Need Opinions - Alaskan Cruise

[snowangel03]

Can anyone give me their input? If you've been on an Alaskan Cruise, can you please let me know what cruise line? Would you use them again? Likes and dislikes about the cruise line?

The hubby and I want to go for our 20th next year. Thinking of doing end of May for what they call a cruise tour? You do land for a certain amount of days and then you sail for 7 days.

Also, anyone have any good tips to get bargains? Flight, onboard credits, upgrades, discounts on excursions? I know there's ways, but I don't travel like this often so I have no clue. Our last major vacation was our cruise on our honeymoon almost 19 years ago.

We need to save BIG TIME!! We haven't been snowmobiling in 2 seasons now so that we can save for this, so this is HUGE for us! Any help at all would be so greatly appreciated!!

Thanks as always

 

[purproadking]

i have not been , but know those who have and they say to do the train leg first and take the cruise back down, if done the other way around you get used to the cruise line waiting on you hand and foot then get on the train and your on your own. if thats what you are looking into. cant wait to do this someday, but with a 1yr old and a 2 yr old it will be a while.

 

[racerx]

Did the cruise-tour last year for our 15th and was able to spend our anniversary in Denali. I would say since you snowmobile you like the outdoors the the tour part is a must. We went in May and was one of the first ships thru in a few areas. I can see what the previous poster means by doing the cruise last but we did the cruise first and made our way to Fairbanks on the 2nd week and yes it was different on the service level but for us it was perfect because we got back to reality WHILE taking in Alaska in all it beauty. There is nothing like a very early morning walk along the shoreline in Seward, with the snowcapped mountains, eagles overhead and the fresh air, I don't think I would want to be on a boat after that, but that is me.

This is our 2nd cruise and we did it with Holland America as we did previously, It is a line known for the "older" crowd and that was fine with us, they still have the formal type stuff but take it from someone who hates that it is not bad and kind of fun, especially since we went with my parents on this cruise.

I have a lot more to share and my wife probably even more, so I should hook you up with her and she can give you the biz, just PM and we can go from there. I can tell you this once you go there as soon as you leave you be talking about going back. I even got to talk to some "snowmachiners" as they were headed out for the day and this is in the middle of May.

 

[mrg]

I did the Alaska cruise last year. It left out of Vancover and went as far north as Glacier Bay. It was the Inside Passage Tour. Used Holland America line. We chose this line because the ship was smaller than the Princess type lines. This allowed the ship to get closer to shore and farther in the fjordes. This was my first cruise, usually don't prefer the " structured " type vacation, much prefer to "wing" it. My cruise was strictly cruise, with ports of call in Juno, Skagway and Ketchikan along with stops in Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay (no ports). Excursions booked in advance of the cruise, ensured I got to do the ones I wanted to do. We went the first week of June. Weather was great. Food on ship was outstanding. Entertainment on ship was OK. Not a gambler, so didn't spend any time in there. Sceanery, priceless. I recommend all to go see. Wild life was abundant both on shore and at sea. As far as gotta do, I recommend the Glacier treck. Half hour helicopter tour, 2 hour treck on the glacier and 20 minute helicopter ride down. Took a zip lock bag and filled it with glacier ice, had the best martini of my life that evening !! LOL. Enjoy your trip !!!

 

[hotfingerz]

I have not done an Alaskan cruise, but a few Caribbean cruises. A couple of great places to look for cruise are vacationstogo.com and crucon.com. We have used crucon for booking all of our cruises. You can find pre-paid gratuities (about $70 per person) and ship credits ($50-$150 per room) all the time. I been on a 2 - Carnival ships and a Royal Caribbean ship. The Carnival were the party ships, with OK food. The RC ship was an older crowd with much better food. I am actually heading out on a Holland America ship on Sunday this week.

Not sure what the going rate of an Alaskan cruise, but you can get inside rooms (no windows) on a 7 day Caribbean cruise for under $500 a person with pre-paids or room credit. Right now it cost more in airfare that it does to cruise.

-Hotfingerz

 

[bobsledder]

Fantastic trip!

We did the Alaskan cruse tour with Holland America. I believe it is cheaper to do the land portion first and the cruse last. We did ours in late august to avoid a lot of children on the trip. (We raised ours and didn’t want to deal with children on our 25th anniversary trip; the previous voyage had 1600 kids under 16 out of 2700 guests.) We had a room with our own balcony and it was worth every penny. Book early and get the side of the ship that the mainland shore is on your side if you get a balcony. Middle of the ship down low is the best place in case of sea sickness, traveling early in the season it could be rougher waters. There is stuff to do on the ship that is included in the fare so take advantage of that. We did 1 special land adventure at every port those were also great fun! You will never get to do them all so study the information and book them ahead of time. We regret not doing the White Pass train in Skagway But we did a great tour of the town. I felt we had great tours but after hearing others talk we would have enjoyed that trip more. For sure go have a beer at the Red Onion in Skagway it is very cool. The ports to the south seem to be more of tourist trap type shopping areas. We took the train partway from Whittier to Fairbanks and then switched to coach transportation thinking we would have different experiences. The train tracks ran along the highway so we saw the same sights and traveling by train was more fun than the bus.
Traveling late in the season we experienced summertime then as we traveled north we experienced late summer through autumn by the time we got to Fairbanks. Most people did not plan well enough for the change in weather and were cold. We had insulated rain gear and it was perfect, compact when unused but we were dry and warm in the wind.

We don’t travel much so we chose to use a travel agent to avoid mistakes and make better decisions. That to I felt was worth the little extra, comforting to know the trip wouldn’t be spoiled on some internet snafu. If the cruse line also does your flights and you miss the boat the cruse line is responsible to get you to the tour ASAP.
I hope this helps, if you have any questions just post them and we can all share the information
Have a great trip!
Bob

 

[snowangel03]

Thanks for all the replies!!! This is great! Sounds like Holland is a good cruise line for Alaska. I was looking at Princess too. Anyone out there do Princess?

Any other help or advice anyone can give me please let me know!!!

You guys are awesome!!!

 

[willydoit]

Come join us in June!!

My DW and I are doing Carnival this June to celebrate our 30th anniversary. It's cruise only, leaving out of Seattle. Same ports as mentioned above,,,,Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway. First time to Alaska, can't wait. I've already booked a floatplane tour to a remote lake at our stop in Ketchikan, we're doing the White Pass Railway up into the Yukon from Skagway and biking our way back down to sea level and the ship, and we're gonna tour the Mendenhall glacier outside of Juneau. A good source for info is the discussion boards on cruisecritic.com,,,,it's been a great source of info for this and the other cruises (Carribbean) I've done in the past. Chose Carnival because of the price and the fact it leaves from Seattle,,,saved a bunch on airfare that way. Have a great time. BTW,,,,we're practically neighbors,,,I'm from Bensenville

 

[mikeh906]

I did the Holland cruise kicking and screaming,[ my mom was with.] One of the best trips we had been on. The ship was ok, we almost got swamped when a large side of the glacer dropped off unexpectingly. Very cool. Turns out it was not very common. I think it was 07, will ask the wifey, she never forgets. nwim

 

[racerx]

White Pass train in Skagway is a must. It was cool to start out at sea level and no snow on the ground and get up to the top when the snow was still as high as the train. They were still trying to push back some areas when we were there.

Inside passage is the best if you can and we also did the balcony since we did a balcony on our first cruise and just had to do the same. It was funny when we pulled in (Juneau) right next to the only other ship we were ever on and got to look right into our room on that trip, the Ryndam (smaller ship) does not have rooms across the back but the Oosterdam does have rooms which is what we had on that trip, this is where having an early booking let us pick that room and we could see all around the back end, a 270 degree view . We booked early and got the very back on the starboard side (land going north) but ours wrapped around so we could see both sides but it was pricey.

Being on a smaller ship is better but one night it was pretty rocky and when I checked the GPS it was clearly on an open section to the Pacific and we were taking waves broadside, it was hard to tell the wave height in the pitch black.

A lot of great comments here for sure. We wished we had gone on the Glacier plane or helicopter but we gave that up to have the balcony. But we did say we are going back by ourselves someday and we could do it then for sure.

 

[snowangel03]

Thanks again everyone!!!

Holland sounds nice but I really like a couple of itineraries from Princess. However, according to cruisecritic.com there are a lot of negatives about their staff, their quality of food, and their ships.

Anyone with past experience with Princess?

Willydoit - thanks for the web info. I looked things up and wow!!! A lot of opinions. I had to stop looking at them last night because everything just starting mushing together. I do like the ideas of planning your own excursions with the local businesses!!! I will be collecting info on that!!!

Hotfingerz - I will look at those websites you mentioned! I think I’ve looked at vacationstogo before, but not sure. I’ve looked at so much information over the past month or so. Enjoy your cruise coming up!!! I’m jealous, LOL!!!

So much info, but I want this to be as perfect as possible!!

Thanks again!!!

 

[microman]

My wife and I went with Princess Lines(Diamond Princess) this past Aug-Sep on a 14 day Alaska cruise-tour (northbound).

Absolutely loved it. This was our 3rd cruise, each with a different cruise line. We had no complaints about ship or crew.
Had pre-arranged shore excursions at each port-of-call/over-night stop. Usually 1 in the am and 1 in the pm.

I would be glad to give you a more detailed description of our trip, IF you would like.

Drop me an email, won't be able to respond until Monday, as were headed to our cabin up north for the weekend, 1 last blast on the sleds.

MM