Holland America Alaska cruise
 

Thinking of taking the Holland America 11 day cruise on the Noordam end of May 2019 with a 2 night stay in Denali. It has the itinerary we are interested in including Glacier Bay. Anyone have any experience with the land tour they offer with a 2 night stay in the McKinley Chalet resort and the Tundra Wilderness tour?

I only did the cruise southbound starting June 9. People on my cruise that did the land tour said they saw Denali.

A few commented that the pace was kind of exhausting. They didn't comment on the accommodations.

I liked the Noordam. Hopefully they will leave it alone and not mess with the wonderful library.

You should go on the cruisecritics.com forums.. it is THE best one for cruises.. its all cruises.. all lines, all ports of call.. all ship excurisions.. you can ask very specific questions and get more than one or two answers..

1. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

2. You'll find many views that repeat the one reported by mlgb above. Is there some reason you need to stay with a group tour (regimented, lots of hours in buses) vs. doing a land tour on your own after the cruise? It's really not very hard to arrange.

3. May is early for some areas, such as the interior of Denali Park. Doable, but IMO not ideal. Lots of bugs.

I'm really not sure why people always do ship's tours. Probably the fear of missing the ship or doing their own driving.

At least in Alaska you have the common language.

Thanks for the responses. We are now thinking of doing the land tour portion on our own. Since it will be our first cruise in Alaska we thought doing the land tour through the ship might be the easiest but we are rethinking that. Any suggestions?

How long do you have altogether? The one-way cruises are all seven nights.

We have lots of time. If we did a one way 7 day cruise we could possibly have another week or 10 days on land.