KristenHecksher

We are interested in an Alaskan land and sea cruise tour for next June (2016) for 2 adults and one teen. I definitely want to have Denali National Park as part of the trip. I would think around a 10-11 day tour is what we would be looking for. The other item we need to factor in is the air travel there and back. We do have credit cards that we can build miles on for Southwest, but that only gets us to Seattle,WA. I just wanted to throw that out to you if that would help save us. Any suggestions on the best way to do this without spending a fortune?

Thanks!

cruzrmomma

Cruise One Way-North bound-which saves you a night in Anchorage, expensive, and although this is an arguable point-Anchorage is not hte highlihgt of Alaska.

You will leave from VAncouver (you can fly to SEattle and the cruise line will have a shuttle to Vancouver-it's about 2.5 hours), but best if you can fly into Vancouver.

Cruise one way-Princess and HOlland are the ships that hit Glacier Bay, but Hubbard is nice too. Especially like College Fjord if that happens to be on the itinerary.

Then disembark, and take coach or train to Denali. It's 8 hours
1-2 nights there-if you can fit in McKinley-that's our favorite.

Fairbanks does not have the grand views like Denali and McKinley.
then you will coach or train back to Anchorage-and hopefully fly out that day. You can also fly home from Fairbanks

emalloy

You have plenty of time to do the research. We did a package with the cruise/land tour from Celebrity mainly because there were 6 of us and the others wanted that option. Were I ever to do it again I might do the cruise one way and then do the land portion on my own. I felt that we would have enjoyed staying in Denali longer and would have liked to visit some other areas too.

KristenHecksher

Thank you both for your comments and suggestions. We were thinking the same thing and have gotten prices for the northbound cruise only from Vancouver to Seward. We are going to take advantage of our Southwest points, so we will fly into Seattle. I wasn't aware that the cruiselines had shuttles, but did check on the bus rates. Once we got to Seward, we thought we would take the train to Anchorage and rent a car from there and head to Denali. Do you think it is better to have a car in Denali or just use the park shuttles? We were thinking it may be long waits and a pain. Do you think 3 nights is too long in Denali which would plan on seeing McKinley then too?

emalloy

You can only drive a car into Denali a short way. To get to places like Wonder Lake you have to take the park shuttles or one of the tours (more expensive) they allow into the park.

You really can't predict when you'll get to see Denali. We were lucky and saw it while on the way to the park, when we were in the park and from the airport in Fairbanks. Impressive all three days.

ira

Hi KH,

Have you looked at the land/sea tours available from Princess and HAL?

You can get from Seattle to Vancouver by Amtrak train or Amtrak bus.

Also http://www.wanderu.com/cheap-bus-tic...FU82gQodHzQAqg

Enjoy your visit.