Glacier Bay...Alaskan Cruise

[Gimpy McFarlan]

On 4/18/2019 at 8:22 PM, varoo said:

 

By taking a flightseeing tour over Glacier Bay.

They are offered on both helicopters and fixed wing planes from the surrounding ports. 

 

You get to see much more of Glacier Bay from the air than what can be seen from a cruise ship.

 

The standard advice is to book your Glacier Bay flight from the first port you hit that offers it so that if your flight is cancelled due to weather, you may still get another chance to do it from another port.

 

 

Thank you for this feedback, varoo. My DW and I are cruising Alaska on Millie next month and are considering flightseeing Glacier Bay. While the cost is high it is good to know there is an advantage to seeing it by air versus by water.

 

[NantahalaCruiser]

6 hours ago, bEwAbG said:

Interesting.  Wonder if RCCL will divvy up their days between the brands or keep them for Royal only.  They'd have to rework a lot of the existing 2020 itineraries if they want to include Glacier Bay.

Yes - it is interesting that concession contracts were issued to several of Carnival's specific cruise lines rather than their holding company while the holding company RCCL received contracts rather than their specific cruise lines. Will be interesting to see how current itineraries are modified.

[NantahalaCruiser]

18 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

The permit application is an involved process and it is specific to the name applicant (notice how Cunard is listed in the award summary) so it is not likely that Celebrity is going to get any of Royal Caribbean's permits.  Too bad.

Note that, unlike the awards to Carnival's individual operating companies, chezmarylou's linked article indicates the concession contract was awarded to the holding company RCCL - not to any of its individual operating companies. So it would appear that Celebrity has just as much opportunity to use the contracts as RCI.

Edited April 20, 2019 by NantahalaCruiser

[mahdnc]

On 4/19/2019 at 8:48 PM, NantahalaCruiser said:

Note that, unlike the awards to Carnival's individual operating companies, chezmarylou's linked article indicates the concession contract was awarded to the holding company RCCL - not to any of its individual operating companies. So it would appear that Celebrity has just as much opportunity to use the contracts as RCI.

 

Royal Caribbean has already changed the itineraries for several 2020 Alaska cruises to include Glacier Bay, for example: May 15 2020 Radiance of the Seas.  I see no changes to Celebrity's 2020 Alaska season to include Glacier Bay.

[tkline]

Maybe it's a given, but if you want to have less kids around, try and plan your cruise during school months and not during holidays like Christmas time. There will still be some, but just less. We always try and plan our trips for spring and fall, except for our upcoming Europe cruise next June, but we went for early June hoping the kids will still be in school.

 

We did Alaska on Celebrity Solstice 2 years ago and it was great! It did not go to Glacier Bay but there were still plenty of other glaciers to see. There was some bad weather and we had to miss one stop, I think it was Tracy Arm Fjord? But, instead, they took us somewhere else and backed the ship up really close to a big glacier, then spun the ship in slow circles so everyone could see it. I don't remember the name

[fleckle]

Was it Dawes Glacier at the end of Endicott Arm?

They often substitute that when they can't get into Tracy Arm.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2019 by fleckle

[phoenix_dream]

I don't know about Glacier Bay but I have been to Hubbard several times on Celebrity and each time was amazing - a couple times there was so much calving it was incredible.  Spend a lot of $$ getting to Glacier if you want, but I promise Hubbard Glacier will not disappoint.  Tracy Arm Fjord was nice and very beautiful, but not the awesome factor that glaciers have.

[tkline]

Yes! Endicott arm 🙂 Looking back I think it wasn't the weather I think they said it was because there was too much ice in Tracy Arm, so we went there instead. It was dumb luck that we caught it too, I got up to go to the bathroom and saw we were stopped at a glacier. It was like 5 AM. Then around 6 they came over the PA system and announced it.