Planning a land and cruise excursion

[pcann]

We are planning on doing a land excursion of Alaska on our own and then returning back with a cruise. Anyone else done this before? What is the best cruise line to use? I suppose we would rent a car to travel around with and then return to take the cruise. Which is better cruise first and then land travel or vice versa? Any helpful info would be great.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Would suggest that you take the land portion first. Then you can rest on the cruise ship after doing all that driving.

We love HAL. JMHO

[stephenandrew]

I think doing the land tour first makes sense as well--for the reasons stated by the above poster, and that, for most folks, the flight home will be shorter as you will be leaving from Vancouver. I think you are doing the right thing be doing the land portion yourself--we used Princess Tours for the land portion this past July--they did a fine job, I have no complaints. I do think, however, that in retrospect, i would have enjoyed having more flexibility to do what I wanted, when I wanted. I have no doubt I would have saved a few bucks had I gone independently too. Budget Queen often recommends atleast a week to do the land portion--otherwise you are spnding a lot of time traveling between places. I think she is right--we only had 4 days and were often "on the move" to get to the next place. If you have the time, try and take a week. If you like, I can tell you what I enjoyed seeing, but if you look thru the boards, you will be able to get the perspectives of many different people on where to go, how long to stay, what tours to take, etc. We felt very fortunate to have used this board to help plan our trip. Have fun.

[jrask]

Although I agree wholeheartedly that the painful flight from Anchorage favors southbound, I really thought Northbound is the way to go.

 

I come out the other way on the relaxation issue and prefer to start with lots of relaxation to get me over the exhaustion of work (and particularly of clearing my plate so I can leave). Give me a massage and leave me to read by a pool for a day and then I'll be able to get to the vacation. I figure if you are exhausting yourself during the land tour (except the early morning for Denali), you're doing something wrong or are tackling too much. Switch off on driving and its easy. Then, the only thing is whether you can handle finding and eating at restaurants and reading a map, rather than having the cruise pamper you.

 

I liked the flow of the northbound trip to gradually more spectacular scenery. It was easier to grasp coming from the more familiar scenery. And it was nice to cap off the view with our glacier experiences.

 

I also got a lot more from our time in the interior b/c of what we experienced on the ship. First, we got a lot from naturalist presentations on board and what we learned during excursions. It was nice to apply this during our more independent traveling through the interior. The counterpart is that we took a lot away from Denali after experiencing the power of the glaciers and the beauty of kayaking with bald eagles overhead...it just added to the importance of Denali. I'm sure its also true that viewing Denali first gives you a different appreciation of the cruise portion, but I'm not sure it would have affected us as dramatically compared to the build-up approach.

 

I also liked doing land second because it allowed us to take advantage of the flexibility of touring on our own. We had lots of ideas of what to do and knew where we would be sleeping when, but our final decisions were made based on our experience on the cruise and how we wanted to round out the vacation...more wildlife v. more cultural v. more outdoor adventure/hiking v. shopping v. relaxation in a hotel's pool. Once on the cruise, its harder to shape the experience b/c there is inherently less flexibility and b/c the excursions you might use to round things out might be unavailable on late notice and/or you need a certain amount of time to cancel and rebook an excursion. We decided that we would cut a day off of our Anchorage time and drive 2.5 hours to Kenai for a boat tour, because we decided we wanted to see more by driving and wanted more wildlife (particularly whales and sea life, which we had only sporadic and more distant encounters with during our cruise). The decision was completely last minute and influenced by the vacation itself. I liked that level of control.

[lmcd]

I agree with taking the land portion first. Reading these boards will give you a lot of info on what to see and do at each of your planned stops. A copy of 'The Milepost' would be a major help in your planning. Most public libraries will have a copy. They can be ordered from most bookstores also.

 

Larry

[pcann]

Thanks, for the info I am going to pick up the copy of the Milepost. I guess I am limited to the cruise ships we take. We probably do not want to come in and depart from Seattle. Is Princess our best option?

[jrask]

I didn't follow that last post exactly. If you're doing roundtrip, its either from/to Seattle or Vancouver. If you're doing 1-way, I think Vancouver is a better starting or ending point b/c it gives you more of your time in Alaska and less at sea...although I hear airfare is a bit better when you go through Seattle.

 

As for the cruiseline, you will get a million and one opinions on this...difference in cost, food & service, age breakdown of the passengers. I went with Princess and these sorts of issues either didn't factor in too much or in retrospect shouldn't have (ie. age issue, with Princess being a supposedly younger crowd). I would focus your research on where you want to go and what you want to do, which will translate to (1) which ports and (2) time you have in those ports. As for which ports, the traditional trade-offs are:

 

(1) Sitka, Skagway, and Haines. Sitka is good for wildlife and Russian heritage (the latter being less common in other ports). Skagway is basically a great national park to learn about the gold rush and has the beautiful train ride. Haines has the bald eagle preserve and is a small town feel. [Transport between Skagway and Haines is available by ferry (45 min each way)]

 

(2) Which Glaciers? Most seem to prefer Glacier Bay to Hubbard and like the itinerary to have College Fjord.

 

Next, deal with timing in the ports. For this, I would look at excursions in each port and decide where your interests lie. (You'll spend a ton of time figuring out excursions anyway, so you might as well get a feel early and let early impressions influence which ship). Where you want to do a lot, make sure you have more time. We found that Juneau had the most we wanted to do: (1) helicopter + hiking on the glacier and (2) hike/walk in Tongass Rain forest. In fact, we could have been delighted with 3 or 4 other excursions there, so we wanted that to get every possible hour there, so we could do excursions, plus relax/eat and explore a little without going crazy. We were willing to trade off some time in Ketchikan (where we kayaked) to make this work. Time in ports differ based on line and direction, so we actually got more time in Juneau on the northbound Princess than we would have on the southbound.

 

(3) I'd separate out the Alaska start/end point, which will either be Whittier (Princess) or Seward (most others). Whittier shaves some time off of the drive to Anchorage, so you could get to Denali quicker. Seward actually has things to do (particularly the Kenai Fjords Nat Park) so it is a great option, or you can do as we did and just take a day trip from Anchorage for this (about 2.5-3 hour drive each way).

 

(4) I could suggest you also look at what the different lines offer for the land portion too. But most here would strongly recommend you rent a car and do this on your own.