Landtour Luggage??

[bowlingqueen]

Was wondering if anyone has been on a landtour following a cruise recently and if you can keep all your luggage with you or if you have to send a bag on to Anchorage, that's where we will end up. We will likely have 2 bags each plus our small carry-on. Anybody know if we can keep them with us.

Thanks

[5:00_Somewhere]

Unfortunately, you cannot keep all your luggage with you on the land tour. Our friends traveling with us in June wanted to do the same thing and were told that there was limited cargo space on the various methods of transportation (trains, motor coaches) that get you from Whittier to the lodges and your final destination.

 

However, they seem to have the whole system worked out very effectively and efficiently. And, as others on here have said before, the lodges and Denali-centric activities are all extremely casual. Jeans (nice - without holes, frays, etc.) and fleece seemed to be the order of the day, even in the dining venues. Even at the nicest restaurant at the McKinley resort (called "20320"), the most "dressed up" gentleman I saw was wearing khakis and a turtleneck. So, that helps in reducing your luggage for the land portion.

 

Each passenger is allowed 1 suitcase and a carry-on that they take with them. On the ship, before you disembark, you will place special tags on the luggage you want to go with you and meet you at the lodges, and a different tag on the luggage you want to join you at your final destination. At the end of each day, when we arrived at our lodge, our "take along" luggage was there in our room waiting for us. And, when we arrived at our final lodging (in Fairbanks, in our case) when we opened the door to our room, all our luggage was there waiting for us.

 

It just requires a little extra thought about what you won't need in the lodges, but we really found our needs there quite limited.

 

I hope this helps. And have fun. Alaska is really amazing! :D

[bowlingqueen]

Thanks for the info:)

[5:00_Somewhere]

You're very welcome. I just had one more piece of advice. Again, as has been said on here before, the best method of packing and dressing is to think in layers. We literally had temp swings from the 30s to the 70s+ in one day on occasion, depending on travel, excursions, and changes in the weather.

 

I'm both envious of and excited for you. We had such a wonderful time, I want to go back NOW! ;)

[can786]

If you are on one of the cruisetours that is roundtrip out of Seattle you do actually keep all of your luggage with you at the lodges. At least that was our experience last month. They only supplied one luggage tag for the cruisetour so did not find this out until we went to the purser's desk to ask what we were supposed to do with our second pieces of checked luggage. They gave us each a second tag at the purser's desk.