Anyone do the Hubbard Glacier excursion?

[utahtea]

5 hours ago, RuthC said:

I have done the 14-day Alaska cruise three times on HAL, and none of them have had the catamaran tour up Tracy Arm. In every case it was the ship itself that went up, and got as close as a large ship can get. 
I was on a different HAL Alaska cruise when the catamaran tour was offered. 

If I were you, I would check to be sure there is a tour offered for Tracy Arm before I made plans. 

3 hours ago, VennDiagram said:

 

The itinerary shows that as a full day of scenic cruising up Tracy Arm.  In my experience, as RuthC said, the catamaran up Tracy Arm isn't offered if the ship is cruising Tracy Arm.

 

1 hour ago, PSR said:

We are on the Maasdam 14-day cruise in June 2020 and I just checked the Shorex and they do show a catamaran trip through Tracy Fjord that is boarded from the ship. As far as I can tell, that is in addition to the ship itself cruising the fjord. This appears to be something new. I also checked Ketchikan Shorex the day before and they don't offer the usual 6hr (?) catamaran trip to Tracy Fjord, which makes sense.

 

Like Ruth, when we did a 7 day Alaska cruise in 2010 we had the option of doing the Catamaran from the ship in Tracy Arm and we did it.  It was our very first cruise and I had no idea what to expect and I was SO happy we did the tour because otherwise that year we would not have seen Sawyer Glacier.  Like Ruth we ended up meeting our ship in Juneau after the tour. 

 

On the last two 14 day Alaska cruises we did in 2014 & 2018, we were NOT offered the option for the catamaran tour in Tracy Arm or Hubbard Glacier but we did get pretty close to both glacier areas those years. 

 

We are currently booked for a HAL 14 day Alaska cruise for 2020 and the itinerary is NEW !  The new itinerary is pretty much the reason we decided to do it again this year.  I have downloaded the Holland American EXC Tours and  there are four chances to do the catamaran or zodiac tours right from the ship and they are in Tracy Arm, Inian Islands, Hubbard Glacier and Misty Fjords.  So I take it this too is new!  

 

I'm just happy to hear that they use catamarans and not just the ship tender boats.  Thank to all that have commented to me.

 

Utahtea

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by utahtea

[VennDiagram]

9 hours ago, utahtea said:

there are four chances to do the catamaran or zodiac tours right from the ship and they are in Tracy Arm, Inian Islands, Hubbard Glacier and Misty Fjords. 

 

WOW that's wonderful 🙂 Thanks for that information.   We are booked on the 14 day (though it is looking not-very-likely that we will be able to actually take the trip 😞 )

[RuthC]

12 hours ago, utahtea said:

We are currently booked for a HAL 14 day Alaska cruise for 2020 and the itinerary is NEW ! 

New ports? Oh, I'm excited! I may just have to do this cruise again! 

I truly loved the itinerary on the 21-day Maasdam Alaska cruise last summer, and am sorry it isn't being offered again, as I would take it at least two more times. 
But new ports, and new tour offerings, in Alaska is always a good thing. 

[utahtea]

3 hours ago, RuthC said:

New ports? Oh, I'm excited! I may just have to do this cruise again! 

I truly loved the itinerary on the 21-day Maasdam Alaska cruise last summer, and am sorry it isn't being offered again, as I would take it at least two more times. 
But new ports, and new tour offerings, in Alaska is always a good thing. 

 

I so wanted to do that 21 day Alaska cruise last summer because it looked so interesting and SF departure would have been a local port for us BUT we were already booked on a 40 day B2B Transatlantic Europe cruise and didn't want to give that up!  We're going to miss Kodiak and Sitka this cruise!  

 

Utahtea

[Cruise Suzy]

1 hour ago, utahtea said:

We're going to miss Kodiak and Sitka this cruise! 

 

Had been trying to get DH to do HAL's 14-day Alaskan cruise for a three years, because it included Sitka, Tracy Arm, Hubbard Glacier and Kodiak - all places we'd not been on our southbound Princess cruise. He finally agreed to do another cruise - for 2021. But starting in 2020 the itinerary changed. I managed to find the HAL cruise that included Sitka and Hubbard. It even listed Tracy Arm as an excursion.

 

A bonus: DD, DS and their spouses are going to come with us! They wouldn't have done the 14-day cruise - none have cruised before. It may not be the best first cruise for them, but I insisted on Sitka and preferred going to Hubbard Glacier from Seattle rather than Glacier Bay from Vancouver. They agreed to the itinerary and we found a week when all of us can go. (Their next Alaskan cruise can include the rail excursion from Skagway and Glacier Bay.)

 

So I booked it. When I went to book excursions a day later, Tracy Arm wasn't listed even though it was still in the online cruise description, I even called HAL's Shore Excursion desk. After the agent checked for 5 minutes, she came back with "Not available for 2021." Oh well, I am looking forward to two of the places I really wanted to visit. Yes, I did book the Hubbard Glacier excursion.

[utahtea]

8 hours ago, Cruise Suzy said:

 

Had been trying to get DH to do HAL's 14-day Alaskan cruise for a three years, because it included Sitka, Tracy Arm, Hubbard Glacier and Kodiak - all places we'd not been on our southbound Princess cruise. He finally agreed to do another cruise - for 2021. But starting in 2020 the itinerary changed. I managed to find the HAL cruise that included Sitka and Hubbard. It even listed Tracy Arm as an excursion.

 

A bonus: DD, DS and their spouses are going to come with us! They wouldn't have done the 14-day cruise - none have cruised before. It may not be the best first cruise for them, but I insisted on Sitka and preferred going to Hubbard Glacier from Seattle rather than Glacier Bay from Vancouver. They agreed to the itinerary and we found a week when all of us can go. (Their next Alaskan cruise can include the rail excursion from Skagway and Glacier Bay.)

 

So I booked it. When I went to book excursions a day later, Tracy Arm wasn't listed even though it was still in the online cruise description, I even called HAL's Shore Excursion desk. After the agent checked for 5 minutes, she came back with "Not available for 2021." Oh well, I am looking forward to two of the places I really wanted to visit. Yes, I did book the Hubbard Glacier excursion.

 

Just out of curiosity, do they list all your other excursions?  I ask, because when we booked a year in advance for our New Zealand cruise there were no excursions listed until 6 months out.  I don't know about Alaska because we've never booked one of those that far out.

 

Utahtea

[Cruise Suzy]

10 hours ago, utahtea said:

Just out of curiosity, do they list all your other excursions?  I ask, because when we booked a year in advance for our New Zealand cruise there were no excursions listed until 6 months out.  I don't know about Alaska because we've never booked one of those that far out.

 

Yes, that is the only one that was listed in the cruise description that wasn't available for reserving. I even checked it out by going to the Web section where excursions are described with a list of cruises on which they are available. About a week after I called, the excursion was no longer in the cruise description and the cruise had been deleted from the excursion in the excursion section. Guess the option changed but the Website hadn't been updated. Happens all the time, not just with the HAL Website.

 

There are plenty of other excursions available for the cruise and I've reserved something in each port but Victoria.

[VermeulT]

I think it's way to early to expect a full list for 2021.  I'm sailing on the 14 day in Aug 2020 and I'm not 100% sure they're all there.

[Cruise Suzy]

There are 51 excursions listed for Juneau alone - which is where the Tracy Arm excursion had been shown. I also checked with the firm that provides the boat (it was listed in the description) and they confirmed they would be offering it on other HAL ships but not for the Oosterdam in 2021. They suggested I do the Hubbard Glacier excursion - which I already had reserved.

 

Even though I have reserved an alternate excursion for Juneau, I will keep checking. Schedules and contracts do change.