Alaskan Land and Sea questions

[rslinky]

Have booked a land and sea for May of 2015. We do the land first which includes the first night in Anchorage. I am wondering how we get any info regarding time we leave the next morning, transfer to train depot and what train car we are on. Nothing in our reservation information answers this but maybe it comes with final payment or once we are at hotel. We will actually be arriving in Anchorage a day ahead so will take a cab to hotel.

 

Second question is getting on board. We will be leaving Denali and heading to Seward to board. Reports say anywhere between 8-10 hours for that trip on bus. Has anyone done this bus trip from Denali to ship and remember what time you left Denali and what time you arrived in Seward? And will muster drill be before we sail?

 

Our first Hal and first Alaska. Have done lots of reading of cruise critic, ordered great books of the inside passage for lots of additional information, trying to decide on excursions. I am one of those that believes that half the fun of the trip is the planning. That's why as soon as one major trip is over, I have to start planning the next.

[sue1898]

Have booked a land and sea for May of 2015. We do the land first which includes the first night in Anchorage. I am wondering how we get any info regarding time we leave the next morning, transfer to train depot and what train car we are on. Nothing in our reservation information answers this but maybe it comes with final payment or once we are at hotel. We will actually be arriving in Anchorage a day ahead so will take a cab to hotel. We had a HAL transfer from the airport to the hotel and received our info packet at hotel check in.

 

Second question is getting on board. We will be leaving Denali and heading to Seward to board. Reports say anywhere between 8-10 hours for that trip on bus. Has anyone done this bus trip from Denali to ship and remember what time you left Denali and what time you arrived in Seward? And will muster drill be before we sail? Our bus trip was delayed by a couple of traffic issues so both munster drill and sail away were delayed because there were several busloads of late arriving passangers.

 

Our first Hal and first Alaska. Have done lots of reading of cruise critic, ordered great books of the inside passage for lots of additional information, trying to decide on excursions. I am one of those that believes that half the fun of the trip is the planning. That's why as soon as one major trip is over, I have to start planning the next.

Have a wonderful time! I wrote a very long,detailed review of our trip. If you are interested you will find it here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2069069

 

[oaktreerb]

Have booked a land and sea for May of 2015. We do the land first which includes the first night in Anchorage. I am wondering how we get any info regarding time we leave the next morning, transfer to train depot and what train car we are on. Nothing in our reservation information answers this but maybe it comes with final payment or once we are at hotel. We will actually be arriving in Anchorage a day ahead so will take a cab to hotel.

 

Second question is getting on board. We will be leaving Denali and heading to Seward to board. Reports say anywhere between 8-10 hours for that trip on bus. Has anyone done this bus trip from Denali to ship and remember what time you left Denali and what time you arrived in Seward? And will muster drill be before we sail?

 

Our first Hal and first Alaska. Have done lots of reading of cruise critic, ordered great books of the inside passage for lots of additional information, trying to decide on excursions. I am one of those that believes that half the fun of the trip is the planning. That's why as soon as one major trip is over, I have to start planning the next.

 

You will meet your tour director at your hotel the evening before you head to Denali. You will receive a packet of information and he/she will explain everything to you. As a group you will be transferred the very short distance to the train station where you will ride in the Holland America rail cars. All seats face forward, you will have a car manager, a bartender, and your cruise director with you. You will have an opportunity to go to the dining car for breakfast and/or lunch if you choose. Your car manager will provide a commentary during the trip. Your cruise director will give you an opportunity to sign up for any excursions that you may want to do in Denali if you have not done that in advance.

 

Once you get to Denali the cruise director will give you a packet of information with your room # and information about the tour that you will be taking into the park, hopefully the Tundra Wilderness Tour. For that tour you will meet at the appointed time at the entrance to the hotel, board the bus, and enjoy seeing Denali National Park.

 

The return trip by bus to Seward will be a long one. You will get all the information from your cruise director with times to meet, etc. The bus will stop for lunch and will also stop every 2 hours for a comfort stop. Don't worry about what time you will get to the ship. You will be part of a group and if you are late for the muster drill they will do another one for you. They will not sail until everyone has completed the drill.

 

Pack your clothes for the ship in a separate suitcase so that you do not have to access them during the land part. You can have a backpack. purse, camera case etc on the train with you and a suitcase with land tour clothes that will be handled by HAL and will be in your room when you arrive.

 

Once you meet your tour director you can just "go with the flow".

[mllewis48]

We did the Land and sea this August. We flew to Fairbanks and bussed to Denali the next day, left around 9 AM and got to Denali around 1PM. Did a tour in Denali and spent the evening at the McKinley Chalet. Left the next morning by HAL train around 8AM for a 8 hour trip to Anchorage where we spent the evening at the Captain Cook, very nice. Left the next morning around 9AM and travelled on Alaska RR to Seward, about 5 hours, great trip. Arrived at the ship around 2:30PM. Ship is only 100 yards from the train. Hope this helps.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rslinky]

Thanks everyone. I now have the detailed answers to my questions.

[Lady Chew]

You will meet your tour director at your hotel the evening before you head to Denali. You will receive a packet of information and he/she will explain everything to you. As a group you will be transferred the very short distance to the train station where you will ride in the Holland America rail cars. All seats face forward, you will have a car manager, a bartender, and your cruise director with you. You will have an opportunity to go to the dining car for breakfast and/or lunch if you choose. Your car manager will provide a commentary during the trip. Your cruise director will give you an opportunity to sign up for any excursions that you may want to do in Denali if you have not done that in advance.

 

Once you get to Denali the cruise director will give you a packet of information with your room # and information about the tour that you will be taking into the park, hopefully the Tundra Wilderness Tour. For that tour you will meet at the appointed time at the entrance to the hotel, board the bus, and enjoy seeing Denali National Park.

 

The return trip by bus to Seward will be a long one. You will get all the information from your cruise director with times to meet, etc. The bus will stop for lunch and will also stop every 2 hours for a comfort stop. Don't worry about what time you will get to the ship. You will be part of a group and if you are late for the muster drill they will do another one for you. They will not sail until everyone has completed the drill.

 

Pack your clothes for the ship in a separate suitcase so that you do not have to access them during the land part. You can have a backpack. purse, camera case etc on the train with you and a suitcase with land tour clothes that will be handled by HAL and will be in your room when you arrive.

 

Once you meet your tour director you can just "go with the flow".

 

Change the words "cruise" highlighted above to "tour" and you're good to go!

[mllewis48]

I'm confused on your response as rslinky starts in Anchorage, how do they get to Denali as it is an 8 hour train trip north to Denali? Then to get to Seward it is a return to Anchorage plus a 5 hour train or bus trip, we did the train from Anchorage.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mllewis48]

I rechecked the HAL book and see there is a Anchorage to Denali by train then return from Denali to Seward, must be a long bus trip? It took us a total of 13 hours by train from Denali to Seward. The train speed was obviously less than bus but we preferred the train, beautiful scenery.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[oaktreerb]

Change the words "cruise" highlighted above to "tour" and you're good to go!

 

Noted!

[summersigh]

When doing a land tour before the cruise tour you CAN fly in a few days before the tour actually meets even when you're booking air transportation through the cruise line. We often book our air reservations through the cruise line because of good rates. I know what flights I want before I book and the cruise line seems to accommodate them.

 

We flew into Anchorage to have 3 full days on our own and rented a Budget Rental Car at the airport. I'd reserved rooms at the Best Western near Lake Hood (300 float-plane takeoffs and landings daily). Each evening we looked for good local restaurants.

 

Day 1: We went to the float plane museum and had a picnic watching the float planes then went to check out downtown Anchorage - took a trolley tour.

 

Day 2: We took a small boat tour of College Fiords out of Whittier - beautiful scenery on the way there and back.

 

Day 3: Spent a lot of time at the Anchorage Native American Heritage Center then returned the rental car and took a cab to the Anchorage Hilton where our tour was to meet that evening and leave on the land tour to Denali and Fairbanks in the morning.

 

We felt like we got a good feel for Anchorage and as long as we were paying airfare from the US East Coast we might as well see as much as we could.