Alaska Cruise Tour

[Geo&Ver]

We have been on many cruises but not a cruise tour. Are all meals included in the price on the tour part and at the lodges?. What are the out of pocket expenses? Are they the same as aboard ship? Thanks

[Shmoo here]

We have been on many cruises but not a cruise tour. Are all meals included in the price on the tour part and at the lodges?. What are the out of pocket expenses? Are they the same as aboard ship? Thanks

 

Generally, meals are not included in the land portion of the tour. Some cruiselines you can purchase as meal plan, but it's expensive, doesn't cover all meals, and you usually wind up only being able to eat in the dining room/coffee shop that's in your hotel. I will also point out that meals are quite expensive on the land portion.

 

DH & I figured out that since many of our excursions during the land portion of the tour included a meal (lunch or dinner), and there were a couple of dinners already included in our cruise/tour, we just hit the grocery at our first stop and purchased crackers, peanut butter, cheese, soda, juices, fruit, trail mix, and breakfast rolls. We're not particularly big eaters, so this was fine for us.

 

We saved up our "big" eating for the cruise.

[agabbymama]

As Shmoo stated, most meals are not included. We did a HAL 11 day cruisetour and they provided 3 lunches. We did not purchase the meal package add on (as we thought we could eat cheaper ourselves). We did hit the grocery store in Skagway before the land portion, but still ended up spending approx the same amount that HAL was asking for the meal package.

 

You are more or less a captive audience when you are on a cruisetour. We arrived in Whitehorse approx 5:30 pm and walked around until 7:00 looking for someplace other than the hotel to eat. Ended up at a Subway and for a sandwich, soup and drink it was $23 pp. So after that, we ended up just racing to the hotel restaurant to get seated quickly and order dinner (most had a dinner buffet for $28 pp).

 

Lunch is pretty much forgotten on a cruisetour. We grabbed a piece of pie, or an ice cream cone or a cup of chili. Stops were usually short and didn't allow for a real lunch, so the munchies we had grabbed in Skagway helped fill the gap.

 

When we arrived in Denali approx 1:00 pm, we were scheduled for the Tundra Wilderness Tour at 2:30, so decided to grab a quick lunch. My husband asked the server if the ceasar salad was a good sized salad, she responded yes it would be a meal. Well he ended up with a cereal bowl sized salad for $12. He was furious and talked to the manager. We all ended up cancelling our food order and leaving the restaurant. We again grabbed sandwiches to take on the tour.

 

Breakfast buffets at the hotels were usually $14 pp (the best bargain of any meals on the whole cruisetour).

 

If you aren't a big eater, or don't care what time you eat dinner, then you have no problem. But if you are big eaters that want to eat around 5, there is a problem, so plan accordingly.

 

Have a great trip. Alaska is awesome!