JerseyShoreGirl0732

I'm trying to include photos with my posts, but I'm having difficulty. I'm a novice here, so please bear with me. Hopefully I'll have this resolved quickly.

Alaska Day 2 - Major Marine Kenai Fjords Northwestern Cruise, Seward

I was up very early and decided to call Expedia to try and get the rental car situation resolved. In my "Day 1' post I forgot to mention that once we settled into the cabin in Seward, I looked more closely at the email with the reservation confirmation from Sept 2017. The dates were, indeed correct. Only the initial screen had the wrong year listed, once I scrolled further down, the correct dates were listed. I was relieved and frustrated at the same time. I ended up being on the phone for over an hour. The rep did escalate the issue and a refund request was issued. It would be a few days before I would hear if it was approved.

 

Once the kids were up it was a little hectic. The phone call took too long and we didn’t unpack and prepare anything the night before. Each of us quickly packed a backpack with extra layers, snacks, camera and rain gear. We made the 8 minute drive to town and checked in at the Harbor 360 hotel for our 8.5 hour Major Marine Kenai Fjords Northwestern Cruise.

The weather that morning was perfect! I read so many reviews about seasickness on this cruise so I hoped the good weather was a sign of calm seas. Shannon is very prone to motion sickness so she took Dramamine and wore sea bands. The rest of us took Bonine just in case. We watched the Viewfinder pull up to the dock and we were able to board shortly thereafter. Captain Justin and Clint were our guides.

As we began our journey, the sun suddenly disappeared behind the clouds and fog rolled in. Not long after that, blue skies and sun appeared again. Then fog. This was the pattern for most of the day. Despite the changing weather, the seas were fairly calm.

The four of us used all of our extra layers except rain pants. Anyone who was outside on the bow and the sides of the boat did get wet from the spray when going full speed. I’m glad I had waterproof hiking boots on because the boat deck was wet.

It wasn’t long before Clint announced there was a whale off the port side. It was a humpback whale and I was in awe, just amazing! The was the first of many humpback whales we saw throughout the day. We also saw lots of sea lions, puffins, bald eagles, harbor seals and Murrelets (I think they were Kittlitz’s Murrelets) which are very small, rare glacial birds.

While we saw quite a few glaciers, the highlight of this cruise was the Northwestern Glacier. Simply spectacular! The captain cut the engines for about 30 minutes so we could hear the cracking sounds of the glacier calving. Very cool! This was something I really wanted to see/hear in Alaska. I’m so glad we opted for the 8.5 hr Kenai Fjords Northwestern Cruise so we could experience this.

Clint prepared lunch baskets for everyone in the galley as we left the NW Glacier. This was another reason I selected this tour over the others. The others offered a salmon lunch buffet and I am not a fan of seafood. We enjoyed a turkey sandwich, cheese, carrots, apple and a brownie which was good and filling.

Mother Nature was definitely on our side on this day! Just when we thought the fog was going to ruin the breathtaking views, it lifted. There was virtually no wind. I was a bit nervous about 8.5 hours on a boat, but the day flew by. When it seemed like there was a lull, another whale was spotted. I lost count of how many we saw. Side note, I booked this on either Black Friday or Cyber Monday (can’t remember which it was) and got a 40% discount.

Once we arrived back to the dock, we walked over to Ray’s Waterfront Seafood for an early dinner. All of it was great - the food, the service and the view of the marina. Afterwards we walked along the docks where we were entertained by a sea otter devouring a fish thrown to him by one of the fisherman.

We drove around town on our way back so Pete and Shannon could see the campers and tents set up along the waterfront.

I was the last one to bed and couldn’t get over the fact that it was still light out at 11pm!

Hi Anita, thanks for reading my first trip report entry. I did read your trip report which was wonderful and full of some really helpful information. I think I have to go back and read more about the land portion of your trip, I'm not sure I got that far.

Thanks for the tips! I will definitely break up my posts into paragraphs. I see under Posting Rules that I can edit my post, I just can't figure out how to do it.

I'm going to look into the web hosting site you mentioned, so hopefully I'll be able to include photos in my upcoming posts.

We returned home one week ago and I've have been working on this very long, detailed trip report ever since. I will post it in sections and try to add photos if I can figure out how.

Background

My husband and I are in our late 40's (Sue and Pete) and traveled with our 16 yr old son, Sean, and almost 15 yr old daughter, Shannon. We live in NJ. The planning for this trip began one year to the date before our embarkation and continued up until a few days before we began this incredible trip. I read tons of trip reports and gathered lots of information from this site and Trip Advisor both reading posts and posting questions. Doing this was SO helpful in the planning process. The only change I would make is adding more days to the land portion. We were able to fit a lot into 5 days, but there was a lot of driving and very little downtime. My expectations were so high, I was afraid I might be let down. This was 100% not the case. My expectations were exceeded by a mile. We all loved every minute of this trip... well lets say every minute once we actually got on the road in Alaska;). At the last minute I purchased the Milepost which was a valuable tool that was used while traveling by car. A cell phone was not helpful most of the time.

 

 

Itinerary

7/20/18 – Arrive in Anchorage, pick up rental car, drive to Seward

7/21/18 – Seward - Major Marine Kenai Fjords Northwestern Cruise 8.5 hrs

7/22/18 – Seward - Exit Glacier Ice Hike w/ Exit Glacier Guides. Drive to Homer

7/23/18 – Homer - fishing trip w/ Silverfin Guide Service (boys). Ferry to The Saltry in Halibut Cove for lunch (girls)

7/24/18 – Drive to Girdwood, lunch in Cooper Landing, hiking in Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Wildlife Conservation Center

7/25/18 – Hike Winner Creek Trail, return rental car, depart Whittier on Coral Princess Southbound Voyage of the Glaciers to Vancouver

7/26/18 – Hubbard Glacier

7/27/18 – Glacier Bay National Park – Margerie Glacier & Lamplugh Glacier

7/28/18 – Skagway – Dyea Dave Emerald Lake Tour, return on train

7/29/18 – Juneau –rental car, hiking at Mendenhall Glacier, salmon hatchery

7/30/18 – Ketchikan –Southeast Aviation Traitor’s Cove Bear Viewing & SeaPlane

7/31/18 – At sea

8/1/18 – Arrive in Vancouver, 1:15pm flight to Newark Liberty Int’l Airport :(

 

 

Alaska Day 1

 

Travel day. We left home at 5:15 AM with about 300 lbs of luggage. We arrived at Newark Liberty Airport curbside check in. Curb checking took way longer than it should have. 4 of us traveling with 3 different reservations made things complicated. We checked 5 bags and had to pay fee for one heavy bag :mad:. The security line was about a mile long. We were thankful for Pre-check for 2 of us and United Premier status for the others. We boarded our flight armed with bagels, snacks and pb & j sammies from home knowing we had a very tight connection in Denver (1 hour) and most likely would not have time to eat in between flights. Then the dreaded announcement once we boarded the plane... ‘We have a delay due to a mechanical issue’. The issue was resolved in 45 minutes only to be 16th in line for takeoff. Seriously? We started to realize we probably were not going to make our connection. The Captain announced they were going to make up time putting our arrival 25 min before our connecting flight. This didn’t happen. I had to stop looking at the time because there was nothing I could do to make it standstill. During the delay we checked our options if we missed the Denver flight. They were not great and involved a second connection in San Francisco. The flight attendants were well aware of the tight connections many passengers had. They asked everyone who had a tight connection to ring their call bell during our final approach. About 75% of the rows rang their call bells! We did get off relatively quickly and then did a full-on sprint to the gate. Well, Shannon and I did, the boys walked briskly. And then the best moment ever... the plane was still there, phew! I couldn't believe they waited for us! Thank you United! After we (and 2 other parties) boarded, they waited a bit longer for bags to be loaded. Thank you again United! We began our taxi to the runway when the Captain announced we were circling back to load more bags. Thank you once more United (I'm pretty sure they were our bags)! We arrived in ANC 15 min later than our original arrival time, as did all 5 of our checked bags. Now on to the rental car counter. I reserved a minivan with Enterprise through Expedia. I made this reservation ten months in advance to ensure we’d have a large vehicle that would accommodate all of our luggage and also to get a reasonable rate. I did keep checking rates periodically and they continued to go up and the vehicle selection continued to go down. The Enterprise agent told us they do not have a reservation in our name. I quickly pulled out my phone and looked up the confirmation email from Sept 2017. As soon as I clicked on it, the dates said ‘Pick up July 20, 2017’. My stomach sank. I couldn't figure out how I selected the wrong year when I made the res. Or how Expedia let me select a date in the past. Ugh! This was a very expensive mistake... or so I thought. I’ll get back to this later. We calmly asked the agent if they had a car available (I already knew the answer to this question from reading many trip reports and constantly checking rates leading up to our departure date). The answer was no. We had been traveling for 14 hours and had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. There was no time to be mad/upset, we had to find a car. We checked with 2 or 3 counters at the airport. No luck. Then we both took to our phones searching for available cars. Thrifty had a full-size SUV for $375 more than our original res so we went to the desk and inquired about it. They would not match the online price. We would have to book online and then wait approx 40 min for the reservation to go through their system to get that price. We were so tired and desperate, that we took a full-size SUV they offered us that was over $1k. Again, so tired and long drive ahead, not to mention we hadn’t had a real meal all day. 20 min later we arrived at the car to realize it was a midsize, not full-size SUV. Ugh! We decided to just let it go b/c looking around, they did not have another vehicle that would fit us and all of our luggage anyway. We made everything fit (not an easy process) and we were FINALLY on our way! We ended up stopping in Girdwood for a meal on the advice of a TripAdvisor poster. We went to Chair 5. All 4 of us had burgers and they were delicious! Oh and Pete and I each had a well-deserved cocktail. We finally arrived in Seward around 7:45pm. We rented a cabin through VRBO, Lost Creek Cabins. The place was perfect! I loved everything about it. Unfortunately, we are only there 2 nights and had very full days so we didn’t spend much time in the cabin. We were only a few miles from downtown so Sean and I went to the grocery store to pick up breakfast food and wine. From there we continued driving to the waterfront so we knew where to go for our Major Marine tour in the morning, and then on to look at all the campers beyond the marina. There were many!

Thanks for posting. The link worked for me but when I enlarge the photos to read the patters, the text becomes too blurry to read.

Will be boarding in a few hours - I will collect and save. I will post next week if no one else has answered

Sounds good, thank you. Enjoy your cruise!

We did this trip last September on the Coral. There is a link in our signature that has the review, along with the patters from that trip.

Thanks so much! Lots of good information in your review.

I've searched and can only find age restrictions for the fitness room and casino. Are kids allowed in the lounges when there are things like trivia, comedians, bingo, etc?

I’m looking for these as well!

• The package includes all beer' date=' wine by the glass and cocktails $12.00 USD and under as listed on our menu(s), or $16.00 AUD and under for voyages departing from and returning to Australia and New Zealand.
  [*']The package includes all bottled water (500ml only), fountain sodas, fresh juices (if available), specialty coffees and teas, Gong Cha items, Frappés at Coffee & Cones, milk shakes (if available) and Red Bull energy drinks.
  
• The package provides a 25% discount on the following excluded items: all bottles of wine, one liter bottles of water, canned soda and bottled juices.
  
• The package may be used on our private islands, all food and beverage venues, and other areas such as the theater or public spaces that offer beverage service. Selections and service are limited to each venue’s menu offerings and operating hours.
  
• If dining at a specialty dining venue, a large bottle of water (one liter) of still or sparkling is covered by the package.
  

The second bullet point answers your question--ALL specialty coffees and teas. No need for a coffee package in addition.

Thanks! I read this earlier today on their website but wasn't sure if the this was limited to getting specialty coffees at one of the bars. Wanted to be sure IC wasn't excluded.

I'm new to Princess. We are on the Coral next month and have the PBP. Can this be used for specialty coffee/tea at the International Cafe? I'm trying to figure out if I need the coffee package too.