define denali express tour portion of 11 day denali park and cruise
 

hi - hubby and i are taking the norwegian sun in june for a once in a life time cruise. prior to the cruise we have booked a 3 day denali park thru norwegian. now this is where i get lost - the hotel in anchorage is included as well as in the park(?). does anyone happen to know what hotels/motels/lodges are used by norwegian in anchorage and denali park. also what time does the return bus/train from denali park to whittier leave. we've got the transfers to the anchorage hotel included - someone is supposed to meet us at the anchorage airport in the middle of the night - that's when our flight arrives.
as far as the cruise itself, no problems and can't wait for june.

any info would be soooo appreciated.

Norwegian has your answers -- give them a call. Also, these details should be on the confirmation/itinerary they mail you.

A phone call to Norwegian will give you more reliable answers than you could get from anyone here. However, those details should be included in the confirmation/itinerary Norwegian sends you (at least my confirmation from Holland American did, but I had already phoned them to ask these questions before I booked the cruise-tour).

Sorry for the double post, the first one did not show up until I sent the second. Strange.

Can you give us an idea of the land itinerary so we can get a better idea of your cruise and land tour? You said 3 days, where do you fly into? Norwegian should give you a breakdown of what your itinerary will be. We did a land tour and cruise on HAL and got a breakdown. Not sure about where Norwegian books their passengers, different cruise lines use different hotels.

kayd and luv2travel15 - thanks for your reply. finally broke down and phoned ncl. couldn't get much more info than their website as it's too early for the who and the what (we cruise in june and it's just the beginning of march). we just like to know our options before we go and was hoping to get a ahead start on denali excursions. this trip is the bucket list special for us and i don't want to blow it.
appreciate your help and hope i didn't book with the wrong cruise line - we've always cruised ncl to mexico (excursions posted on the website with price so we would book what we wanted - no problem) this is a first for us with no info from ncl.
but again thanks for all your help

pharmmomtn1, sorry u couldn't get more info w/ customer service, seems like they should have been able to answer your questions as June is not that far away. Maybe you should consider booking another cruise line, that's just my opinion. We have not cruised w/ NCL so can't really give an honest assessment. I do know that Princess and Holland America are the two most recommended cruise lines for Alaska.

We went to Alaska 3 years ago this July and after a lot of research I booked w/ HAL because they seemed to offer what I was looking for as far as a land/cruise tour. We visited Denali and it was simply amazing, can't describe how awesome it was. Again, I did my homework b4 we left home and w/ much advice from these boards.

If you want to send me an email I would be happy to try and assist you in your planning. I am not a travel agent, just love doing cruise research. Please put NOT JUNK in subject line: [email protected]

Like Luv2travel15, I chose HAL after considerable research that showed they had the only cruise-land packages I wanted for my 2013 Alaska trip.

I recall reading somewhere (in library books returned some time ago) that Princess and HAL own their hotels in Alaska and Yukon, so if you go with them you always know where you will stay (HAL's are called Westmark hotels/inns except at Denali where it is McKinley Chalets, and they put us in the Anchorage Hilton for the one night there). The other lines subcontract the land portion of their cruise-tours, probably to one of the big two. So you might be able to narrow it down by searching re the Princess hotels.

As for the train schedule, here it is
http://www.alaskatravel.com/alaska-r...FUVnOgodFlsANQ

The times listed are those on my HAL itinerary. HAL and Princess have their own passenger cars that are part of the train but separate from the public train cars, I think.

kayd, yes, you are correct. We also stayed at McKinley Chalets, loved our stay there and wished we could have had another night or two. We only had the one night there. We also stayed at Anchorage Hilton for one night. Again, a very nice hotel and we had an enjoyable stay.

We took the train from Fairbanks to Denali, leaving 8:15 am and arriving 12:15 pm. We dropped our luggage into our cabin then took the Tundra Wilderness Tour into Denali, leaving about 2 pm and returning us to lodge about 10 pm. In July it is light until almost midnight so you can still see lots in Denali. We saw lots of wildlife, etc. and really would recommend this tour.

Princess does own their own passenger cars so only those who are taking a Princess or HAL land/cruise tour ride on that part of the train. It was a nice experience.