JSSpence

I just want to jump on the Glacier Wind bandwagon. We had seen them highly recommended on this site and as a result booked with them for June 2022. Our ship was several hours late arriving in port and they rearranged the schedule to make it work for our us and our fellow passengers. Captain Casey was awesome and took us to a spot where we saw so much - we even had a baby humpback starting bumping and playing against the boat. We loved the small boat experience vs some of the bigger boats we saw. In addition, they paid such extra special attention to our 10 year old. We highly recommend them to anyone stopping in ISP!

Don’t be scared off by the discussion of the weather. We’re on an Alaska cruise right now and the past few days have been sunny and clear - and the sun is intense and shining for something like 20 hours of the day, so it’s been feeling really warm. People were laying out in bikinis poolside yesterday. It’s totally unpredictable, so for every cool and rainy day someone experienced, someone else got bright and toasty days. 

We were there for most of today. Ovation pulled up in that area and tendered everyone to the shore.

We were in Skagway today. We did a small group bus tour into the Yukon but saw lots of other folks in rentals, so it seemed pretty easily feasible. Would have liked more time in Skagway to explore after the tour, but RCI Radiance had an early-ish all-aboard in order to make a second call for the day at Haines. 

Hi, we are disembarking from our ship the morning of July 1 and not flying out until the evening of July 3 (red-eye to the east coast). It’ll be me, my husband, and our 10 yo son. We are staying right by Canada Place. I’ve been looking, but are there tours you all recommend as the best way to hit the city’s highlights? My husband has some mobility issues that flare up, so we can’t count on him being able to walk for hours on end. On our list of potential targeted time are the Canada Day celebrations, the aquarium, and maybe a baseball game. Also, any restaurant recommendations for two adventurous eating adults and a picky kid?
thanks!!!!!

According to the official site, no fireworks this year and festivities end at 6 pm

I’m a bit overwhelmed trying to research and find excursions for our June trip on Radiance if the Seas. I’m using RCCL’s site as a starting point but I know there will be more options outside of their list. What are the companies you’ve had good experiences with before to even see the lists of possibilities? Skagway Tours, Alaska Shore Excursions, etc? I don’t know who might be more reputable and reliable than others, etc. We’ve nailed down whale watching in ISP and will be doing glacier dog-sledding inland before we board the ship. It’ll be me, my husband, and our active 10 yo son. Thanks!

On 2/1/2022 at 6:57 PM, AKStafford said:

According to their website: https://icystraitpoint.com/tour/worlds-largest-ziprider-and-scenic-mountain-ascent/ , they want you to book through the cruise line.

We have a whale-watching trip booked with Glacier Wind. The zip line looks awesome, but I’m not sure my very skinny kid will hit 75 lbs in time 😆

What was the animal rescue in Skagway? We haven’t decided if we’ll do the train or not, we’re looking for active/interactive things for our 10 yo

On 1/28/2022 at 2:26 PM, Lowyfer said:

 

Just the one time we did our Alaska cruise. As mentioned we are from the pacific north west so a lot of the culture, history, and wild life is the norm for us.

 

When in Icey Point we walked along the boardwalk and passed the restaurent(s) and such. Looked at the zip line from the bottom.. did a little browsing at the few shops they had. Enjoyed the mini-cannery mueseum. On our way back to the boat we did a short nature walk through the forrest and noticed "Hey what the heck flower is that? We do not have that one where we come from."

 

We ended up going back to the boat pretty early to use our drink package and go for a swim.

 

The other ports had WAY more shopping which is not exactly our thing but I did buy a wat- wait, I am informed I have to call it a "time piece".

 

For other ports:

 

We did the mendenhall glacier by taking a bus (not with cruise) which was amazing. They have a neat interpretive center and I got to see white fuzzy mountain goats! Not the usual big horn I am used to seeing on the highway but the small fuzzy ones. We also did the nature walk to the waterfall and looked at the glacier. It was great!

 

We went to an animal rescue and saw a bunch of animals that I had not seen in person before. I saw a Lynx which was amazing. Whatched a wolverine bite a guy right on his butt. I kissed a moose right on it's schnoz! and also fed a cariboo some food. That was skagway which caused us to miss doing the train trip everyone does instead. We are doing that and the saloon on our upcoming trip this year.

 

We did a kayak trip post cruise in seward so that we could kayak amongst ice burgs, that was awesome. We also did a glaicer husky dog sled thing post cruise (found what I thought was the most ethical, and with snow).

 

Those were the big things we did. Whale watching we did not do because when not cruising we go to a kayak camping spot where they wander by twice or more a day so was not a must see for us.

 

So again for us icey point did not have that much to offer and totally understand why someone from across the planet would be way more hype about it.

 

Sitka is a new port for us this trip and we are ALL over the eagle and bear rescues. Super excited to do that.

 

 

We (early 40s couple and active 10 yo child) will be on RCCL Radiance SB trip in late June. We want to do a whale-watching trip at one of the stops. Are there advantages to what you’ll see in one port vs another? We’ll also have a stop in Skagway and haven’t figured that one out yet either. Thanks!

Hi all, thanks for all the inputs as we refine our June 2022 trip! A bucket list item for us is glacier-based sled dog excursion. We recognize that this is the most cancelled excursion and are ok with that risk. Booking through RCL adds about $700 to the cost for my family of 3 vs booking directly with the tour company. What are the pros and cons of each? I searched in the boards and saw one anecdote about a group getting stranded on the glacier and those who booked directly had to pay to catch up with their ship, but I wasn't sure if that was .1% type occurrence. Our plan would be to book earlier in the day, so that other than type of freak occurrence we're safely back on the ship in time. Thanks!

We’ve been debating the same. On our itinerary we’ll hit Juneau before Skagway. I’ve been thinking of planning to do it in Juneau so that if weather causes a cancellation, we can try again in Skagway.

33 minutes ago, Glaciers said:

You’d certainly have time to do Denali but have to wonder if it’s worth spending that much time, or anytime really, at Denali. The road is closed at mile 43 due to a rock slide. It takes 5 hours from Anchorage if traffic is good to get to Denali.  There is just so much good stuff to do in south central Alaska that you won’t be able to do.  Ashland’s suggestion of dropping the car in Seward is good although the drop fees are crazy.

 

Thanks - we’ve been wondering too about the Denali factor. My husband wants to do some easy hiking. What would you suggest we concentrate on in south central Alaska in that time instead? The super high drop fees are basically what are deterring us from trying to drop in Seward vs returning to Anchorage.

After postponing from 2021 to 2022, we (myself, husband, and 10 yo son) are scheduled to cruise one -way from Seward to Vancouver in June. We’re planning to rent a car for our own in-land trip before the cruise. Right now, we’re thinking of flying in to Anchorage, so Night 1 in Anchorage, Nights 2-4 around Denali (to allow for two full days at the park), Night 5 in the Girdwood/Alyeska area (so we can do the Wildlife Conservation Center and maybe gold mining), Night 6 back in Anchorage, and then take the train to Seward on cruise departure day. Does this sound reasonable/good to those of you who have been before?

Hmm, we are scheduled to go Southbound from Seward in June. I’m highly skeptical that will happen. We would want to do the Lift and Shift to 2022. Wondering whether we should try to make that happen, or wait for the cancellation and see if they then tack on a sweetener to the lift and shift?

What’s the fine print on refunds for cancellation? Next summer is still so up in the air COVID-wise, I’m afraid to commit to anything 😆

This is something we're watching too. Pre-COVID we had figured we would book as many of our excusions independently as possible for our June 2021 cruise. But current rules are that you have to stay "within your cruise bubble" and use only the cruise's excursions. Not sure how that will be affected by the fact that the Alaska excursions are US ports - watching and waiting!

Thanks everyone! We went ahead and purchased the beverage packages, figuring that we can cancel and re-book if the price drops even more. We recently benefitted from a price drop in our fare of more than the beverage package costs, so I'm thinking of this as a "free beverage package" type benefit. Now to focus on excursions and crossing our fingers that we can sail June 2021 as planned (if not, we'll be going through all of this again for 2022). 

Thanks - my husband will make his way through a lot of sparkling water and our understanding is that he’ll need the refreshment package for that. So I’m looking at that as $20 a day already gone - unless two or three sparkling waters/club sodas per day would be less than the package?

Hi all, we are currently booked for an Alaska (one way southbound) cruise for June 2021. Obviously many things up in the air but we’re trying to plan cruise-wise as if it will happen. Current offer through tomorrow has Deluxe Beverage for $43 per day and Deluxe Beverage + 1 surf and stream for $51 per day. We definitely need the refreshment package and a surf & stream for my husband, and I was on the fence for a refreshment and a surf add-on. We both enjoy a couple of drinks with dinner, and I could easily see us ordering a couple without a package, so this current pricing/packaging is tempting me. Is $43 for one and $51 (for the voom add-on) a good deal? 

Following, I had the same question! 🙂

Hi Margie, I love your blog - thank you so much for posting it! It is VERY similar to what we are hoping to do. Did you work with an agency to arrange the car and book the hotels, or did you do it all yourself? If you did it all yourself, how was the work to do so? Thanks!!!!

What does Royal Caribbean consider "specialty beer" that is excluded from the package? For example, we really only drink craft beer, vs Budweiser/Coors, etc. We'll be doing an Alaska cruise, and have heard that they often sell local Alaska craft beer on board. Would those be covered, or is craft beer what is considered "specialty"?

Thanks for the input so far. It looks like RCI is adjusting the Radiance deck plans over the next couple years. When I look at the deck plans for our June 2021 sailing, it shows this cabin with a triangle for a sofa bed, rather than the asterisk for the Pullman. The 9th deck cabins appear to all be a tier above ours, as spa cabins and whatnot. There was one or two cabins on the other side with the triangle as well, I’ll ask my TA if those carry a surcharge.