NOT quite OCD Alaska, but close!

[rjeffler]

I'm not cruising until June 6th, 2014, but I started my planning WAY in advance. I figured it might help someone else who might want to start planning for next year.

 

Let me start by saying, I am a frugal girl. My husband and I have traveled a lot and don’t want for much but I enjoy saving a dollar! I have a hard time spending money if I don’t have to, so this was a challenge for me. I wanted to be able to do everything I could without breaking my bank! I’m also the resident ‘cruise director/planner’ for all of my friends and family. I simply tell them what we are doing and we always have 4-6 cabins along for the ride. I do as much of the research as possible and send out emails monthly in the beginning giving tips on what they might need to do to prepare.

 

I booked my June 6, 2014 Alaska cruise on 2/13/2013 for the Southbound Seward to Vancouver on Royal Carribean Radiance of the Seas. We booked within the first week as I wanted my choice of cabins. I’m not that interested in AFT cabins after we did one from Hawaii to Vancouver a few years ago. They seem a little too distant from everything for our likings. I knew this one was going to cost a LOT more than our prior cruises (14 total) but it was something my mother had wanted to do for a long time. She had a stroke in 2012 so my husband decided it was time to make it happen. Life is too short! So, we booked a balcony room (8102), my parents got a handicapped balcony (7110), long time family friends a regular balcony (7092) and some other friends went big with a suite (1032). I choose 8102 specifically for the size of the balcony and how close it was to my parents – up the stairs and right there! We have always had at least balcony rooms since our 2nd cruise and although I thought it would be much cooler on the balcony, we couldn’t live without it. This one seemed HUGE in the pictures! Can’t wait to see it in person!

 

Take this one how you want…some will like the suggestion, some will not. I’m not your financial planner and don’t know your finances. I know mine and my own limits! My first suggestion to anyone planning a trip like this is to join loyalty programs at any hotels, airlines, etc… Also, if your finances allow, sign up for the credit cards for the companies you plan on using. My husband travels a lot for work, so we already had a United and Hilton credit card. We also, for this trip, got a Marriott, Holiday Inn and Royal Caribbean card and maxed them out enough to get the initial bonus points. We don’t use the cards on a regular basis but simply use them to get the points we need and then go back to our regular cards. We do, however, travel with them. If we are staying at a Marriott, we use the Marriott credit card, ect… You get double the points and sometimes there are bonuses! The airline ones give you free luggage and sometimes a Club pass per year. We had saved lots of United and Hilton points for years as my husband doesn’t like to use them and save them for an ‘emergency’. To me, this was that time!! Most travel clubs will allow you to carry points over from year to year as long as long as you either stay or have the credit card that is accruing points.

 

My next suggestion is to join Cruise Fish. It is a website that tracks cabin prices of all cruise ships. It costs $1/per cruise to use. For this trip (for my $1), I put in triggers for 3 different cabin categories (E1, E2, GS). You tell it the category and the price you paid (per person, before fees, military, etc…) and if the cost goes lower than that, you get an email. Then, you call your TA or cruise line and request the lower price. I had just paid off my cruise on Feb 17th (final payment wasn’t due until 03/28) and I got an email on Feb 19th that my cabin prices had dropped by $98/pp. I called Royal Caribbean and they gave me the choice of a refund on my credit card or OBC for $196.00. I happened to choose the OBC as I know I’ll spend quite a bit on board with gambling, bingo, drinks, shopping… My parents cabin also went down the next day and they got the same credit! Amazingly enough, I had never heard of Cruise Fish before last year and can only imagine the money I could have saved in the past!! J

 

If I'm getting too wordy or this isn't helping, please let me know. I have LOTS of notes still ready to post and am happy to do so. I will also make sure to do a post cruise with all of the follow up from my planning and letting you know how it went!!

[FortWayneCruiser]

We are thinking about an Alaska cruise in either 2015 or 2016 so we are very much looking forward to your review!

[lag9122]

We booked a cruise to Alaska for June 12 2015 I am looking forward to your review !!

[rjeffler]

Here is a bit more of my pre-planning:

 

The next hurdle was to figure out our schedule and see where we would need hotels and which we should use. Vancouver and Seward are the easiest as they don’t have as many options. The only chain hotel in Seward is Holiday Inn. In Vancouver, the biggest US chains that are there are Marriott and Best Western. Marriott suits us better and we had their credit card as well as loyalty club with some points already!! So, the schedule was:

 

05/30 Fly to Anchorage

05/31 Drive to Fairbanks (stopping along the way)

06/01 Fairbanks

06/02 Fairbanks

06/03 Drive to Anchorage (stopping at other places)

06/04 Train to Seward

06/05 Seward

06/06 Board Ship

-------- Cruise (Hubbard Glacier, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Straight Point, Ketchikan)

06/13 Arrive Vancouver

06/14 Vancouver

06/15 Fly back home L

 

My first hotel booked was the Holiday Inn, Seward. It is a small hotel and fills up quickly. I know for the days prior to our cruise, it was fully booked 7-8 months in advance. So, I went to charging on that card and got all of the bonuses I could. I was 400 points shy of having enough points for 2 nights, so I called to speak with someone. I was going to ask to use points for 1 night and points and money for the 2nd night. The lovely young lady I was talking to went ahead and just gave me both nights since I was sooo close to having enough points! I made sure to ask her name and wrote a lovely letter to Holiday Inn telling them what great service she provided.

 

The next hotel we scheduled was Vancouver. We decided to go with the Marriott Pinnacle since it is quite close to the port and downtown area and was a nicer hotel for the same number of points as the others. For those worried about making an early flight the next day, it is no problem. The last time we were in Vancouver, we simply had the hotel get us a cab for 3am. They drove us directly to the airport in less than 30 min as there was NO traffic. I would much rather get up a bit earlier to get to the airport than have my hotel sooo far outside the fun places to visit. Yes, there is the sky train, but we wanted to be in town. So, again, I charged, charged, charged on the credit card, got all the bonus points and then scheduled the hotel. We had a Marriott account prior, so we might have already had some points on it. This one cost us 70,000 points total for both nights.

 

Finally, I had to schedule hotels in Anchorage (1 night), Fairbanks (2 nights) and Anchorage (1 night). We are frequent Hilton guests, so this was the easiest for me. Homewood Suites by Hilton Anchorage was 40,000 points. Hampton Inn Fairbanks was 50,000 per night. The final night we choose the Hilton Anchorage for 50,000 points as it was closer to the train station and we would be boarding at 0’dark thirty!!

 

Just to give you a tally at this point, we’ve paid the $500 deposit on the cruise, $113.80 in 1st class airfare (both ways) and $0 for ALL hotel stays for the entire trip!

 

Next, I handled the travel from Anchorage to Seward. One of the other couples we are cruising with will arrive in Anchorage on 06/03. We decided to take the train from Anchorage to Seward together and spend a couple of days down there. My family is retired military, so we took advantage of the travel office at Elmendorf. Their email is aftravel at alaska dot net or phone is 907-753-2378 if you need it! We were able to book Goldstar service for $105/pp. Normal rate is $140/pp for 2014. We were able to book ours as well as our friends (non-military) for the same rate under our booking. I did this in September.

 

Next up will be the actual tours that we've scheduled for the trip!

[rjeffler]

We booked a cruise to Alaska for June 12 2015 I am looking forward to your review !!

 

We are thinking about an Alaska cruise in either 2015 or 2016 so we are very much looking forward to your review!

 

Since this is nearly all Alaska based, I opened another thread on the Alaska board titled the same thing. I'm putting updates there.

[gottogocruisin]

definitely keep those suggestions coming. So many of us devour these sites and take what we need from each one to make our cruise the best one for us. Thanks so much for doing this.