Travel arrangements - help please

[Sunshine91]

Hello all you seasoned AK cruisers. The husband & I are taking our 1st AK cruisetour the last 2 weeks of September - after all the kids go back to school ;).

The landtour starts in Fairbanks, working it's way via the domed train thru Denali to Anchorage before we board Ryndam in Seward. Then we cruise the last southbound voyage of the season to Vancouver.

We'll be flying out of Balto, DC or Philly to the west. Our original thought was to fly to Seattle a couple of days early before flying to Fairbanks. Right now AlaskaAir is having a sale so I was thinking of buying that "leg" now. Don't usually like to buy airfare so early, just in case plans change. But then I thought, why not look at open jaw tix from here straight to Fairbanks, then Seattle-home. For some reason, flying from Vancouver (YVR) to home is about 3times as expensive as flying out of Seattle. :confused:

So a few Qs - if we fly into Fairbanks a day or 2 early, is there anything to do? How easy is it to get around from the Westmark Hotel that HAL uses? Since Ryndam docks in Vancouver, how do we get from there to Sea-Tac airport? How long does that take, so what time should I be looking at departing flights for the east coast?

Thanks much. :)

[Yukon]

There's lots to do in Fairbanks for an extra day or so, though your cruisetour will show you the highlights. You'll need a car - the Westmark is downtown, but there is nothing to see downtown except a tiny park. http://www.explorefairbanks.com/will give you lots of ideas.

 

There are a few options to get to Seattle - train, rental car, Quickshuttle bus, cruise shuttle or air. Plan on a very late afternoon flight - certainly no earlier than about 4:30-5:00.

[Sunshine91]

Thanks for the info, Yukon. I'll check out that website tomorrow (it's midnite my time ;)).

As far as return flights from Seattle, most are red-eyes departing 9pm or later, no probs there. I just don't really know where to start looking for that 1 piece of tranportation - from the cruise dock to Sea-Tac. Not that I'm even in a hurry. I just want to be super confident that if I trip over a great airfare that I should go ahead & book it, even if I don't know how we're going to get to the airport. :rolleyes:

[Texas Tillie]

Sunshine91, I don't know for sure with HAL, but I suspect that they offer a shuttle bus from Canada Place (the Vancouver docks they use) directly to Sea-Tac. Last summer we did that with Princess. It was so easy. We put our luggage out the final night of the cruise and didn't see it until they opened the underneath part of the bus at the airport. Last year we paid $48/person for the bus - I see on Princess's info for this year that they are charging $49. Check with HAL and see if they offer a similar service.