Advice needed Alaska cruise and Heart of the Rockies

[julieh]

Have booked Alaska cruise on the Coral in September with a pre cruise Heart of the Rockies tour including the Rocky Mountaineer train and a final stay in Anchorage at the Captain Cook Hotel. Anyone have any tips or advice regarding the pre and post parts of our tour as should imagine you need to be pretty organised with not being able to unpack and changes in weather requiring different clothing.

 

Would really appreciate any comments from anyone who has already done this trip.

 

Julie

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[PennyAgain]

Absolutely outstanding trip! Have a wonderful time! You will get very good at washing out in hotel sinks. Look to travel clothing companies like www.magellans.com and www.travelsmith.com for ideas. Look for items that hand wash and/or are stain resistent. No one will care if you repeat outfits. Dress in layers. Be prepared to send stuff home in Post Office flat rate boxes to lighten your load. Post Offices are easy to find in small Alaskan towns.

 

Use soft sided baggage rather than hardsided so you can stash your bags easily on the train.

 

Trip of a lifetime! Enjoy!

[julieh]

Thank you am really looking forward to it

[CowPrincess]

Hi, I live near Banff, so can provide some info on the Rockies portion of your trip.

 

It gets chilly here at night, no matter how warm it is during the day. As mentioned, layers are the answer. It is chilly in the morning, too. I start my day pretty much as I do for Alaska -- a t-shirt, a fleecy, a rainproof hooded jacket, jeans/pants, good walking shoes and a pair of socks. By midday, I usually change to sandals, and have my jacket tied at my waist.

 

For travelling, I like technical hiking pants. You can see some if you google for the Mountain Equipment Co-op website, Helly Hansen, North Face, Columbia. Usually they are easy to wash in a sink, and dry quickly. It is going to be cool in the mountains for most of your time, but possibly you might want to consider one pair of pants that are convertible -- you zip off the bottoms of the pants to make them into shorts. All the companies mentioned above ^^ make quick dry t-shirts, too.

 

I think you will find the cost of postage prohibitively high to ship to the UK. Check to see if your ship has laundry facilities, and/or the cost of having them DO laundry for you. That'll cut down a lot.

 

I did 7 days in AK and 1 day in Vancouver pre cruise, and managed with just the clothes I could stick into my carry-on. I had to do laundry, though!

[PennyAgain]

I'm sorry, I didn't notice you were in the UK.

 

Check Marks and Spencers for travel clothing.....easy to wash stuff. You might look at the sites I mentioned above to get some ideas.

 

You need good walking shoes. What do you wear in England to go on a nice ramble? I like the light in weight technical pants mentioned above as well.

 

For dinners on the cruise ship I wear a skirted suit and that is as fancy as I ever get. You can wear nice pants/slacks with a dressy top if you wish. The kind of 'it might rain' weather you have in England will be similar to what you will have on your trip.

[julieh]

Thank you for your advice.

 

Should feel quite at home if it rains as we have alot of that in England !

 

Have just got to Elite (at last) so will get free laundry and drycleaning on the ship so that will make packing lighter. According to the brochure it will be quite warm late August early September when we do the pre tour through Canada. Hope so as I have had to persuade my DH to go on this trip as he likes his sun cruises. Think he will enjoy the cruise but not sure about the land trip as there is alot of coach travel which he is not too keen on he will be ok on the train part though.

 

Julie