sharon_pei

6 hours ago, Coral said:

If this is the end of your cruise - you can book the transfer on the ship.

 

Though your travel agent should be able to book a transfer from Whittier to Anchorage. They often will taken you to the Egan Center as a holding spot. You can leave your luggage there and explore Anchorage until your flight. There is then several shuttles to the airport as most flights are late.

 

What time is your flight from Anchorage? That potentially could cause an agent not to book a transfer though I think you are dealing with inexperienced agents.

I am getting transfer to the airport to pick up a rental car, so time doesn't matter as strictly. Well, i just feel costco customer service number can hardly be called a travel agent at all as they don't know anything really about these cruises. this is my first time cruise ever, but i will probably directly book with the cruise line website for next cruise vacation. It's just very painful that the cruise line isn't going to deal with anyone who doesn't direct book with them and the so called travel agent isn't an agent or not doing the job cruise line expects its agents to. 

One of my coworker just told me this morning that their princess cruise last year arrived in Juneau 3+ hours late due to a medical evaluation based reroute prior to getting to Juneau and for this reason they missed the helicopter ride pre-booked but luckily it was with the cruise line so no financial loss from this rerouting. Is this extremely rare?

We plan to make a taxi reservation when the ship arrives in Juneau and not really sure how to make it work:

1. delays:  from earlier post here i learned the easiest way is to call one of the local taxi company for a reservation. for this i assume i would need to give a pickup time. but i also heard it's likely that ship arrival might get delayed for various reasons. in case this happens, how would i be able to let the taxi company know to update the pickup time from the ship? I don't think i will have cell coverage from the ship and even if there is some kind of roaming based coverage available, we don't plan to use it. 

2. where to meet: newbie to cruise but i assume when ship arrives, several thousand people get off the ship in a short period of time. how to arrange for a pickup location so that it wouldn't be confusing on both sides (driver and passenger)

3. any specific taxi company to recommend for this purpose?
Thank you!

thank you both. I checked the flights section and saw this: looks we still need to call costco

Thank you all for your inputs. I double checked the shore excursion section of Whittier and there is no standalone transfer offered. There are only combo tours: Portage Glacier Scenic Cruise & Drive with Airport Transfer, 26 Glacier Cruise & Anchorage Transfer, Turnagain Arm, Wildlife conversation center and tram with airport transfer. Nothing else, but all these tours wouldn't make sense to us as we need to get to airport around lunch hour to pick up our rental car. I know i can book a third party transfer, but thought the transfer provided by princess will be worry-free on a hectic disembarkable morning. 

I am trying to purchase transfer from Whittier to Anchorage airport with princess, by first calling the travel agent (Costco in this case -- i know i am not supposed to release the name of the travel agent but this is for the sake of explaining the sources of the information) and was told that there is no transfer provided by princess unless if you booked a back to back cruise with Princess. 

Then I called princess directly and their agent said there is transfer available but they can not process the purchase and it would have to be via a travel agent unless if you directly booked your cruise with princess. 

I called the travel agent again and still was told there is no such service provided. Oh well... Anyone else traveling with Princess can help clarify which one is the case and how to get transfer set up if it at all exists for one way cruise passengers? Thanks!

On 10/10/2023 at 11:42 AM, Coral said:

I say this honestly -  visiting Mendenhall visitor center and in the front of the glacier is not worth the time. It has retreated so much that I am guessing that your group could probably come up with a better shore excursion to do than to visit Mendenhall glacier.

 

I have been going to Alaska for more than 20 years. I just can't recommend Mendenhall glacier anymore. I know that you're working on a budget and I think it would be a lot of money to bring 11 of you out there to see this glacier that isn't really worth seeing. I sure hope that you have Glacier Bay or Hubbard glacier on your itinerary so that your group can see great glacier(s).

I appreciate the honesty too. but i can't easily find excursion that's budget friendly and interesting enough in Juneau. Mendenhall is still one of the low cost activity that allows one to appreciate the wonder of mother nature, according to many reviews I have read (at least the hike to the fall part). is that still the right understanding?

Now the discussion is getting to a level too advanced to a newbie 😄

Thank you for all your points of view. Yes this is for a 7-day cruise starting from Vancouver to Anchorage and most of us are American (and most of us are medically insured from our employer sponsored plans), but there are 2 of us who are neither American or Canadian but they are US permanent residents (I am not 100% sure of their medical insurance coverage though as they are retirees). 

'Evacuation from the ship is at no cost to the patient' -- I didn't know this. is this true even for those without cruise insurance purchased? do we know this is for evacuation to the nearest port or to wherever there is enough medical facility to treat the patient? I am actually not sure if my employer sponsored insurance covers anything from an Alaskan cruise, but this is a good reminder to call and find out. 

 

Looking into travel insurance for the upcoming 7-day cruise. According to my research, coverage offered by the cruise line has very limited medical coverage and is generally considered not enough for the elderly. So i am searching for standalone third party insurance coverage. As we will arrive Vancouver 1 day prior to the cruise start and also add 3 day dyi land trip after cruise end, I am not sure if I should buy 'cruise insurance' just for the 7 day cruise part or if i should buy coverage for the entire 11 days? As the insurance is specifically designed for cruise trips, would it make sense to cover the non-cruise part of the trip? And if not, if say for any reason the trip is interrupted in the middle of the cruise, the 3 day land trip is also not going to happen and how to handle that? 100% newbie question i assume. 

I will give up # 3 on the list, but really want to bring fresh ginger to help with seasickness -- chewing on a piece of ginger really helps! is this not allowed?

I spent about 1 hour over the phone with princess's overseas customer support who had a very hard time understanding the problem to begin with. Then after many rounds of back and forth, she finally understood what was the issue and said the reason for it happening was the travel agent used a different email in the original booking than the email i registered with. She then said she merged the two and problem was solved. it would take 24 hours to have it updated in the system. I waited 24 hours and logged in. Problem is still there! i created another account using the other email she mentioned and logged into that one, again exactly the same thing. My reservation is nowhere to be found!

Got to use online chat, i see. i recently watched a tiktok complaint on the 'low-tech' nature of cruiselines and princess does testify for that. 

using Chrome on macbook pro. is there an additional step to link your booked cruise to your account? i can't find where to do this step and it certainly doesnt automatically does the job

I am not sure what's the expected experience, but every time I log into my Princess account (web version, not that new app), it has nothing about my upcoming trip. I will have to go to booked guests tab and manually link my reservation EACH AND EVERY TIME to see my trip. Is this expected? or is it something about their website that I don't get it? It's such a pain to have to go search for the booking # along with re-typing name, DOB, etc every time. I don't even know what's the use of this princess account at all if it doesn't link to one's booking. So I wonder maybe there is something about it that I am not getting yet. Pls help. thanks!

something like this: https://www.amazon.com/NATCHILL-Chicken-Heating-Instant-Noodles/dp/B0B51T5HCD/ref=sr_1_3?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Oz4ADcv3EK05VvZ3gQjOZUyVh2_waBGxMqhUuzWHP9jlfQTD483fqOStKzRV3p5oA_fBRhscroSd8bvc0S8JFImtYIqJcYye1Mw2djyZkjH42ekVdoKdqCh5lnJ3H8KwUI2e1qEh3T0vyv0LuGUJFXQaT6lZ7iT44rcPagjyOz-usqujzLuzA1QvtXEhMLVfT3u3aB7bZq_b9eCCnNWsdOuCE0T3GjrBE9y8LRIkrkleyS6ZgdGWFyBSejUzwoC3BhSyBA1-MgQ0gmXQnil48r9SV7McuaybX5cz83bVA6U.31YLkKXiXlFdDZv3SNI4-q4LCEUWzHBxx5MmNWS2j3k&dib_tag=se&keywords=self+heating+food&qid=1714347502&sr=8-3

We are thinking of bringing the following. Anyone knows if any of these are not allowed by Princess pls?
1) a small piece of fresh ginger for sea sickness treatment
2). energy bars and possibly other snacks that we plan to buy in Vancouver for the dyi land tour after the cruise journey (Vancouver should have much wider and easier selections of food than Anchorage, and we will only have a 3 days after cruise and won't want to waste time on grocery shopping)
3). a few packages of those self cooking food (for the land tour part) that are sold on amazon. those would include a small pack of water in the package (very small though). 

49 minutes ago, Cruise-a-Hallic said:

Although not with Carnival, I believe we are taking the similar/equivalent excursion with Princess to Endicott Arm and Dawes Glacier.  Our ship will stop and let a smaller boat for the excursion tender up to the ship to board out in open water and then head into the Endicott Arm/Tracy Fjord area for the tour up the fjords and closer to the glaciers.  Was pricey when we booked on a special with Princess, but I see has now gone up to $350.00/adult and is sold out for our particular cruise.  Glad we booked when we did.

I am not sure about the $350/adult price quoted here: i am seeing a staggering $459.95/adult price in my princess app (for this June), which completely makes it a no-go. i'm sure its amazing, but life has many amazing things that won't take $$ like this. You can see that most people are not so crazy about how amazing this experience is going to be at this price point as all 20 tickets are unclaimed for. 

9 hours ago, gvgseg said:

The drive itself is pretty easy. It's just the same road the whole time out and back.

Now i am a bit confused: in a different thread it was mentioned that it would take someone who is experienced in mountainous driving to drive this route and in case weather gets wet and foggy, it's not necessarily a safe drive. But a lot of people encouraging self drive have said the drive is easy and has nothing to be concerned of. Which one is true? For someone who isn't confident in long distance mountainous driving, is it something to avoid to be safe (since nobody has a crystal ball for weather)?

On 4/14/2024 at 3:29 PM, Tapi said:

Grab breakfast lunch or dinner somewhere where you can still watch beautiful views while you eat (grab something from the buffet and then sit outside).  On our particular sailing, the cruise line offered a salmon bake on the pool deck so that people could eat and not miss out on the views. 
 

7-8 hours may seem long, but believe me, it will go by very fast. It will be over before you know it. 😀

Quick Q on grabbing breakfast and sitting outside: at 6am would it not be freezing outside, or am I overestimating the brutality of alaska temperature?

Am i understanding it right that for those who stay in interior cabins, we would need to choose between going out to the deck to see glaciers vs staying indoor at 'visitor center' to learn from the park rangers? I can see why balcony cabins have a huge advantage here now. 

44 minutes ago, Crew News said:

Locals advise to make a lot of noise while hiking so you don't scare a sow with cubs.  One method is an empty soda can partially filled with rocks and shaken vigorously as you walk. 

would not a bear bell work better? 

16 hours ago, karatemom2 said:

Some other things we enjoy in Juneau:

 

Eagle Beach

Shrine of St. Therese

Treadwell Mine Trail

Fishing salmon at Macauley Fish Hatchery dock

Hiking trails at top of Mount Robert’s Tramway

Salmon Bake - touristy but fun and tasty!

May i ask if one needs to worry about bear risk in any of these recommended places? We are planning to hit most of these and want to be conservative, but the fact that one can't bring bear spray back to cruise ship is a bothering us. 

On 4/5/2024 at 7:44 PM, frugaltravel said:

I have found that independent operators are less expensive than the Princess transfers.  I am using Alaska Cruise Transportation for my upcoming cruise.

 

I checked ACT's schedule and it's pickup time is 8:45am. Is it too risky considering the disembarkation would involve 2600+ (for princess) people. so i am thinking using cruiseline's transfer could be a bit worry-free. 

I saw a few threads about Princess transfers to get people to and from Whittier, but I logged into my account on their app and found no information about it whatsoever. Wonder how to book this transfer directly with Princess if its not in their new app?