ALASKA cruise July 2018

Below are details of my Alaska tour. This is my first such report. But I learned lot of stuff from reviewing posts on this forum, so I think I need to share as well.

We did both cruise and land part. We did land part on our own and not as part of cruise. We were family of 5 including 2 kids and one of our parent.

This was 2 weeks tour over all. July 6-22, 2018.

Initially we flew to Vancouver. Reach Vancouver late Friday night. Our cruise was on Monday, so were able to spend couple days in Vancouver.

Vancouver: Stayed in downtown, so did not need car. First day, took hop on and hop off bus, did both park and city tours, which was fun. Did stop by to visit Granville market and have lunch. Next day, took shuttle bus to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. We spend few hours walking around Yaletown. Also visited Science center with kids which was lot of fun for kids.

Cruise:

Ship Norwegian Jewel: It was decent ship. Some parts did seem old. But overall it did have all the facilities needed. The entertainment was quite good at night. Pools and hot tubs were decent. Food was quite good as well. We like Indian food, and there were options every day, including breakfast, lunch and dinner. One of our family member had food preference (Jain food) and they took care of that as well.

We mainly chose this cruise given the itinerary.

Stops

1. Ketchikan: We took a flight to Anan Creek with Carlin Air. This was the highlight of the tour. We were quite early and were the only family at the observatory. We saw multiple bears. There were at least 5-6 black and even saw 3 brown bears together, saw some of then catching salmon. Kids loved it. It was a blast.

2. Juneau: After looking at various options, we decided to do rental car. This seemed more efficient and cost effective way. We took car from Juneau renal car company, car was old (quite old, no remote, have to manually lock car), but still did the work for us.

Went to Mendenhall glacier, best views given good climate and walk so close to the glacier. Also visited Shrine of St Theresa. Then spend rest of the time in downtown. Nice cute small downtown with good shops.

3. Skagway: Took afternoon train to White Pass. It was great, Very nice views. We only went to White pass, roundtrip ( not to Yukon). I think that was enough and did not bore the kids. We spend morning in downtown, and then went to train in afternoon, and again spend sometime in evening. Good shopping area as well.

4. Glacier Bay (cruising): This was another highlight. The beauty of the glacier bay was breath taking. It was relatively good weather (some fog but not bad). We were able to see three glaciers, Margerie Glacier was the best. Also saw John Hopkins glacier and Grand pacific glacier. Some wild life as well, especially birds like kittiwake gulls and saw few sea otters as well. National park Ranger were onboard as well which made it more interesting.

5. Hubbard Glacier (cruising): Next day we were able to see Hubbard glacier. This day was slightly more foggy than glacier bay day, but were still able to see glacier well. Cruise was able to get quite close to the glacier. We had balcony on the port side which was big plus both day, as the ship turned and stopped for at least 20 minutes for great views from port side balconies.

6. Seward: This was our last port for disembarkation. It was surprisingly easy. Just walk out with luggage, nothing else. We had booked Resurrection Bay tour with Kenai Fjords tour. We chose this as it was shorter, and we wanted calmer water as one of kids gets motion sick. Kenai Fjords has counter at the port and they also have baggage tags if you going on train. So they took all our luggage right at the port which was great and transferred to our evening train.

Now starts the Land portion of our tour.

1. Seward: As mentioned above, after giving luggage, we got transferred to Kenai Fjords office. We have 2-3 hours before our boat tour. So we took taxi to go around downtown. We later took boat tour to Kenai Fjords. This was another highlight tour. We saw couple whales. The captain was very patient and followed the whale for while. We also saw sea lions, harbor seal, otters as well, from quite close. We stopped at fox island for lunch.

2. Train to Anchorage: After the tour, we went to train station. Timing was perfect. Tour ends in time for evening train. Train went through great landscapes and was very interesting. We did adventure class. We did get change to sit in the dome car. I do not think its worth spending more for the gold star class (we were in car no 6, which created lot more loud harsh sounds on turning which was quite disturbing. rest of the cars in front of us did not make that much noise)

3. Anchorage: Nice town. Not much to do though here. Spend one day here. Visited Native Heritage Center which was very informative. Went to Ulu Knife factory. Spend rest of the time in downtown, nice relaxed time

4. Drive to Denali: We rented a car in Anchorage. It was quite expensive, as we had to pay hefty charge just for returning car to Fairbanks. But it was useful given our family of 5. Next day we started our drive to Denali. It was fun to drive on the highway. Not much traffic. Some issues with construction.

stopped in between at Thunderbird falls for a small hike. Nice easy hike especially with kids.

Stopped at Talkeetna. Very interesting small town. Walked to the river front as well. Was quite foggy to see McKinley from there. Had nice lunch at WildFlower Café. Very good food, good quantity as well. Somewhat slow service though.

Reached Denali in evening and stayed at Tri-valley cabins. It was tough to get cabins as lot of them are booked out. These are newer cabins and was skeptical. But they are great cabins. Nicely furnished. Very roomy. They even put in extra cot for us as well. Had Keurig coffee machine with generous supply of K-cup pods as well.

5. Denali Park We took 7:15 Am wonder lake transit bus. We were not planning on doing much hike, so that time worked well for us. Our drive was Kat who was very nice, and talked most of the way, and gave lot of information. We saw lots of Caribou, also couple of fox, one of the fox walking on road in front of the bus. Saw one wolf from quite a distance. Interestingly did not see any Moose. Although it was 11 hrs, it went quickly.

6. Fairbanks: Next day we drove to Fairbanks. First we went to North Pole, as Santa Clause House. Kids were very excited. Were able to send post cards to our friends as they will have North Pole stamp on it.

Next we went to Gold Dredge 8, small train tour, very informative about gold panning history and were also able to pan gold, all found few small flakes of gold which was very exciting.

In the evening we added dog sledding. We wanted to get that experience but did not want to do on glacier. So we booked with Black Spruce Dog Sledding. It was great experience. It was very informative, lot of interaction with dogs, lot of fun with no risk. everybody enjoyed that.

And next day return flight from Fairbanks. Sorry, it got little lengthy than I intended to.

Your report will give others ideas for planning DIY trips.

Thanks for taking the time to report back on your Alaska trip.

Thanks for the review. Want to try Hop On Off bus in Vancouver. Was it worth it? Did you have to wait long for a bus and we’re they crowded?

Sometimes in afternoon they did seem busy, but did not have to wait much

We liked it as it was convenient and we got overall idea of the city in few hours, and then picked neighborhoods we wanted to go on our own