princess lodges.  All meals and tours were included as well as very nice cocktail parties.  The Tauck tour leader came on cruise also and sponsored some special meals and gatherings on board.  Each day on ship the excursions were also included for the ports.

 

Having everything taken care of for all lodging, transfers and excursions was wonderful.

There was even a plane ride over Denali mountain and we actually had one of the days on which it was not covered by clouds.