Northern Aurora

The eight hour time length is for the train trip between Anchorage and Fairbanks, which is not what our OP will be taking.

Reservations are not taken or needed for the MDR at either breakfast or lunch. Depending on the time of day you may wait a minute or two, but will quickly be escorted to a table.

Since your post mentioned Tracy's (which I think is over rated) I wonder if he is only interested in crab? In Sitka we like the Bay View Pub: they have limited fish but excellent halibut and chips. There are a number of fish options on the menu at The Hanger on the Wharf in Juneau. Just google the restaurants for their menus but remember that their daily specials won't appear. In ISP there is a crab shack on the pier near where the tender dock was (it is obvious). The restaurant in the long red building has had excellent halibut and chips in the past, but much of the non-seafood options were items like hamburgers (if my memory is correct since we were there for the fish).

Years ago we stayed at the Land's End Resort. More recently we have stayed in the beachside condos managed by the Land's End Resort. On the Land's End website the condos are described as their "lodges." Each one is unique. Great place to stay.

We have both embarked and disembarked out of Pier 91 three times. My memory is that there are some limited covered areas right in front of the entrances. If it was raining there would be very limited space, and the covered areas do not include any side enclosures. So if it was windy rain would be blowing under the covered top. There are no close restaurants to go to for coffee or tea while waiting. A frequent poster on this board works at Pier 91 so hopefully she will chime in with the answer as to when the doors to the terminal actually open.

Goggle Temsco Helicopters. At least in the past they have offered tours to Mendenhall out of Juneau.

For some reason this question was asked by someone else recently. Despite the fact we live in Alaska we have done at least 8 Alaska cruises. The time on the ship has always matched the local Alaska time.

The Butler team does indeed serve Suite guests an afternoon tea daily in the Michael's Club/Retreat Lounge.

You will need to be at the Anchorage Airport at 1:45 PM at the latest. Consider a Princess transfer to the airport which includes a stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. Also look at the Salmon Berry Travel and Tours website for their Whittier to Anchorage airport offerings. Hope you have a great trip.

@wolfie11: Actually a few of the store fronts and partial remnants of the Dyea buildings are left. I really shouldn't admit it but we have some photos of me, off the official trails, in front of several of the remaining building remnants. A number of the buildings had root cellars and rudimentary basements, so deviating off the "official" paths is what a historian does when she is being very, very bad. The setting of Dyea is lovely. For those who are interested just google "Dyea" for more info. And walking out onto the Chilkoot Trail even for a brief time just makes my skin crawl given the history of the Klondike Gold Rush. Just can feel the ghosts of those stampeders and their stories.

We have done a B2B Seward to Vancouver to Seward with no issues.

@Elkins45: Seward does not have commercial air service. Your options from Anchorage to Seward are either by road (about 2.5 hours) or by the Alaska Railroad (about 4 hours). There are private motor coach transfers between Anchorage and Seward. A few, at least pre-covid, included a stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. Your cruise line will also be happy to sell you a motor coach transfer. The Alaska Railroad track parallels the highway until roughly Portage. The train then deviates into another valley and re-joins the road at roughly Moose Pass (yes -- that is a community). The ARR can be booked directly through the ARR for an early morning departure from the downtown ARR depot to the Seward depot. Your cruise line will again be very happy to sell you a ARR specially chartered run from the Anchorage Airport (not the ARR downtown station) directly to the Seward cruise terminal; these special charters can only be booked through the cruise line and will depart about 1 PM-ish. While the scenery from the road is lovely, many folks find the scenery from the ARR to be better. You will be happy with which option which is best for you. I would also suggest flying in to Anchorage the day before embarkation. There are a number of hotels near the Anchorage Airport.

We just had it on the Eclipse. When I posted I realized later that I should have mentioned that in the 14 day Luminae menu rotation it is on a menu after day 7. So folks on seven night cruises may/most likely will not see it on the menu.

About a decade ago the NPS began more work in the Dyea townsite locating where the buildings were located. A number of the buildings no longer exist as lumber was re-used in Skagway and the environs. You will see broad open areas lined by large trees. These were the major streets which had trees planted on the sides of the streets. You are asked not to deviate much from the trail system as some of the now gone structures had basements which have been overgrown by enough ground cover that they are obscured. But you could still fall into them. There is also the slide cemetery. But I find it interesting to walk out along the Chilkoot Trail for an hour or so. It is actually a pretty area. There are picnic tables and a campground. We have stayed at the campground which is rather primitive.

The walk from the ship to the terminal is very short. There will be a line of taxis right outside the terminal. There also will be the shuttles taking folks to the downtown area. All very organized and the signage will be very clear.

"So today, we get off the ship, and there is a tram that takes you around Prince Rupert. Super! When we go to buy tickets, we are asked for our sea pass card. Now this is NOT a HAL excursion. Anyone can walk up and take it. But once they knew I was off the ship, they wanted my sea pass and would not take cash. So I gave the woman the card, and she wrote us a receipt. She had told me the trip around town took 90 minutes, and the cost for us would be $59.95. She handed me the receipt to sign, and I was SHOCKED to see it was $59.95 EACH! For a 90-minute tour around a very small town. We decided to skip that. " Just curious -- was the $59.95 price in Canadian or US dollars?

I also have been enjoying this thread. We left the Eclipse the day Ken boarded. And I have to smile at the update -- we have crossed the Equator five (or has it been six) times on Celebrity ships and the Equator crossing celebration has never been any time close to the actual crossing, but always conveniently after lunch.

The cakes served at Cafe al Bacio in the evening can be wonderful. The basic chocolate cake from the "always available" section on the MDR menu (and also offered in Blu and Luminae) is delicious. But my favorite is the flaming sphere on the Luminae menu.

According to the NPS website they expect the closure of the single road into the park to remain in effect through the summer of 2024. Our local news paper has a reporter stationed year around in the Healy/Denali area and she has reported that the road may not be open until 2025. There are views of Denali from the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, so anyone visiting the Museum of the North should look for it out of the windows just across from the entrance and beside the museum store. There are great views of Denali at Mary's McKinley View Lodge (mile 134.5 of the George Parks Hwy) and there are some pullouts/view areas just north of that lodge. And there are views from the Princess McKinley Lodge as already noted.

I am not aware of any cruise lines which have used the Dena'ina Center as their "hospitality center." The "hospitality centers" which I am aware of are hosted in the Egan Center on 5th Avenue. The Dena'ina Center is much, much larger -- too large for a cruise line hospitality center.

The inside passage has a number of islands. So the ship will have land on one side and numerous islands, some very large, on the other side. The Gulf of Alaska, as you leave the inside passage and head toward Seward, can have larger waves. The definition of "rough" is so subjective, but on one cruise through the Gulf of Alaska the ship movement didn't bother us, but some were definitely experiencing some motion sickness.

As a fellow Suite guest we have had no problems boarding prior to an assigned boarding time (such as 12:30 PM). We generally board about 11:30 AM.

Even if your binoculars are bulky definitely bring you own, or purchase another pair. The binoculars in Celebrity staterooms, no matter the stateroom category, are worthless.

We boarded the Eclipse on March 10th and left on April 19th. So our last two legs of the B2B2B2B were the B2B which @Azllama was also on. We were provided RAT tests on all three of the turnaround days. The test were in an envelopes and we did indeed have instructions on all three turnaround days. I don't know why @Azllama assumes that "a lot of them went in the trash" as the accompanying letter had the phone number for Guest Relations. If any one living through the Covid-19 pandemic can't understand how to administer a RAT test they simply could have called Guest Relations for instructions. And we did not return home with Covid-19.

We boarded the Eclipse on March 10 for a B2B2B2B series. Our last two legs were the B2B pair which @Azllama was on. We were on the Eclipse pre-covid on a B2B2B from Buenos Aires to Vancouver in 2019 and were also on her in post-covid in April 2022. While the decor is becoming dated the ship is in great condition. Were in Suites and Luminae was excellent. Staff and crew are great. We did not have issues with the meals. Nor did we have issues with the age of the ship.