juantu

Evergreen taxi has a 35 fee per car. Google them and call them. One of their vehicles can seat 10.

Also if anyone has the daily menus that would be appreciated.

oh yes, that too.

Does anyone have any copies of dailies of solstice 7 day cruise out of Seattle that they would like to share?

Does anyone know which dock was affected by the rock slides? We are on the Solstice shortly and just wondering if they are the ones tendering.

Thank you in advance.

You can rent a taxi ahead of time from Evergreen for 35 dollars one way to the Glacier for the vehicle, not per person. They have a vehicle that can hold 10 people. If you have a national park pass, you do not have to pay the 5 dollar fee for the glacier. You pass is good for you and up to 3 other people.

We have decided to rent a vehicle from Avis. The good news is that the Avis DT location is close to where Solstice has been docking recently. You can go to google earth and see where the ships are docking too.

My trip is during the summer and I found that it is good to read previous posts for information.

Port 2 - Juneau

 

We had reserved a car with Juneau Car Rentals. They are a local company, with older cars to rent. They have dings, they have miles, and they get you where you want to go for a decent price. It was $67 all in for the day. It was on the next dock over from where the ship was. They had let me know Princess usually uses that dock, and they were near the next dock. You walk off the ship, the road is right there, and walk up the road to the right. But it isn't "just to the right" it is a bit of a walk because you walk on around the outside, then take a right on the next road and walked a ways back in and have to watch the signs to guide you. It is a doable walk, there is some uphill on the road, but want to paint a picture if you have mobility issues. We would use them again.

 

From there we took out for Mendenhall Glacier. It was an easy drive (they gave us a map at the rental). I believe it was $5 to park. It is a short walk to the visitor center up a switch back sidewalk, or follow the path down closer to the water and at the side of the building you will see a covered area from the building, down that walk you can get an elevator up.

 

We didn't hit the center until after. We first walked a pretty flat trail to a shore area closer to the glacier. What I didn't know would be there, was a large, forceful waterfall to the right of the glacier. It was beautiful. We spent some time just looking at it all. Make sure you look around Nugget Falls! There are mountain goats in the area. We were able to watch two of them. They were pretty far up, and I unfortunately couldn't get a great shot, but it was super fun!

 

 

The below pic is not the best one I have ever taken, but I love it because it shows the scale with the people at the base of the fall.s

 

After we spent some time at the visitor center looking at the exhibits, some ice from the glacier they had brought in earlier that day, and a short film, we drove further (North, I believe) to Eagle Beach. Unfortunately, there weren't any Eagles, but it was beautiful. I had read about it on here, as well as the Rental Car Employee mentioning it. It is kind of like a park area, and you can walk out the inlet to the ocean.

 

 

It was lunch time by now, so we set out to find Sandbar - a local bar that was mentioned I post I started requesting "local" things not on the typical tourist path. It was very much a bar where we ate (I think there may be more of a restaurant area, but I am not positive.) We had the fish and chips. Haddock and fries. Super good!

 

 

We had a later lunch, and waking up very early every morning since starting out trip, was starting to hit me. It was about 1:30/2. Husband took me back to the ship, and he set out to find the trail up Mt Roberts to hike. While planning this trip, I had shared our plans for the day. At that time I had thought we would take the tram up, and hike around. Someone shared with me this was not a good idea (I am paraphrasing again) because we were too early and it would be muddy and not good hiking conditions. Neither on the trail up, or at the top, was this the case. My point is, you cannot pigeon hole how things are going to be. Just like at home, weather is not always the same from May to May - or August to August. So check the conditions closer to arriving, or when you arrive, and adjust your plans accordingly. Don't knock something out based on how things have been other years, or in others experience. (Did I mention how nice the weather was for us - we were so blessed!!) If you hike up, and buy something small worth $10 (the naturalist said a $5 beer, but it must have gone up since the last time he checked) from the gift shop, you can ride the tram down for free.

 

Something to keep in mind, there is a Fred Meyer's in town (grocery store) if you need something, and it is a $50 taxi ride there and back. Don't ask me how I know, just sharing information...... (I was not the one that took the taxi!) I am sure if you really did need something, there would be options closer, and not requiring a taxi surely.

 

After some rest in our cabin, I felt much better. It may have had something to do with all that fried food as much as anything. Not my regular diet. The husband got back to the ship after returning the car, etc. about 5. We cleaned up not long after and went to dinner. Yummm.

 

 

 

Tonight's show was a country artist, and not really our genre, so we went and watch a performer that was becoming our favorite, Mary Simon. She was a solo performer who played piano and guitar and sang songs from the 70's and later. We watched her several times in the afternoon of sea days and in the evenings.

 

And then, the fuddy dud (that would be me) went to bed. We were so out of sink, I needed to go to sleep at night, and a flip for us, the husband wanted to sleep in the morning and I would be up and sometimes out the door.

 

Something to mention. We did watch a couple of the movies in the cabin. The first night we set out to watch the Black Panther at Movies Under the Stars. We went to the second show. They didn't have any blankets, only towels. About 1/4 of the way in, when I decided this was not fun (the wind had picked up as the ship speed picked up I think), and we were walking back to our cabin, we saw them hand someone one. I don't know if they had to wash and dry between movies?? But it would have been nice to have one, not sure I still would have stayed. They had a few movies I had not seen, so we did watch a couple of them in the cabin.They replay them the next day on the on ship tv system. Don't let people make you feel guilty that you enjoy down time in your cabin! You are on vacation, do what you want to relax. You do not have to be go, go, going every minute. Or so I keep trying tell my husband!

How long does it take to hike up MT. Roberts? Trying to figure this possibility into our plans.

Thank you in advance.

Thank you for sharing. Even though I am going on a different cruise, your planning process is helping me out. Can't wait to read the rest?

I'd have a reservation in place, with a long port day, you could arrange someone on the dock. Key with a car- is to just go to the whale watch yourself. Don't waste time back tracking. Combo trips are usually short on time and best, as mentioned above, for people with short port times.

Our plan is to rent a car and go to Mendenhall Glacier. Now some of you are talking about whale watching on your own. Where is a good place to look for whales? Thank you in advance.

I new to this. How do you find out how many rooms are available on a cruise?

I left out the word am.

I'm on Summit June 27th cruise. You are most likely on another cruise. I just saw someone post that they were on the 6/27 cruise on your post. The 27th cruise shows lots of availability and several have reported move up offers. It will take a major reduction in price for that cruise to fill. Sadly the price continues to rise in spite of availability and I haven't been able to move up without losing benefits.

I new to this. How do you find out how many rooms are available on a cruise?

Hello!

 

My DH and I just got back from our very first cruise to Alaska and first cruise on Celebrity. I did see a live review of my same sailing posted but different perspective can always be great. We are in our late 20s, and were told quite a few times that we were young for celebrity but I really enjoyed our laid back vacation. As a child I cruised quite a bit on different lines with my family but as an adult I have only sailed Royal and Carnival. I booked about a year and half ago to adequately plan our trip and have everything paid off in a comfortable amount of time. We originally booked a Veranda on Deck 7, but after a few price drops, I paid a small amount to upgrade us to Aqua Class.

 

Vancouver

We arrived in Vancouver on Thursday the day before our cruise. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency downtown which was just lovely. We only had half a day in the city so didn't get a ton of time to explore it. DH and I really enjoy tea, specifically pu'erh so we sought out the Treasure Green Tea Company, which had a fantastic selection of product that we can usually only order online. Tea Master Olivia prepared us some wonderful samples as well. If you have any interest in tea and ever find yourself in Vancouver I highly recommend going to her store. We had dinner at Chambar, a delicious Belgian restaurant with a wide array of Belgian beers and seafood.

 

Embarkation

DH and I had a rather smooth process for embarkation. We took a taxi from the Hyatt to Canada Place around 10:45AM. We went through the AQ line. We also invested into Global entry for the customs and TSA-Pre benefits. Canada Place does have a Global Entry line so we were able to bypass a rather large line for the separate Global Entry line which only had one other couple in front of us. In total it probably took us about 30-40min to get onto the ship.

 

The Ship

As I am sure many of you know the Solstice class ship was wonderful, no signs of wear and tear and great upkeep. We only really encountered one issue and this may sound rather silly but the Arcade was pretty sad. Half of the games were broken and the others that worked hardly did everything also was kind of sticky. I understand that there are not many children on Celebrity and it may not be a huge money maker for them, but DH and I enjoy video games and would have loved to see it in working condition.

 

We also really loved the Hot Glass Show, I am sad to hear that they are simply turning it into another paid experience. Hopefully they will do both shows along with the experiences.

 

Aqua Class

We loved our room, we stayed in cabin 1601 which was the third on the hump. The balcony was easily three times as large as a standard one. The welcome champagne was in the mini fridge, along with a free bottle of water. The shower was great, and we did use the robe and slippers a few times. We ate a Blu almost every night, with the exception of eating at Murano the first. We never experienced any long waits, but we also did not request a specific waiter/waitress or seat by the window. I believe there was a wait for some who were more specific were they wanted to sit. We had Breakfast in Blu twice which was also very good. We received our daily canapés only on the first day, and never saw them again, they were fine and we ate them. I'm surprised we didn't have any more delivered throughout the cruise. I also didn't go out of my way to request them one we noticed they stopped showing up. We also didn't receive any tea.

 

Ketchikan

We did not have an excursion planned for our day in Ketchikan. Instead I did some research previous to going on the cruise and found Deer Mountain Trail. It was one of the tougher hikes i've done and took us about 1 hour to reach the first lookout a mile away. It pretty much was climbing up rock steps and some stairs the entire way, but we had a really good time on the trail. The first lookout was beautiful and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys hiking. After our hike we headed down to Creek Street to look around and then headed back on the ship.

 

 

 

Tracy Arm Fjord

I woke up at about 6am to us traveling down Tracy Arm towards Sawyer Glacier. It was truly breathtaking to see everything up close from my balcony. The glacier was really amazing too, the captain rotated the ship 360 degrees so everyone could get a great view. My balcony neighbors even remarked that they enjoyed Tracy Arm and Sawyer Glacier more than Glacier Bay because we were able to get so close. I have never been to Glacier Bay so I cannot remark on that.

 

 

 

 

Juneau

Prior to the Cruise I had booked the Tracy Arm Fjord Explorer, to have it cancelled about 2 months before the cruise. I had a lot of back and forth between shorex@rccl.com initially telling me to rebook the excursion with a code that didn't exist. And they managed to "Look into the situation" up until the cruise date after many emails. I basically had to reach out to the excursion provider for them to confirm that excursion would not be taking place that day. It was very disappointing to basically have them ignore me about the excursion, when I could easily find out myself that it was cancelled.

 

After I finally had confirmation from the excursion provider that it was cancelled I decided to book at different excursion through a third party company. We chose Mendenhall Glacier, Canoe Paddle and Trek with Liquid Alaska. It was amazing the excursion started with a canoe paddle across Mendenhall Lake to the glacier where we put on provided crampons and hiked on the actual glacier itself. So beautiful and a very unique experience, we had a touch of rain during the canoe paddle, but Liquid Alaska provided us with rain gear so we managed to stay mostly dry. The Canoe paddle was no joke though and I worked mussels that I hadn't in a while, about 45min both ways. After our excursion ended it was still a bit rainy in Juneau so we just went right back to the ship for dinner and showers.

 

 

 

Skagway

In Skagway we had our only Celebrity purchased excursion. Helicopter ride with a Dog Sled. We were picked up at the port and taken to the Helicopter base, after a safety video and some equipment we were up in the air on the helicopter. Simply breathtaking and a view of the mountains and glaciers like I have never seen before. It was a bit short maybe 15 minutes but then we landed on Denver Glacier for the Dog Sled experience. All of the dogs seemed very well taken care of and very excited whenever it was time to hooked up to the sleds. We took a short dog sled ride around with a musher and then back on the helicopter we went. It was simply amazing but a bit on the expensive side for the time allotted. After our excursion we explored downtown a bit, stepping in a few local breweries.

 

 

 

Victoria

We weren't able to get off the ship in Victoria until about 5:30PM, I thought about booking the Butchart Gardens excursion but thought we wouldn't have enough time before sundown. Instead we just walked around downtown stopping into a few shops such as Rogers Chocolates, and Partea (which sold cheese tea sounds gross but it was delicious). We also visited miniature world a very cute miniature display.

 

Disembarkation

We were able to stay in our rooms until 8AM, and we called off the ship quickly after. Everything went rather smoothly with the exception of the massive taxi line, about a 40 minute wait.

 

Seattle

We spend the night at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle. We had a nice lunch at Mamoon a delicious middle eastern restaurant, and dinner at Shiro's sushi. Best sushi I have had in my entire life, so fresh and delicious! We walked around pikes place for a bit and went to Chihuly Glass museum as well.

 

Overall

I had a really wonderful time on my first celebrity cruise. We really enjoyed the laid back nature of the ship and did not feel the need for any of the extras such as rock walls. We definitely found the food to be a step above carnival and royal. We loved the musicians especially the Jazz Band that a few times. Yes the drive to sell was high, but after telling people we already had the premium package, and a dinner reservation at Murano then left us alone for the most part.

 

I was a little disappointed with the towns themselves I could not believe just how touristy they were. Seeing Diamonds International and Del Sol's really reminded me of being in the Caribbean again. But I suppose these towns are driven mainly on tourism so it makes some sense. The surrounds however were astonishing. I cannot wait to plan my next Celebrity cruise :)

Thank you for sharing for trip with us.

You are most welcome! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. :)

Looking to rent a car and saw that you rented from Juneau Car Rental. I just called and the vehicles we need are a 207 and 2008. Did you have any issues with your vehicle?

If you want to send me a private message that is okay. I tried to send one to you, but I did not know how to do it.

This is way late, but I finally finished my trip report from last May.

 

Celebrity Solstice 7 nt. Tracy Arm Fjord out of Seattle, WA

May 18, 2017

Three generations girls trip

 

Warning: Long with lots of pictures.

 

https://diserella.blogspot.com/p/seattlealaska.html

Thank you for sharing. We are going on the same trip in August and our plan is basically the same as yours. Great to have some background knowledge before we go.

Thank you for all your ideas. I went to Costco travel and they wanted 300 dollars for a van. I will check additional companies and see what I can come up with.

 

Keep sending suggestions. We want to see the Shrine of St. Therese but nixed it because of difficulty in getting there. We don't want to be stranded after being dropped off by a taxi.

Okay I did try again and it looks like it defaulted to the next day, so the price was for 24 hours. I will look more.

Thank you for all your ideas. I went to Costco travel and they wanted 300 dollars for a van. I will check additional companies and see what I can come up with.

Keep sending suggestions. We want to see the Shrine of St. Therese but nixed it because of difficulty in getting there. We don't want to be stranded after being dropped off by a taxi.

I hear the train conductor will make you switch sides, so everyone is able to take in the view.

You can book a taxi for the return, too. People post about it there all the time. Have you checked into renting a car for the day? How big is your party? A rental might not be much more than the taxi RT plus you can go wherever you want whenever you want.

I will check out the taxi and like the flexibility it can bring. Not exactly sure how many of our friend will do our plan just yet. Thank you.

I called the shuttle company last night to see if we could get a one way ticket back from the M. Glacier and they said no. I believe they said that buses run every 30 minutes.

We were hoping to take a taxi there and then take the shuttle back. A taxi is only 35 one way for the vehicle (not per person) and taxi companies have different passenger cars.

There is a city bus but I understand it take an hour to get there and they only stop at the entrance to the MH glacier. You would then need to walk just over a mile to get to the visitor center.

Thank you for such a wonderful review, just makes me even more excited about our forthcoming trip but alas not until 7 September

 

Margaret and Bernie

Thank you for the update live. Our first cruise is around the corner and all you live updates allowed us to gain some background knowledge of our future ports.

Just a few questions...

If we have booked a non-cruise kayak tour in Ketchikan, are we allowed to disembark with everyone else or do we have to wait until the cruise excursions people have left the ship.

A few posts ago, you had a picture of the ship and you can see the lifeboats all lit up. In the evening, if your room is near the lifeboats, do you think your room would be bright?

One more special request and I realize that is could be way above and beyond, but I thought I would ask. If you have still have the dailies, could you scan them and post them? I am not a spring chicken and I had a hard time reading some of them. However, I do appreciate what you already have done.

Thanks. It's probably going to flop just like it did when they started charging for burgers at the Mast Grill.

 

Enjoyed reading your review and the great pictures.

Do they really charge for burgers at the Mast Grill.? I new to this and this is good to know.

Wow, what an adventure.

Thank you for sharing.

It may be longer than you want to do, but last year we did the Yukon Adventure and White Pass Railway excursion. We went by bus up to White Pass and beyond to get to the Yukon (amazingly scenic and we saw a bear on the side of the road!) and then turned around, had lunch at a sort of gorge with a suspension bridge and then took the train down. I recommend it.

 

 

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Can you tell me what the code is for your excursion. Thank you in advance.

Thanks for your quick reply. Since you are on your way to Skagway, I have a question for you. We are going there in August with the Solstice. We are trying to book the train trip and I am so confused and have received conflicting information from Solstice.

Do you know which trip (short trip) goes by bus to White Pass and does a return on the train. If you can answer great, but please don't waste you precious cruise time.

Thank you for sharing. I read on another post of tracking a ship and of course I put in the Solstice. It looks like the Solstice is docked the furthest away from Juneau. Is that the case? What/how/who determines which ship is docked closest to the city. I went to Google Earth and see that it is very close to a mile to the city.

Thank you in advance.

On Celebrity these tours I believe are offered. Can't tell the difference.

SK-88 - bus up, train back to town.

SK-01 - is it the train both ways. Believe it goes 20 miles up on train.

How far up does SK-88 go up?

Is SK-01 on a train both ways?

Thank you for your help.