14-Day Alaska Cruisetour Live Review

So I booked the 14-Day Southbound Alaska Cruisetour over a year ago and the time has finally come! I leave on Tuesday, July 24th!

This is my first land/sea tour ( I have done around 20 cruises - 7 of them to Alaska). As you can imagine I had dozens of questions and really could not find answers to all of them. So I thought I would write this “live” review for anyone out there like me who had dozens of questions.

So it begins....

My itinerary is as follows:

July 24 - fly into Fairbanks and stay overnight at the Bear Lodge

July 25-27- Denali, stay at the Denali Park Village

July 27 - Anchorage

July 28-29 - Homer

July 30 - Seward (board the Jewel)

July 31 - Cruise Hubbard Glacier

Aug 1 - Icy Strait Point

Aug 2 - Juneau/Cruise Sawyer Glacier

Aug 3 - Skagway

Aug 4 - Ketchikan

Aug 5 - Cruise Inside Passage

Aug 6 - Disembark in Vancouver

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We will start this live review off with the basics. Please bare with me as this is my first live review. Please feel free to ask any questions and I will try to get you answers!!

I received my docs from NCL with hotel assignments about 25 days prior to departure. In the docs they details out where you will stay and and what excursions are included in the land part of the cruisetour.

I was really happy to find out that they do give you the option of storing your suitcases that you do not need until you get on the ship during the land portion. I was worried that I would have to lug two suitcases with me in and out of every hotel!

Stay tuned, more to come!!

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I am taking this trip with my 66 year old mother. This is on her bucket list. I am 41 and leaving the hubby home to take care of the dog!

We are only 3 days out from leaving and I have been completely packed for a week now! As you can tell, I am super excited.

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You will not have to "lug" any suitcases around. Or you shouldn't. Our land/cruise trip was on RCCL but I assume it's similar. The suitcases you need will be delivered to your hotel room (usually even before you get to your room!) and picked up outside your hotel room when you are heading to a new city. There will be a designated time to set them outside your hotel room. Usually quite early in the morning. If you forget something you need in the bags you have stowed until the cruise, they will get it out for you at your request. I had to do that a couple of times. :o

As I said, this was on RCCL and it was 13 years ago. I would guess it's very similar in NCL. We had an awesome time and saw tons of wildlife at Denali Park.

Have a great time (you will!) and I'll be following along on your review. :)

Looking forward to you review. We are looking at doing an Alaskan cruise tour but are not sure if we want Northbound or Southbound or how many days we want to spend on the land portion yet. I am researching and your review will help with our decision.

Looking forward to you review. We are looking at doing an Alaskan cruise tour but are not sure if we want Northbound or Southbound or how many days we want to spend on the land portion yet. I am researching and your review will help with our decision.

My suggestion would be to do southbound doing the land portion first. You will be exhausted after the land portion changing hotels nearly every night. LOL! It makes it such a relief to get on the ship after, unpack and be done with that for 7 nights.

Do as many nights as you possibly can for the land portion. We did 5 nights and wish we had done 6. (6 was the max on RCCL when we did it. Not sure what NCL offers.) There is so much to see and who knows if you'll ever get back.

My suggestion would be to do southbound doing the land portion first. You will be exhausted after the land portion changing hotels nearly every night. LOL! It makes it such a relief to get on the ship after, unpack and be done with that for 7 nights.

 

Do as many nights as you possibly can for the land portion. We did 5 nights and wish we had done 6. (6 was the max on RCCL when we did it. Not sure what NCL offers.) There is so much to see and who knows if you'll ever get back.

I agree with this 100%. We did the land tour from Fairbanks to Anchorage before the cruise and then the cruise went Seward to Vancouver. It was great to be in one place after all of the hotel changing. My experience was with Royal about 4 years ago and by far has been my favorite cruise! The land portion was amazing and I'm so glad we decided to do that. If you don't think you will ever get back to Alaska, I would definitely make the land portion happen. You can DIY it with the Alaskan railroad and/or driving and other tour companies, but doing it through the cruiseline was very convenient and most of the details were taken care of for you.

Thank you Aprille and Ashley dillo for your suggestions. That is really the way we are leaning. My DH wants to do the Denali Express ( I think that is what it is called) through NCL. We also plan on spending a few days post cruise in Vancouver.

Well, today is the day. My Southbound Cruisetour with NCL begins! I am currently at the airport waiting for my flight.

We are expecting to get into Fairbanks tonight around 8:30. Once we get our baggage we were instructed to look for the Cruisetour personal for our transport to the Bear Lodge in Fairbanks. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and we start this vacation out with a bang!✈️✈️[emoji902][emoji902]

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Well, today is the day. My Southbound Cruisetour with NCL begins! I am currently at the airport waiting for my flight.

 

We are expecting to get into Fairbanks tonight around 8:30. Once we get our baggage we were instructed to look for the Cruisetour personal for our transport to the Bear Lodge in Fairbanks. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and we start this vacation out with a bang!✈️✈️[emoji902][emoji902]

 

 

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Looking forward to following along - safe travels.

Safe travels! Thank you for doing this review.

Well, today is the day. My Southbound Cruisetour with NCL begins! I am currently at the airport waiting for my flight.

 

We are expecting to get into Fairbanks tonight around 8:30. Once we get our baggage we were instructed to look for the Cruisetour personal for our transport to the Bear Lodge in Fairbanks. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and we start this vacation out with a bang!✈️✈️[emoji902][emoji902]

 

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I can't wait to see what you think of this tour, we leave for ours August 22nd and our tour starts the 23rd. Have fun!!!

Looking forward to your review....

Okay, just landed in Fairbanks. Their are people from all the Cruise lines waiting to greet you as you get to the baggage area. Once you get your bags, NCL loads them onto a cart immediately and then takes them to the bus. Everything is very organized so far. On the way to the hotel now.

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Enjoy your adventure! Can’t wait to read all about it as this experience nears the top of my vacation wish list.

First Day of Land tour - We stayed at the Bear Lodge in Fairbanks the first night. The hotel room is okay. Nothing special. You do have a fridge in your room along with free WiFi. When you check in, you get two packets of information. The first one is from Bear Lodge (nothing of interest here, just your room key and information regarding the free shuttle), the second packet is a folder containing all your information regarding the land tour.

In the land tour folder you get your name tags, a sheet showing the additional excursions you can book on the land tour, luggage tags and you get a daily schedule sheet ( you get this sheet everyday and it shows you the itinerary for that day). I have included some pictures of the land tour folder below.

We woke up around 5:00 this morning to get ready. Breakfast starts at 6:00 and you have to have your luggage outside your room door by 7:00. We had to be on the bus and ready to go by 8:00.

The only option for breakfast at the Bear Lodge is the restaurant in the hotel. It is a buffet, you get to choose from a hot buffet ($16.95) or a cold buffet ($10.95). The hot buffet gives you all of the cold options as well as bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, blueberry pancakes, eggs and biscuits. The cold option includes cereal, fruit, bagels, toast, yogurt, muffins and assorted breads.

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Following and totally enjoying!!! Looking forward to more....Thank you!

So today we did the Riverboat Discovery tour. This is included with your land tour. You get on a quadruple deck river boat cruise. This three-hour cruise takes down the river and it stops along the way. They introduce you to a family who has made the rivers of Alaska a way of life for five generations. You will see a bush floatplane takeoff alongside the boat, visit the home and kennels of the late four-time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher and see her champion sled dogs in action. You then get taken to an ancient Athabascan Indian village. This tour is okay in my opinion. It is mostly a tourist setup and you really do not get to see anything authentic.

Once we got off the Riverboat cruise, we were taken to see the pipeline in Fairbanks. Nothing big to see on this. It was only a 15 minute stop. We then were taken downtown Fairbanks for lunch on our own. It is near impossible to find anywhere to eat for less than $20-25 per person.

After a short stop at Fred Meyer for a quick shopping trip, we were off to Denali! The bus ride is about 2 1/2 hour ride. The coach bus for the tour is completely full. The tour director narrates almost the entire time. Some good information here and there.

We finally arrived in Denali at about 6:30 tonight. We are staying at the Denali Park Village. Some pictures of the room are below. The entire complex has no air conditioning. Usually, this may not be a problem, however it was 86 degrees in Denali today and the room felt like an oven. WiFi is super spotty and goes in and out.

Tomorrow is the Tundra Wilderness Tour! I am ready to see some Bear and moose!!

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Denali is what we will most be looking forward to. Hope you had a wonderful time and spotted wildlife!

Well, I woke up this morning without any water! The entire complex had zero running water. I tried calling the front desk several times but they never answered. The water finally came back on a couple hours later! Off to view some bear and moose now. Wish me luck!!!

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If you can, please post the dailies for the cruise portion.

If you can, please post the dailies for the cruise portion.

Will do! Let me know if you would like anything else??

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Our biggest thrill on our tour of Denali Park was a mama bear with 2 yearling cubs walking within 50' of our bus! I thought the bus would tip over with everyone running to one side for pictures. LOL! They even walked across the road in front of us. It was awesome!

We also saw a huge bull moose. It was way off in the distance and we needed binoculars to really see it. I don't know how our guide spotted it. I'm sure through her many years of experience. She said it was a rare sighting. Could have been because of the time of year. It was late September.

Our tour was also suppose to be 8 hours but turned into about 10 because we saw so much wildlife leading to lots of stops for pictures. I hope your trip is as successful!

If you can, please post the dailies for the cruise portion.

Ditto on this - as I am doing the same sailing in a month from now

Today was the Denali Tundra Wilderness Tour. This is an 8 hour tour that goes 60 miles into the park. We started at 12:30. We were about 15 minutes into the tour and saw a Caribou ( I aptly named him Casper the Caribou)!

The scenery was just beautiful and we saw a couple of mama moose with a calf. We also saw two sets of Grizzlies. The first was a Sow with to little cubs. The second was a Sow with a couple of two year olds. We even got a picture of the mom nursing the cubs. The pictures are not the best as they were really far away.

The bus you take is an old school bus that has been refurbished with coach seats. Make sure if you go on this to bring a sandwich or snacks. You get hungry and the little snack box they give you does not do the job.

We returned back to the hotel at around 8:00 at night. Tomorrow is the train and the sled dog camp.

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