Excusion Help for Alaska

[Dresher5]

Our family of five is travelling via RCL this summer to ALaska. The number of excursions are overwhelming! Does anyone have strong recommendations on what to do? Our kids are pre-teen and teen. Thanks!:p

[Fredr]

Our family of five is travelling via RCL this summer to ALaska. The number of excursions are overwhelming! Does anyone have strong recommendations on what to do? Our kids are pre-teen and teen. Thanks!:p

 

 

Hello,

 

Rent cars in all of the ports you will be visiting, except Ketchikan and Sitka, where you can see all of the sights on foot.

 

With a car you can see more and at the same time, accomodate your children. Do your research or better yet have the kids help you with the research. Car rentals are not inexpensive but you will probably ave a lot of money over the ship excursions. I am not being anti ship excursion...in your situation it may be much more cost effective to rent cars. In Skagway check with Avis, and in Juneau check with Rent a Wreck.

 

Hope that this helps.

 

Fred

[mparker0617]

We recently returned from Alaska and our most memorable excursion was the Yukon rail and bus tour with Chilkoot Charters. Although it will be expensive for a group of 5, the narrated train ride through the white pass was amazing. Through research on the boards, I chose to book the tour through this independent charter company rather than the cruise line. VERY happy we did. Cruise lines had 50+ passengers buses, while we were on a small 20 passenger. Our tour guide was extremely nice and knowledgable and was able to stop at any point we wanted for photo ops along the way. If you are going to splurge on one, this would be my choice. Otherwise, the car rental is the next best choice.

[Dresher5]

Thanks so much for the suggestion. SInce this is my family's first cruise, I have been a little nervous about doing things outside of the cruise's excursions. However, you have given me a lot to think about!:)

[UlvaZell]

We went whale watching in Juneau and took the White Pass and Yukon Railway in Skagway. Both were great...

[satxdiver]

The rail trip in Skagway is not to be missed. It is well worth the $$$. You can book your own sight seeing (or rent a car) without problems and save money over the ship sponsored trips. The only caveat is that the ship will leave without you if you are not back on board at departure time. If you are on a ship sponsored cruise they will make sure you are back on board. This is seldom a problem but just be careful about your return time. Since you will be doing your own trip in US ports, it should not be a problem.

 

Go have a good time. We enjoyed our Alaska cruise. I hope that you have scheduled time once in Alaska to visit Denali at least. Rent a car in Anchorage and drive up to the park. There are many hotels just outside the park to stay and they will give you free rides to the Denali visitors center. You have to use the park's transportation during the summer months. It is absolutely beautiful.

[alcpa1]

Please visit the Alaska Ports of Call board as a welcome to Cruise Critic you are invited to be overwhelmed by all of the information you will find there.

There is so much for your children to do there and it will be great to share Alaska with your family.

Have a wonderful cruise.

[blargh]

we took our first cruise in 2000 to Alaska. We did all of our own arrangements, and saved a lot of money. My husband, me and 3 teenagers.

The train at Skagway is within walking distance of the port and it was a lot cheaper to buy our own tickets. We took the Big blue bus at Juneau, and saw a lot of the sights including Mendenhall Glacier. Arranged for our own flights over the glaciers in skagway. Needed 2 planes because there were 5 of us, and the planes were small. Look on the internet, and also go to the ports section of this message board.

This is a GREAT cruise, have fun!

[Fergus]

In Juneau, schedule whalewatching with Orca Enterprises - awesome trip.

[Dresher5]

Thanks everyone for your wonderful suggestions on excursions with kids. Has anyone done bike-riding at any of the ports??

[DukeFamily]

Absolutely the White Pass and Yukon rail excursion is definitely a must. We were with Princess and went through the cruiseline. Without even looking I can say you would definitely save money booking independently.

 

I think it was in Juneau that we took one of the float planes. That was expensive but oh so much fun. I wouldn't miss that opportunity. It was amazing to be in the tiny plane - landing on the water - we got to get out of the plane onto the pontoons and look around and feel the water.....it was awesome.

 

Right by the cruise ship terminal in Juneau you can take a sky tram up the mountain - that was cool (but skip the movie at the center up there - interesting I'm sure but it put us to sleep! Too long!) It was also Juneau where I went to the Gasteneau Salmon Hatchery - lots more fun and interesting than I thought it would be. After that, we were taken to Mendenhall Glacier to explore on our own. That was a fun tour.

 

You will more than likely learn about Ulu knives and want to purchase one. A very popular Alakan souvenir. If it isn't mentioned in your daily paper or made clear during port talks be sure you ask whether you can bring the Ulu on board or if you have to have it shipped back home. You don't want to lose it upon reboarding the ship. Apparently different cruiselines have different rules concerning these souvenirs.

[hmstins]

I have taken the train in Skagway and didn't think it was worth the price. However, you can rent a car (I believe Avis is the only one) and drive to the Yukon territory (everyone must take their passport to cross the border). The drive is absolutely breathtaking. Many places you can stop and take photos, buy souvenirs. I saw my first bear up close too, just slowly ambling across the road right in front of our car! I highly recommend this trip.

[ladycaveat]

I can only tell you what my fifteen-year-old son did on our cruise in Alaska in 1995. To this day . . . it is still my favorite cruise (Island Princess). We fished for salmon in Ketchican (shipped a ton of it home . . . . yummy), panned for gold in Skagway, ate lunch at a restaurant where the Idarod races start in Anchorage (also went to a puppy ranch where they raise dogs for the race), landed via float plane on a mountain lake, went white water rafting in Denili (we took a week's tour of the interior after our cruise) and landed on a glacier via helicopter in Juanau (darn it . . . now I can't even spell it). My son remembers every detail of that cruise and fell in love with Alaska. So much so that he now flies helicopters for the Coast Guard out of Air Station Kokiak . . . :p You're gonna have a wonderful cruise no matter what excursions you decided on.

[Putterdude]

The WP&YRR is a must when you are in Skagway. You can book independently and save some money but you may have to walk to the station to board the train.

[mparker0617]

Book with Chilkoot Tours.....fabulous!!! They have a driver/van meet you at end of pier and takes you to train station. Will also drop you off in town wherever you want to go at the end of the tour. It's then a short walk back to the ship.

[mamaofami]

Very best tour I ever took was the four glaicer helicopter ride out of Junea. It was breathless and then we landed on top of one of the glaciers and went dog sledding. An unforgetable experience and well worth the money.

[reynoldswrap]

We are taking an 11-day cruisetour with RCCL in September and spending the night in Vancouver at the end; thus we will just have one day. I was thinking about renting a car and driving to the Butchart Gardens, but noticed that this is a 3 hour drive. Can anyone answer these questions for me?

 

- is this a good use of time in Vancouver for a day?

- is renting the car at the port and staying at the airport the best use of time?

 

thank you!

 

Sharon

[hmstins]

In Vancouver I would stay in the downtown area close to the pier, and I would go to the Vancouver Aquarium. I have seen a lot of aquariums in the world, and this one is fabulous.

[ProudFossil]

In Ketchican (spelling?) my wife went on a crab boat which she really enjoyed. But I had the best time snorkeling in the fjord. I don't know if that excursion is offered. The company alternated between Alaska and Hawaii. We had to wear complete wet suits but the experience was wonderful.

 

And besides, you get to buy a tee shirt which says "Snorkel Alaska". I wear it on every snorkel trip we go on and it is the center of attention (except for the one time I had to share the limelight with another person who had also snorkeled there).

 

I don't know if snorkeling would be appropriate for a family but I will say the WP &Y railroad is well worth the time and money. We bussed from Skagway up the mountain and boarded the train for the ride back down. Wonderful.

 

Mike

[FritzG]

We thought the White Pass Rail was a waste of money. We loved Princess's whale watch with Orca Point Lodge salmon bake in Juneau. We saw a lot of whales, the commentary was great, and the lunch was terrific. It was the best tour we've taken in a long time.

[pattyj 1204]

We went on the Orca whale watch and it was just awesome. We took the train in Skagway and loved it, of course we had a beautiful sunshiny day, Heard that the day before it was foggy and rainy and they didn't have as good a tour. You can't predict the weather and it can be either good or crummy.I think if I was going with a family I would research the auto rental. We had dinner with a couple who did the rental and they were very pleased with the results.

[sandiego1]

there's a ton of info on the Alaska board. Check it out. I spent months reading existing posts and posting questions myself on the board. Folks were very, very helpful.

 

We went to Alaska last June and had a blast. We booked only independent excursions. I found that those offered by cruise line were much more expensive, shorter and basically inferior to anything we booked. Since we were dealing w/ US vendors, I felt very safe in booking over the internet or by phone. I was confident that if we had any problems we would be able to resolve them more easily than if dealing w/ a foreign company (language barriers, credit card issues, exchange rates, etc.).

 

We did:

Ketchikan - Misty Fjords Floatplane w/ Island Wings (fantastic)

Juneau - 4 hr Helicopter Glacier Trek w/ North Star Trekking (UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!)

Skagway - White Pass Train & Biking Tour w/ Cycle Alaska (train was great, cycling tour leader wasn't that good, still had good time)

All companies can be found on the web.

Good luck!

[InDreams2]

I don't think that's a great use of time in Vancouver. There are double deckers that will take you all over the city. Granville Island, Stanley park, China town. It's the easiest way to get around. I've spent quite a bit of time there. Butchart Gardens is beautiful but most of your time will be spent driving

[MeadMkr]

Our family of five is travelling via RCL this summer to ALaska. The number of excursions are overwhelming! Does anyone have strong recommendations on what to do? Our kids are pre-teen and teen. Thanks!:p

 

The key to helping preserve your sanity during the planning process is to lay things out on a grid that you can easily see. A lot of us do this with spreadsheets or you could use a whitboard or even paper. If you use Excel do take a look at some of the files on http://www.oxbowmanor.com/shared/ that were contributed by other forum members. It seems that a lot of us print out or bookmark websites and use that to inform the family of the options.

 

For each port of call select the top 4-5 excurions or sights that sound interesting to you/your family and note if any is truly unique to a given port of call. Don't necessarily weed out these based on budget at this point!

 

Then prioritize them (involve the family) and then based on that interest select the top 2. Use these finalists to figure out which excursion and/or vendor you want to use for a given port and see if it fits into your budget/schedule. You might splurge on 1 port and then scale back on another. Having two gives you a backup plan in case one is already booked full.

 

The spreadsheet format I use allows me to know only lay out a daily schedule but in a different column to keep the contact information, confirmation #'s and budget....

 

Cheers

Chris in VA

[hmstins]

Chris, I do almost the same thing. I have a spreadsheet with a page for each port and I copy and paste things of interest I find. It makes it much easier to narrow down and select what I want to do.

 

In Vancouver, I agree with the poster who talked about the double-decker bus. It's a hop-on, hop-off (HOHO) that takes maybe two hours round trip. It goes all the way through Stanley Park (which I love), past the Aquarium, and just all over anywhere you would want to go. You can get off, do the Aquarium, then get back on and complete the circle. I think my ticket was good for 24 or 48 hours, can't remember which, and a reasonable price.