ImNachoGirl

Yes, although I suppose it depends on what's comfortable for you. I spent most of our "inside the ship" time (hanging in our room, going to speakers, drinking at the bars) in jeans, sneakers/socks, short-sleeved shirt. Occasionally I wore a half-zip style pull-over sweater too especially if I thought we might go for a walk around the promenade deck or sit outside for a bit. I will say that I noticed a chunk of people wearing more layers than we did. Maybe our hearty New England blood helped us stay warmer than friends from the south. (60 and cloudy sounds like a perfectly fine autumn day to us!)

Have an awesome time!

We stayed at Hotel Blu which was very nice. They had a free shuttle to Canada Place. Our room wasn't quite ready when we got there so after grabbing lunch close by and returning an hour later my husband jokingly commented, "that gets us an upgrade, right? Wink wink." What do you know, as she hands us our rooms keys she said, "I think you'll like your room. Wink wink" and it was a really fun lofted suite which was certainly an upgrade.

It was close to a HoHo trolley stop, the Capilano Suspension Bridge shuttle and a quick walk to an Aquabus to Granville Island and if we hadn't been so tired it would have been a doable walk to the Gastown area.

I'm glad you had a successful day at Denali. We did too! So amazing.

We did the shuttle to Eielson Visitor Center on Sunday (wow! it's already been 4 days!) and also lucked out with good wildlife. We saw tons of caribou, as well as marmots, arctic ground squirrels, fox pups, black bears and several grizzly sows and cubs. Our big up-close moose sighting was about two miles in from the WAC and the moose walked right between our bus and the bus that left right after us. No clue how to post pictures but I'm not great with a camera anyway so you're better off using your imagination.

I thought we'd see more in the morning but we actually saw almost all the brown bears on the way back (so post-2:30pm). Also as a point of reference the people on the TWT all saw lots of wildlife and pretty universally the people on the NHT seemed like they were disappointed to not have seen wildlife. I felt sad for them. I don't think we saw any extra wildlife for having taken the shuttle to Eielson (as compared to where the TWT turns around) but it was a nice place to go to eat lunch, and take a break before heading back plus I'm sure every day is different so maybe some days those extra few miles do make a difference.

I just came back from my cruise and we did the Deluxe Misty Fiords tour with Dave Rocke from Family Air out of Ketchikan. I know he also does Anan Creek Bear Viewing excursions too because that's what we originally booked but then changed our minds.

We really enjoyed Dave; great dry sense of humor, really knowledgeable and he was able to shift our itinerary pretty quickly based on weather and how busy his usual "get out and walk around spots" were. I also found his level of communication excellent.

Hope this helps and have fun!

Hi everyone! I'm currently in Skagway on the Coral Princess. So awesome! Two days of scenic cruising left then on to Denali. I'm wondering if there's a certain side of the train I should try for on our ride up to the lodge? Or perhaps it's assigned and we don't have a choice?

Thanks. Looking forward to posting a review when back. All your reviews helped make our trip so great so far.

Thanks for the great review. We're doing the Skagway rental car to Emerald Lake in a few weeks. I was under the impression it would take most of the day (save for maybe dinner back in town) so I was surprised to read that you did a helicopter tour first. What time was your heli tour and any sense of how many hours you were out with your rental car? Thanks.