Help with Denali land tour and small ship cruise
 

Good morning,
We are looking for ideas to combine a 6-8 day land tour in Alaska with Denali being the priority due to my husbands photography hobby and then a 6-8 day cruise from anchorage or juneau on the inside passage. ending in Sitka. We are not big cruise ship people, Anything over 100-200 passengers is too much. Ideally, I'd like to book both the land and cruise with the same company and not try to coordinate between suppliers. Has anyone had experiences with Linblad or Abercrombie&Kent in Alaska? Uncruise looked interesting until I saw it labeled 'a booze cruise'. We loved A&K for our safari in 2023. Other options??

Thank you in advance!

Would you consider the Alaska Marine Ferry to get to Sitka? It's very basic but you can rent a cabin. Food isn't the greatest but daily talks by park rangers were wonderful and you will be traveling the way locals do who live in towns along to Inside Passage. We did Bellingham WA to Skagway but had a vehicle so then drove two days to Knik.

When would this take place?

Perhaps you're not aware that the only road into the interior of Denali National Park, including the popular photography points of the Eielson Visitor Center and Wonder Lake, is closed at milepost 43 (about halfway) due to landslides. The repairs are underway but it's entirely possible that the full length of the road might not be available until 2027 (and that MIGHT be optimistic.) Until then, your list of possible photo points will be constrained.

Many people find that flightseeing options can take the place of land-based photo excursions; these are available from Talkeetna and Anchorage. Obviously they're pricey (generally in the $300 - $500 pp range) but then again, you wouldn't need overnight accommodations near Denali if you took that option.

There are plenty of options for experiencing the national park during the road closure, but of course these are more oriented towards things like wildlife or "nature" experiences. Whether that would be okay for you and your husband is something you could research.

As for the short cruises, the small-boat cruises in Southeast Alaska are highly regarded but are uniformly very expensive on a per-person basis. I wonder if you might instead look at a non-cruise alternative. Maybe base yourselves in a couple of SE Alaska towns from which you could experience some of what the cruises offer - wildlife like whales or bears, birds, stunning scenery, etc. My choices would be Sitka and Haines, both of which offer access to stunning scenery, Native American history and culture, lots of wildlife, and both of which are relatively less impacted by big-ship cruise crowds than the likes of Juneau, Ketchikan or Skagway.

Google "St. Lazaria Island," "Chilkoot bears," and "Alaska Golden Circle road trip."

We have taken several trips with Lindblad including Alaska. They give you a wonderful, very real experience. We never saw any of those huge cruise ships as we sailed and went into interesting small town ports. I recommend Lindblad highly!