We just decided to go to Alaska this summer. Right now we are planning to take a 9-12 days cruisetour. Since we have never taken a cruise before, can anyone please suggest a good cruise line company? I’ve checked at the Royal Caribbean and Holland American websites. Seems to me the cabin on Royal Caribbean looks nicer. However, Holland offers a better itinerary, which would spend quite a lot of time on the land.

The following are two of the tours I’m interested:

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findac...de=&promoType=


http://www.hollandamerica.com/find-c...8A01&dateCode=

There is also south bound or north bound option, does it matter?

Your advice will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

We are doing a Princess cruise this summer Whittier-Vancouver. Had seriously considered a cruisetour but everyone here suggested we could see more for less doing some land time on our own. So we are renting a car and doing a week - seeing Denali and some of Kenai Peninsula prior to cruise. You can access many of the helpful suggestions I received by using search option and typing cruisetour.

These are two completely different tours. In my opinion the RCI should be right crossed of the list. You miss Seward completely and it has the worthless Natural History tour at Denali Park. This particular tour is an overall very poor choice.

The HAL is better, but you are missing part of the cruise, either a glacier or port. Actually significant loss.

The land portion is "drive" by mostly and be prepared for early departures, a lot of time on the road. Some of these areas, I would never be on a "group" tour and would have to have my own transportation. The Denali Park day is also poorly planned, you'll be 4 hours on the train, and they have you scheduled for the TWT that afternoon, which lasts about 8 hours++. Their "description" of deep into the park- is a play on words. It's true comparing the 2 cruisetours- but only goes to mile 53 out of 90. My min. distance in is at least Fish Creek/Eielson mile 63 via shuttle bus- which costs less than 1/3 the price. Farther is always better here- yields more scenery and wildlife.

We have enjoyed Holland America tours very much, their people are great. The cruisetour you have selected sounds like a good one; it will show you a lot of Alaska and provide a variety of means of travel. A good tour director and a nice group can add so much to the trip. Alaska is so big it is nice to have your first visit set up where you can just sit back and enjoy. Independent travel can be less expensive but can also be full of stress. I hope you will have a most wonderful trip. Not everyone loves Alaska, but many of us have planned a return trip before we get home from the last one.

Just my opinion, but Alaska is probably not the best place to take you first cruise. I would select a cruise in Alaska that I could still do as many land excursions as possible. I guess the ultimate would be some cruising, some on the train, car, and then some air tours by helicopter or plane. Alaska is really nice and you will enjoy it and want to return no matter how you do it.

Thank you all for your great advice. I appreciate it. I guess the better option for us is probably taking a 7-day cruise tour, and then do some land tours by ourselves. I'm interested in the following 3 tours, which are similar except the last stop and Glacier Bay vs Hubbard Glacier. Both Glacier Bay and Hubbard Glacier are spectacular, which one should I should choose? Since we might go to Denali, should I choose Seward or Whittier as cruise last stop?

Day Ports Arrival Departure
tour A
01 Vancouver --- 5:00 PM
02 At sea --- ---
03 Ketchikan 7:00 AM 3:00 PM
04 Juneau 7:00 AM 10:30 PM
05 Skagway 7:00 AM 9:00 PM
06 Glacier Bay 7:00 AM 4:00 PM
07 College Fjord 5:00 PM 8:00 PM
08 Seward, Alaska 7:00 AM ---

tour B
01 Vancouver 5:00 PM
02 Inside Passage (Cruising)
03 Ketchikan 7:00 AM 3:00 PM
04 Juneau 8:00 AM 9:00 PM
05 Skagway 7:00 AM 8:30 PM
06 Icy Strait Point 7:00 AM 5:00 PM
07 Hubbard Glacier (Cruising) 7:00 AM 11:00 AM
08 Seward, Alaska 3:00 AM

tour C
01 Vancouver --- 4:30 PM
02 At sea --- ---
03 Ketchikan 6:30 AM 2:00 PM
04 Juneau 8:00 AM 9:00 PM
05 Skagway 7:00 AM 8:30 PM
06 Glacier Bay 6:00 AM 3:00 PM
07 College Fjord 5:30 PM 8:30 PM
08 Whittier 12:30 AM ---

If you ended the trip in Seward @ 7:00AM this would give you an entire day to explore Seward, then you could catch the train to Anchorage. You could do an all day sea tour. But, if you have seen enough glaciers and saw wildlife from the cruise ship(whales, sealions, porpoise, etc) then you could do some things on land. The train leaves for Anchorage around 6:00PM. If you do a tour that just does resurrection bay you will miss glaciers and will not see as much, so if you do a tour I would do a full day tour. You can kayak for a few hours or the entire day at Seward also. I probably wouldn't kayak if you are older or out of shape. This is somewhat physical and can be tiring. Several companies to pick from. You might want to take a helicopter,do a glacier landing and go dogsledding on the glacier. Exit Glacier is a good short hike to do at Seward. If you rent a car instead of taking the train to Anchorage, stop for one night in Girdwood at Alyeska. Ride the tram and hike Winner Trail. You can also helicopter/dogsled here. 7 Glacier Restaraunt is nice at the top of the tram. There is a really good Cajun Restaraunt in Girdwood that you might want to check out, the name escapes me at the moment. You can then continue on and explore Denali. I would probably spend 2 full days in Denali and spend 3 nights there. You might want to spend a night in talkeetna and do an air tour there, perhaps landing on Mt. McKin. We enjoy fishing in alaska and you could do a flyout fishing along the way. I think everyone should experience landing on water in a small plane while in alaska. Its really the only way to go from point a to point b in a lot of cases. If you are fishing for Salmon and do your homework with the company y ou use, you have a good chance of fishing in close proximity with bears. We fished near Lake Clark NP on a small creek that emptied into Cook Inlet. Flew over cook inlet and not exactly sure where we landed We saw about 15 bears very close to our boat. At least one bear was there almost the entire day. It was fantastic.

What are your interest? Scenic driving? History? Are you looking for Adventure? The cruise part will be relaxing part of your vacation. What time of year are you going? This would be a factor on animals in Denali and where to fish if you decided to do that.

Some people aren't that fond of the train. We really enjoyed it and the ride from Seward to Anchorage is a shorter ride at 4 hours and is the most scenic.

I know that you are trying to decide which cruise to do, so you can get that booked and then go on to the land portion planning of your trip. I think all 3 cruises would be nice, they are the same the first 5 days and then different for day 6 and 7.

You can get a pretty good feel for the different areas of Alaska on the travel channel. Jeff Corwin's Into Alaska series is good along with many other alaska adventures on there.

For the most part, the good land excursions are expensive, usually because they require air transportation. Alaska was the most expensive trip we have taken, but we did everything and really enjoyed it.

Thank you so much, spirobulldog! Your response is very informative. You are absolutely right. I’m planning to go in late June or early July. I hope I am not too late for the game plan. I’m still debating on whether take a cruisetour or half cruise half land tour by myself.

Yes, I saw some glaciers from my Tibet, Mt. Everest base camp trip, and both Colorado and Canadian Rockies (from Calgary all the way to Jasper). But I guess those in Alaska must be different from the ones I saw. Is either taking cruise ship or ferry the only way to go to see Glacier Bay park?

I consider myself is quite adventurous. I would love to try all kinds of activities in Alaska except camping (I’m a little Mysophobia).

I just meant if you were tired of seeing glaciers from the cruise ship. Seeing the tidewater glaciers are the ones I was refering to. Nothing like seeing and hearing it for the first time. The seeing part of it is what I expected, but I had no idea it would be so loud. It will break the silence like thunder and is as loud or louder. You may not be that impressed with the other glaciers since you have a feel for them already. I can't help you with Glacier Bay as I haven't done it. That one is high on my list. We are debating Glacier Bay in a year or two or Arctic Circle in March to try and catch Aurora for our next Alaska adventure. We were there July 1 last summer. If you can time it right watch the big race down the mountain at Seward that is around July 4th. I think it must always be on the 3rd, but I am not sure about that. We were leaving that day and everyone in town was talking about it. Our favorite things were fishing and viewing the bears and bald eagles, dogsledding, and train. We did a glacier hike on Alyeska that I would rate as ok, but not great.
Check out Winner Creek Trail near Alyeska it has unique way of crossing creek in a pulley type car that you slide across and pull yourself. I would buy Bear Spray and hike in a group of 4. We saw bears several times besides while fishing. We nearly missed hitting one in the car. There was a ton of people fishing in the Kenai River and I guess the bear was also. He came across the hwy from what looked like to me a large group of people. We were going 55 and came very close to hitting him. He was running pretty darn fast after that. I had seen them run on tv, but in person was pretty impressive. It sounds like you are doing your homework for the trip and you will have a great time. Oh, we never could get use to the sunlight there. Alyeska was the only place we stayed that had good blinds. I would never advise someone to take an inside cabin on a cruise, but it might be ok for a summer alaska cruise, just to avoid the light and get some sleep that way.

Sorry, I missed your note regarding glaciers on your earlier response. I'm so glad you mentioned about tidewater glaciers. It must have been an amazing experience.

Wow, I am so excited! Thank you so much for the valuable information. I will definitely check into the places that you provided to me.

By the way, that full day cruise tour in Seward you mentioned is called Kenai Fjords? If so, is it a large boat? I can get seasick easily.

Glacier Bay- my top choice for a cruiseship itinerary.

A Kenai Fjords boat tour- you need at least 6 hours on the water. There are mid sized boats- 100+++ passengers. BUT you need to take precautions for motion sickness, can encounter some rough areas. Actually you have plenty of potential for motion sickness from your cruiseship too.

We did a Celebrity cruise to Alaska last year (agree about Glaciar Bay - LOVED it) and then did the train to Anchorage - and loved that too. In every stop there was something interesting. I think a cruise is a great way to see Alaska and determine if you want to go back in the future and see more. I also liked going South to North, because the scenary got more fantastic as you went, then having the train on top of that was great.... I also liked sailing out of Vancouver - it was nice to spend a few days there before hand.....

Thank you for replying !

After I did more research for my Alaska trip, I decided do a two-week land tour by ourselves. Now the challenge is make a good itinerary to have enough time to explore those places on my list. I plan to fly in and out Anchorage and pick up rental car there. We would like to go to Whittier, Seward, Homer, Denali, Fairbanks. And will be interested doing some Glacier day cruise, kayaking, hiking, dog sledding, flightseeing trip and etc.

Day 1: Anchorage, arrive in the evening
Day 2. Whittier
Day 3. Whittier
Day 4. Seward
Day 5. Seward
Day 6. Homer
Day 7. Homer
Day 8. Anchorage
Day 9. Denali
Day 10. Denali
Day 11. Fairbanks
Day 12. Fairbanks
Day 13. Anchorage
Day 14. Anchorage, fly back to Dallas

Do you think if two weeks will be enough to cover these places? We don’t want to be in a big rush from place to place, after all, vacation is supposed to be relaxing. And also I’m not sure how to drive to Homer from Seward. The google map says it takes about 3 ½ hours (167 mi), seward – moose pass-cooper landing – sterling- homer. Is this the only way between these two places?

Thanks!

I think you made a good decision. I am not big on cruises. So now you will definately want to do the Kenai Fjords tour. Or at least something similar somewhere along the way. There 3 or 4 companies. I think one company may have bought out another recently. I picked Renown Tours. They use a fast catameran and supposedly it is smoother. The waters were very smooth when we were there, so no problem for us at all. I think 2 weeks is enough time in Alaska to get a good taste of it . I WONDER IF AIRFARE WOULD BE MUCH MORE IF YOU LEFT FROM FAIRBANKS BACK TO DALLAS. YOU ARE COVERING A LOT OF DRIVING TWICE. But it scenic, so that might not be such a bad thing. We really enjoyed Alyeska area, so you might cut a day from Seward, Homer, or Whittier and check that out for a day. I personally would take the train to Seward first and then rent a car there. There is only one rental place there. Hertz. I don't think the drop charge or leaving from fairbanks will cost anymore than fuel and car rental would have been. You would save a full days drive. We are in Oklahoma and go to Dallas several times a year. Have Fun!!!

"We did a Celebrity cruise to Alaska last year (agree about Glaciar Bay - LOVED it) and then did the train to Anchorage - and loved that too. In every stop there was something interesting. I think a cruise is a great way to see Alaska and determine if you want to go back in the future and see more. I also liked going South to North, because the scenary got more fantastic as you went, then having the train on top of that was great.... "

Sorry- Celebrity does NOT go to Glacier Bay- you went to HUBBARD Glacier with is a totally different area.

You are best to allow 4 hours Seward/Homer, and more if you want to include stops. There are many stops to consider along the Cook Inlet in my opinion www.kenaipeninsula.com

Thanks again to everyone for all the valuable advice. I really appreciate it.