nytoalaska23

Ok great, thanks so much, I will go look at the brochure now. Although the idea of not having to do the 12 hour flight from NYC to Anchorage with little ones is appealing, it sounds like the land portion tour of these cruise tours that are round trip to Vancouver or Seattle may still be too much for my kids. No way am I signing up for an 9 hour bus ride from Denali to Seward to catch the ship (which is what a previous poster said the last leg would be). Seems like doing either the 14 day sea only cruise or doing just the 7 day cruise together and having people do what they want on the land are probably our best options.

Awesome, that's exactly what I was wondering. That itinerary doesn't sound too bad, i was hoping they flew you from Seattle or Vancouver up toward Denali. I know we will basically still be doing a 12 hour flight on one of the legs, but we can break it up by staying overnight in Seattle which would be easier on the kids i think.

Got it, will look into open jaw or multi-city, I forgot about that option. Thanks

Thanks, I didn't realize that when you look at the "list" view of the itinerary, at least for R1C, that it shows you the train and bus symbols. I am still confused because even though it seems there would have to be a flight to get you from Fairbanks to Seattle in one day, there is no plane or flight symbol listed - it just shows a bus on day 12 taking you from Fairbanks to Seattle and it says you get to Seattle days 13-14; is it even possible that they take a 2 day bus trip, it would have to be almost non stop and quite miserable i would think? I'd prefer the 12 hour flight over a very long bus trip, but this is what i'm trying to figure out. Another thought, I would think if they do fly you from Fairbanks to Seattle as part of the tour it would cost more than it does?

Yes, I will look into open jaw, but no I don't believe there are any direct flights NYC to Alaska (anchorage has more flights going in than fairbanks and i couldn't find direct flights to either), so I know it will be at least a 12 hour flight on one of the legs, which is what I'd like to avoid. It's only about a 6 hour direct flight from Seattle or Vancouver, which is doable and what we would prefer.

I haven't yet, but it isn't only the in-laws that want to do the land portion - i think its basically everyone else on the trip except for my family and maybe the family with the 1 yr. old (but they may still want to go for it); so about 14 of the people in the group want to do the land and are old enough to enjoy it, 6 of us may not. I'm going to meet with them soon and lay out all the options, so that we can decide what works best for the group - possibly the 14 day sea only cruise (if the really want all of us to be together the whole time); or if they don't care about splitting up a few of us may skip the land tour portion and just meet up for the cruise. I'm still trying to decide if the land tour is doable for my young family, we WANT to do it, but i don't want a trip that's more misery for us than happy memories, i am a realistic person. Like i said, the flight thing is a bummer, not only because a 12 hour flight to Alaska is very long but then we'd also have to get one way flights to Alaska and then home from Vancouver or Seattle, which will cost more and be more of a pain then flying round trip from the same city. We may have to do it, but i'm exploring options.

Hi there, i've got a large family group looking to do an Alaskan cruise next summer. Most of the land and sea tours I have found so far seem to require you to either fly into Alaska or home from Alaska (depending on if you cruise 1st or 2nd). We live in NY, which would be at least a 12 hour flight into Alaska (not to mention having to get one way flights) and we have some very young kids going on the trip, so I was looking to alternatives so that we could maybe avoid the 12 hour flight on one leg of the trip. I know about the 14 day Alaskan cruise that HAL offers into and out of Seattle, and that is a possible option for us, but there is no land tour with this trip and some members of the group may really want to travel to Denali. I came across a few other 14 day Alaskan cruise tours that seem to depart and return to the same city, either Vancouver or Seattle, and I'm curious about what the land portion of the tour actually entails because I can't seem to find many details. I'm just wondering how they get you from up near Fairbanks/Denali down to either Vancouver or Seattle during the land tour - do they fly you as part of the tour, or are you on a very long bus or train ride? It just seems that there wouldn't be enough time for that journey in 7 days (if you are actually visiting places on land as well), so I'm curious. If any of you have taken this type of cruise or have any information about the travel itinerary for the land portion it would be so helpful. Thanks so much - here are the cruises i've found:

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/A9N07AR1C/W943.html

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/A9S07BY2L/W946.html

Well, I have spoken with 2 travel agents so far, neither of whom seem to know half of what you all do about Alaskan cruises, and both seem to want to heavily push Princess. I'm learning a lot, just in the past few days of researching and i'm starting to at least narrow down our options so that we can decide what we want to do, then we'll probably just have the travel agent take care of the booking process. Because of the "not really wanting to take a 12 hour flight into Alaska" issue I've been looking for alternatives other than the 14 day cruise (which is still a possible option) and I came across a few cruise tours from HAL that claim to be 14 day land and sea tours that depart and return to the same city, either Seattle or Vancouver. I can't find any details about the actual itinerary of the tour really, but am curious about how they get from Vancouver up to Denali/Fairbanks (which is what the map shows) or from Denali down to Seattle (depending on which option you pick). Has anyone done one of these type of cruise tours? Do they fly you from one to the other for a portion of the land tour, or is this a really long train or bus ride? It just didn't seem they'd have time to get you from one to the other on land in 7 days? Here are the cruises I'm talking about, i'll post on the Holland cruise board also:

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/A9S07BY2L/W946.html

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/A9N07AR1C/W943.html

Ok, so it was easy to determine fairly quickly that we could only do that type of itinerary if we wanted to travel for 17 days, because no one appears to offer 5-6 day one way cruises... and i still haven't looked at if it would be more costly to do a Princess cruise one way and then HAL (or a diff one) the other; but it might be fun to get to experience 2 different ships. Has anyone done this? Wolfiee recommended an itinerary similar to this awhile ago, so thank you for that.

I will definitely talk to my in-laws about the difficulties that going to Denali may present. I would be on board for the 14 day cruise option, it would be the easiest for my family, but i'm not sure they will want to do that, it does seem like a LONG time on a boat and I think seeing Denali and doing some type of land tour is important to them. They are paying for most of the trip, they don't seem too concerned with the costs since the different cruises we've looked at seem pretty comparable so far, the families are happy to pay for whatever portion my in-laws decide; it may be that we pay for our own flights, not sure yet, they want a cruise that's all inclusive as far as dining and drinks anyway. I think the perfect compromise for us (and i'm sure this doesn't exist of course) would be a round trip cruise out of Seattle or Vancouver that took about 5 days north bound, and then we could do a 3 day break in Anchorage and everyone could do what they wanted (go see Denali, or just hang around close by) and then do another 5-6 day southbound cruise back to Vancouver or Seattle. I am going to see if this is a viable option, but I'm guessing we would have to book 2 one-way cruises, maybe with different cruise lines, and that sounds like it could cost considerably more money. Doing it this way would eliminate the 11-12 hour flight (or more) to Alaska, which would be a huge bonus, not just for my family but for everyone i think. I'm sure i'm just wishful thinking with what is basically 10-11 day round trip cruise with a 3 day layover in Anchorage though. : ) Thanks again so much for all your advice everyone, I am taking it all in.

No, I haven’t done that yet, but good idea - I will ask the cruise boards, thanks.

It's a good suggestion, if we need to we may skip out on the land portion and meet up with the family for the cruise part, but I know it would disappoint my in-laws, which I really don't want to do. There are really only 2 families with very young children - mine (a 2 and 6 yr. old), and another family has a 1 year old. All the rest of the kids are 11 and up, so their families will be fine with the land tour I think. I'm finding it difficult to find actual details about the land/cruise tours, like the time we would need to leave our hotel, how long the train/bus ride would be to Talkeetna (or wherever), and etc., the actual itinerary for each day. I'm hoping that a travel agent will be able to give me more nitty gritty details so I can figure out what to do about the land tour? Or am I just missing this information somewhere?

Thanks for all the advice, I am currently trying to get in touch with a "good" travel agent who knows quite a bit about Alaska tours, we will see how that goes, i've reached out to a couple people. Maybe I should've said that this trip is not for me, I am helping my in-laws try and put it together, but this is a dream trip that they want to take with everyone in the family for their 50th wedding anniversary. As I will have a 2.5 year old at the time, believe me when I say that it is not an ideal time for us to be taking him on an Alaskan adventure, but we all want to do this once in a lifetime trip for them. And if i could, I would probably cut out Denali, or maybe the land portion altogether, but it is really important to them, and so we will forge on and do the best we can to build the best family vacation we can. Unfortunately, my son and another child won't even be old enough to take advantage of the kids club programs on the ships - does anyone know of any that allow 2 year olds? Thanks again!

Thanks new cruiser, you are exactly right, those are the kinds of things that are so helpful to know. I didn't realize the distances would be problematic, we were just picking stops that seemed to be the most desired by the group and show up on many diff cruise tours. I will start by looking at a map of Alaska more closely. We will be flying out of NY and I didn't realize that we may need to fly into either Anchorage or Fairbanks if we want to do the southbound cruise on the second part of the trip. That may change our plans because I think that would be over a 10 hour flight in most cases, or probably more, with at least one layover. I would really like to try and avoid this because we do have several very small children and that is such a long flight. I was thinking we could fly to and from either Seattle or Vancouver, but maybe that's not possible? Even if we do the northbound cruise first, then the land, we may still need to fly out of Alaska on the way home, is that right? I def don't want to fly into and out of Alaska, I don't think the group can handle 2 flights like that; I guess we could handle it if we HAD to one way (preferably on the way home I think).

I have considered going to a travel agent, and maybe I will do that, but I at least wanted to educate myself about our options first. I've just never used a travel agent for anything in the past, but we've never traveled with a group this large.

Hi there, I am new to the cruise world and could use quite a bit of help trying to navigate putting together an Alaska land and sea tour for the beginning of August 2019. It is going to be a large family trip, there are 20 of us in the group and we range in age from 1.5 years - 70 years old (more than half of the family will be kids ages 1-18). I have started trying to research this on my own, but all of the options and information avail. is overwhelming, so I was hoping you all might be able to give me some advice to guide me in the right direction. I am trying to decide which cruise line to choose, looks like Princess or HAL are the most popular options and we were leaning toward one of them. We are pretty flexible in what we'd like to do, we just want an awesome Alaska experience, this is what I think our preferences are:

Land first, Cruise second (we've been told that it is a more relaxing vacation this way, especially with all the kids?)

2 days in Denali

Glacier Bay

Sitka looks like a nice stop (but as fewer tours seem to go here it's def. not a deal breaker)

14 day trip (or 12-14 days)

It would be nice to be able to fly into and depart from the same city, but also not a deal breaker

I think the land part is more important to us than the cruise portion

I have read that it is a much better option to plan your own land tour, instead of doing one of the pre-programmed ones offered. I completely understand this and would absolutely pick this option if I were just planning a trip for my small family of 4, but because I am trying to organize a trip for 20 i think it is just too much. We have a couple of very small children in the group, so a land tour where there was not a ton of waiting around or very long transfers between places would be best. We have to fly into Seattle or Vancouver looks like, which will already be a long flight for some of the little ones (6 hours), so after that trek we are hoping we will have some much shorter bus/train trips. I know this is a lot to ask, and I am not giving you many specifics, but any help/advice you might have for me about which cruise line and tour suggestions would be so greatly appreciated. I apologize for my ignorance in advance, but i have never been on a cruise (and that is true for most of the people in the group), so please bare with me. Thank you so much for your help in advance.