Alaska Inside Passage (Zuiderdam 26 July - 2 August 2014)

This cruise called at Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay and Ketchikan.

28 July - Juneau

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There were 4 ships in that day. The Westerdam had pole position right in the town, with a couple of Princess ships nearby and ours about a mile away. It's pot luck where you end up but as there are very frequent shuttle coaches ($3 return) it's no big deal if you are 'unlucky'.

We wanted to watch whales and go to the glacier. There are 4/5 operators offering trips of various combinations right in the town centre, and we chose the 2 pm trip with Juneau Tours and Whale Watching for the whales/glacier combo. It cost $125 pp (children/seniors $105) and they gave us a wonderful trip out into Auke Bay. These were the only whales we saw on the cruise. We spent about 2 hours in the boat and were delivered at the Mendenhall Glacier at about 5 pm.

If you just wanted to do the glacier it would be $20 return on the Glacier Express, no tour needed, plus $3 to go into the Visitor Centre if you so desire. I had heard good things about it but we felt we did not have time to do it justice (and were quite wet by then) so did not go in.

I reckon we spent about 75 minutes there, walking the Nugget Falls trail (it's about a mile of pretty level walking to the sandbar at the bottom of the waterfall) and having a look at the salmon creek when we returned to the Visitor Centre.

We returned to Juneau on the coach run by JT & WW at around 6.30 but if you were doing this on your own, using the Glacier Express, I think the last one back to town leaves at 7 pm.

from Skagway, 29 July 2014

This is a terrific 7.5 hour tour costing $179pp (u-12s $119)

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Great video, thanks for the links!

Great video, thanks for the links!

Cheers Kirk, it was a lovely cruise.

Try as I might I could find no suitable shore excursions so decided to stay on board for this day.

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We were on an Alaskan cruise back in June and I thoroughly enjoyed reliving some of the experiences through your videos! Great job on all of these!

Thanks Bruce, it was a great cruise and here's our final port on this 7 day RT out of Vancouver.

31 July 2014

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The sunshine made this a very enjoyable day. This could easily be done in a couple of hours (pick up the walking tour map from the Visitor Information Centre as you leave the dock), or longer if you want to shop in Creek Street or visit a museum - or eat salmon. You can get it here you know :)

Loved your video's, brought back nice memories of our trip 10 yrs. ago! Hope to go back at some point. :)

A wonderful preview of our first Alaskan cruise in two weeks!

Tony,

Thanks for posting your wonderful videos. You do such a great job with them.

A couple from where we started and ended the cruise. The firework displays start in the last week of July.

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Can you tell me what tour company you used for your Skagway excursion? I'm sorry, I watched your awesome videos twice and I guess I missed it.

Thanks!

Can you tell me what tour company you used for your Skagway excursion? I'm sorry, I watched your awesome videos twice and I guess I missed it.

 

Thanks!

Thanks - you didn't miss it as the company is not mentioned in the videos (except in the YT description). It was Chilkoot Charters and Tours http://www.chilkootcharters.com

The tour that I did was called Yukon Bus & Rail Excursion (7.5 hours). We did it in rail/bus order, with a pick-up start time of 7.30 a.m. (by your ship). If you do it the other way round it starts at 8.30. It doesn't matter which way you do it. We chose the earlier start so there was more time to walk around Skagway when it was over, but the town is not that big and if you do the 8.30 tour you'll be back in good time for a good look round as long as you have an all-aboard time of say 6 p.m. It cost (July 2014) $179 pp adults, $119 for children.

Much as I loved all the scenery and whales we saw at the other ports, that day was my personal favourite. Chilkoot do another tour called Bennett Scenic Journey (8 hours) which would I have no doubt have been fantastic too.

All the best, Tony

Thanks - you didn't miss it as the company is not mentioned in the videos (except in the YT description). It was Chilkoot Charters and Tours http://www.chilkootcharters.com

 

The tour that I did was called Yukon Bus & Rail Excursion (7.5 hours). We did it in rail/bus order, with a pick-up start time of 7.30 a.m. (by your ship). If you do it the other way round it starts at 8.30. It doesn't matter which way you do it. We chose the earlier start so there was more time to walk around Skagway when it was over, but the town is not that big and if you do the 8.30 tour you'll be back in good time for a good look round as long as you have an all-aboard time of say 6 p.m. It cost (July 2014) $179 pp adults, $119 for children.

 

Much as I loved all the scenery and whales we saw at the other ports, that day was my personal favourite. Chilkoot do another tour called Bennett Scenic Journey (8 hours) which would I have no doubt have been fantastic too.

 

All the best, Tony

Thanks Tony! I was hoping that was what you were going to say because that's the tour we are going to do. At first I was a little turned off by the bus back down but after looking at your pictures and realizing it's not a large coach but instead a small shuttle bus, I felt better.

Cheers!

Before our Alaska Inside Passage r/t out of Vancouver we did a Canadian Rockies road trip from Banff. We flew from the UK to Calgary, where we picked up the car and drove the 90 minutes to Banff.

We spent 2 nights at Banff, 3 at Jasper, 1 at Kamloops and the night before the cruise at Vancouver. We bought a 5-day parks pass for Banff and Jasper National Parks. As we were a party of 6 it cost just under $Can 20 per day so about $Can 100.

In case it's of any interest to anyone considering this sort of thing, or doing it in the opposite direction I have made videos of our trip. This is the first of 8.

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The others, plus all those from the cruise, which called at Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay and Ketchikan can be found from this playlist link