CPAatSea

Heads up for anyone who is going in 2024 and plans to use the trains at all. The Denali Explorer is live and can be booked. Last time I checked it wasn't available. I'm not sure how long it has been available but there are already some dates showing limited availability so book your Denali Explorer train tickets if you need them!

I haven't been seasick yet but this might be the test. I've been in some pretty rough waters before and I did okay so I'm hoping that'll be the case here. I agree with you it's too good of an opportunity to pass up. I called Major Marine yesterday and booked a package that includes the 7.5 tour and a hotel room. They give you 20% off the tour for staying at their hotel for a night. It saved us about $90 on the tour and their hotel looks lovely so I'm excited about that. I also booked my airfare in the past two days so I'm officially locked in for my starting point. I was able to get a good deal on a flight from my home airport to Fairbanks with a stop over in Seattle. Our stop over is almost 24h but we booked it that way on purpose. Neither of us have ever been to Seattle so we're excited for our bonus day to experience a city we've never been to. This also allows us to get into Fairbanks at a reasonable time... some of the flights to Fairbanks land insanely late like 2am 😳

Alright I think we have a winner plan. I talked through it with my husband and he really wants to do Goldstar on the Denali Star line so we're still going to fly into Fairbanks. Here's our plan: Sunday Fly to Seattle and overnight in Seattle with time for quick sightseeing Monday Fly from Seattle to Fairbanks Overnight in Fairbanks Tuesday Board Denali Star in the morning and travel from Fairbanks to Talkeetna Overnight in Talkeetna Wednesday Morning Denali Grand Flightseeing Tour with Glacier Landing Board Denali Star in evening and travel from Talkeetna to Anchorage Pick up rental car Overnight in Anchorage Thursday Leave Anchorage in the morning and drive to Palmer for Helicopter Glacier excursion with Dogsledding Drive from Palmer to Seward Overnight in Seward Friday 7.5 hour Kenai Fjords excursion in the morning Drive from Seward to Anchorage Return Rental Car Overnight in Anchorage Saturday Board Glacier Discovery train from Anchorage to Whittier Embark on Cruise This allows me to swap out our helicopter excursion in Juneau and book Wings Airways excursion to Taku Lodge instead. I'm also going to cancel the excursion I had booked for Scenic Cruising at Hubbard Glacier since I think the Kenai Fjords day will scratch that itch and provide equal opportunity with more time and for less cost. There's a little bit of back tracking going to Palmer but I don't mind. This allows us to get some train experience but also provides us flexibility for some of our trip with the car. Any of you planning experts let me know if I'm missing anything but I think this is a pretty solid framework that accomplishes everything we're hoping to do.

That's awesome!

Thank you! That's our strategy as well.. to book 2/3 'flight' excursions hoping at at least one of them doesn't get canceled due to weather. I also read the weather conditions in Juneau are a little less predictable than Anchorage so better bet of your excursion in Juneau going ahead as planned.

Great tips, thank you!

After reading this yesterday I watched YouTube videos all night. The Kenai Fjords are a must for me. I think we may try to do the six hour tour the Saturday morning we board our ship. It starts early enough we'd be done by 2p and still have plenty of time to board the ship. I think I'm going to skip the Matanuska Glacier hike since we'll also land on a glacier doing the flightseeing. I think that will scratch enough of the itch that I don't really feel the need to do both. I currently have us booked in Juneau for the helicopter on to Mendenhall glacier with dog sledding. I may try to find an opportunity to go dog sledding during the land portion of our tour. If we can go dog sledding and land on a glacier while flightseeing I will cancel that excursion and replace it with the seaplane flight to Taku Lodge. I watched videos last night and that looks awesome. The hard part is only having max 2 weeks for vacation and wanting to do all of the things.

I just have to say I just found this thread and read through all five pages and it's SO helpful. I thought I was an early planner but you've got me beat. We are doing the same Princess itinerary as you but we're doing it a few weeks after you. I booked the cruise in December and hadn't thought much about it, but now that I'm getting closer to booking time for airfare I started trying to decide how I want to do the land portion in Alaska before the cruise. We knew we didn't want to do one of the cruise line land tours because they seem expensive for what you get and we also like to have some autonomy over how our days look. Prior to finding this thread my plan was to fly into Fairbanks and take the Denali Star all the way to Anchorage stopping in Denali for 2 nights and Talkeetna for a night along the way. This thread has me second guessing my entire plan and now I may be back to square one. What I do know for sure is that we will probably fly in Monday or Tuesday for a cruise that leaves on Saturday. Talkeetna is a must for me because I want to do the flightseeing out of Talkeetna that includes the glacier landing. This thread also has me intrigued by the Matanuska Glacier hike and the Kenai Fjords day trip so I need to look into them a bit more. Maybe I'll fly into Anchorage instead of Fairbanks and I'll only go as far north as Talkeetna and just cut Denali out. I was really excited about the train ride from Denali to Talkeetna, but I think if I take the train from Anchorage to Whittier I'll get a lot of the same experience. If anyone has any tips on anything I might be missing my ears are open. I'll come back to this thread in a few more days when I iron out exactly what I want to do. We still have about two weeks before we need to start booking airfare so plenty of time to change my mind 100x 😉

Does anyone know when Princess will release its Alaska itineraries for Summer of 2024?