3 Ships in Port

[PandasRUs]

We will be on the Noordam northbound in July with a land tour after the cruise. We are wondering if it is necessary to book tours in each of the ports. Generally I like to plan and have everything in place before I leave. However, the couple we are traveling with are more laid back and in the past have just picked up excursions in port. At this point we have nothing we feel is a must-do excursion. My concern is how busy it may be in port and if there will be much choice when we get there.

Our ports are:

Ketchican - we are 2nd arriving of 2 ships

Juneau - we are 2nd arriving of 3 ships

Skagway - we are 3rd arriving of 3 ships

Seward - disembarkation - we are the only ship

 

Thanks for any input.

[CruiserBruce]

First, those are not unusual ship in port numbers.

 

Second, you may find tour venders at dockside...Discussed here all the time. As you don't have any "must do" items, this may work for you. However, should a "must do" suddenly arise, I would be booking in advance.

[PandasRUs]

Thanks for the reassurance. My main concern was that we will not be the first ship in port, so would it be harder to find tours at dockside? In Skagway all ships appear to be arriving at the 1/2 hour intervals with us being the last one. That's the port I am thinking we should probably be sure to have something planned. I would think it could be a mess at that port.

 

I have looked at each port many times. It also seems that independent tours are not all that much less in cost than ship tours of the same or similar itineraries. We recently went to Australia and New Zealand and the similar tours there were at least $50 more from the ship (so I did plan all independent tours and did a couple where we just picked up in port). In Alaska, I wonder if we find what we want from HAL we could just book with them.

 

Thanks for any input.

[Kamloops50]

If you want to do the White Pass train in Skagway. I would book in advance.

[Keith1010]

I there are particular must do tours then I would book them.

 

Keith