Separate Bags For Land Vs Cruise?

[alaskandreamer]

Hello,

 

Our cruise tour with Princess is coming in only a few short weeks and I was wondering if anyone can shed some light on how to handle packing.

I heard that some people pack separate bags for the land portion of their cruise tour. And that Princess will hold or store your cruise baggage until you finish your tour. Is this true? Should we pack separate bags for the land end of our cruise tour? Of course with baggage fees being what they are with airlines we really would like to keep our bags down to a minimum.

Does anyone have any info on how this is handled with Princess?

Any ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[SeattleCruiselover]

Hello,

 

Our cruise tour with Princess is coming in only a few short weeks and I was wondering if anyone can shed some light on how to handle packing.

I heard that some people pack separate bags for the land portion of their cruise tour. And that Princess will hold or store your cruise baggage until you finish your tour. Is this true? Should we pack separate bags for the land end of our cruise tour? Of course with baggage fees being what they are with airlines we really would like to keep our bags down to a minimum.

Does anyone have any info on how this is handled with Princess?

Any ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

Yes, it is true. You can only take one bag with you on the land portion (plus a small backpack type carryon that you have to carry with you on the bus/train). The rest of your luggage is kept sequestered and given to you either at the airport at the end of your cruisetour if you are going home, or you will see it on the ship (in your stateroom). All of the information that you need on what you can take with you is in the Cruisetour answer book that they should have sent you. If you did not get it, the info is on the website under the cruise tour info tab:

 

http://www.princess.com/learn/faq_answer/cruisetours/cruisetours_alaska.jsp

[2278]

One bag per pax is allowed on the land portion and as mentioned, you can have a carry on such as a backpack or messanger bag to carry camera, medications and such.

 

If you cruise first, you will have all of your stuff with you on the ship. The night before disembarkation, you tag the pieces, "Meet Me" and "Travel With".

 

The land portion is very relaxed, no dressing up, so pack all of your formal stuff, souviniers and anything you may not need in the "Meet Me" bag.

 

The Travel With bag will not be accessable to you once it is picked up on the day of travel regardless of mode, train or coach. It will be delievered to your room before or after you have arrived.

 

When you get to your final stop of the land portion, the bags will be delivered to your room on your arrival.

 

If you do the land portion first, it goes the opposite, the first night, you are given the luggage tags, when you move to the next stop, you will not see the Meet Me bags until you get on to the ship.

 

Just remember, pack lightly, the laundering facilities on the ship and lodges, leave room for the things you pick up.

[alaskandreamer]

So just to make sure I am understanding this correctly...Sometimes I'm a little slow Ha,Ha!

 

I will have my bags with me the whole cruise than the night before the end of the cruise I will mark which bag I want to take with me on the land tour. This bag will go with me and my other luggage will be held by Princess until the end of my cruise tour?

 

That is how I originally thought it was but I was a little confused.

 

I would like to thank everyone for their input. It is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[cpamama]

Is this true of Royal Caribbean, also? I'm going on a land tour/cruise in a month and this is the first I have heard anything like that. I certainly wasn not planning that. Our land tour is before our cruise. We fly directly to Fairbanks.

[negc]

Is this true of Royal Caribbean, also? I'm going on a land tour/cruise in a month and this is the first I have heard anything like that. I certainly wasn not planning that. Our land tour is before our cruise. We fly directly to Fairbanks.

RCI handles the luggage situation in the same way and once you tag the bags that contain those items you will only need on the cruise you will not see them again until the last night of your land tour. You can tag one bag each for the land tour and that bag will show up in your hotel or lodge room each day. We managed quite well since, as someone already mentioned, you won't need much, and certainly not any dressy clothes, for the land portion. Both lines handled our luggage situation very well and you may be pleasantly surprised at how well organized everything is.:) The last night before our cruise we were in Anchorage and at that was when we put our ship tags on all of our luggage and placed it outside our hotel room at a designated time and didn't see it again until it was delivered to our stateroom. Just leave yourselves whatever you will need on the day you are transferred to the ship.

[granny6]

So just to make sure I am understanding this correctly...Sometimes I'm a little slow Ha,Ha!

 

I will have my bags with me the whole cruise than the night before the end of the cruise I will mark which bag I want to take with me on the land tour. This bag will go with me and my other luggage will be held by Princess until the end of my cruise tour?

 

That is how I originally thought it was but I was a little confused.

 

I would like to thank everyone for their input. It is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

You understand, we just did this cruise tour with Princess in June. You will have a wonderful time. We cruised for the first time and packed way to much. I was just glad to have the one bag each for the land tour. Our other bags were waiting for us in Anchorage in our hotel room at the end of the trip. Very smooth luggage handling, Princess does it well.

[ladyscot1]

We have carry on size bags, one each and also larger suitcases, not huge ones. plus backpacks. I presume we should use the carryon size for the land portion. thanks. This is our first cruisetour ever and on Island Princess sb. we do Fairbanks to start and finish in Vancouver. Cant wait.

Lindsey

[PennyAgain]

Many people pack one bag only for cruise and tour plus their carry on (backpack, etc) sized bag. Most first time cruises badly over pack and many people do so anyway and have multiple bags.

 

With airlines charging what they do these days for checked bags, I'm really surprised that this continues.

 

When I've gone with family members on cruise tours, I keep my baggage simple as possible. The carry on bag you take on the train part of your tours needs to be small as there is very limited storage on the train.

[gato4]

Because Princess ships and lodges have laundromats, we're taking a total of two bags--one for the land portion and the other will have our more formal clothing for the cruise. Whatever we wear on the land portion of our trip will also suffice for the days of the cruise. Our warmer clothing is bulky, so we use space bags to shrink them.

Overpacking is a problem we've overcome. We went to Ireland for a month last year with one suitcase each. You just have to plan ahead. :)

[PennyAgain]

Yes, planning ahead is the key to packing and preventing over packing. I am amazed and stunned at how much stuff some people haul along with them.

[countrygal52]

We did a HAL 13 day cruise tour (land first) with 2 nites in Fairbanks, 2 in Denali and 1 in Anchorage before taking the bus down to Seward to board the ship. Hubby and I EACH had one suitcase and one carry-on. All bags traveled WITH us to each stop. They handled the suitcases and we handled the carry-ons. We just had to attach the appropriate tags and put the suitcases outside our room by a designated time for leaving.

Every night our suitcases were in our room.