Alaska Cruisetour - land accommodations question

[HappyInVan]

HI,

 

Thinking of a cruisetour (Whitehorse, Dawson, Fairbanks) to Alaska. I could book a suite on the ship. What about the land accommodations? Do the suite pax get better rooms, or do we get the same motel rooms?? Thanks.

 

Anyone been on a cruisetour??

[oaktreerb]

 Hotel accommodations are assigned at random taking into account your travel partners.  (King, two queens, etc.).  We’ve been on the same itineraries.  You may be able to upgrade your Denali accommodations for a price.  

[YourWorldWithBill]

What @oaktreerbsaid is correct: we were in a Neptune suite, and our rooms in Denali and Fairbanks were assigned like everyone else. We did get a car toward the front of the train to Denali that seemed to be for Neptune passengers, and I suspect we were all in the same building in Denali, but not special rooms. 

 

By the way, we went in September in hopes of seeing the Aurora Borealis in Fairbanks. They say if you're in Fairbanks for 3 nights in September your odds of seeing the lights are 80%. We got lucky. But if you go then, many of the staff hired in Denali for the summer are from abroad and are beginning to return to their countries.

[HappyInVan]

Thanks Guys. I suspected as much. Towns like Whitehorse (pop 28k), Dawson (pop 1,500) and Fairbanks (pop 32k) won't have much choice in accommodations. Even Anchorage won't have much since the summer tourist season is so short.

 

 

[Mary229]

The lodge at Denali does now offer a suite.  I did not request one. The rooms are large as it is. We were assigned the newest building and it is very nice.  I do believe the suites are also in the newest building 

 

As to the train and other accommodations you will be grouped by tour director. The groups are around 40 people.  You will travel with those same people and tour director for your entire stay including the train car.

 

if you examine the pricing you will quickly realize the Neptune portion of your journey ends at the pier 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Mary229

[terrydtx]

Unfortunately, you do not get any preferences for land hotel rooms and I know from personal experience. We did the cruise land tour in 2019 on the Noordam in a Neptune suite. The hotel room we got at a very old and run down Anchorage hotel was at best worse than any Motel 6. Our room must have had heavy smokers in our room before we checked in and it was so bad we couldn't stay in the room. I complained to the HAL representative and was told the hotel had no other rooms available and was sold out, I called HAL customer service in Seattle and got nowhere with them too. They refused to move us to any other hotel as they kept saying everything was sold out. We ended up sleeping with the sliding door to the balcony open for the 2 horrible nights we were there. I will never do any cruise tour if we do not have a choice of hotels and rooms.

 

I will say when we got to Denali Lodge we did get one of the new suites in the new building without having to pay extra, so maybe this was HAL's way of saying sorry for Anchorage.

Edited July 12, 2023 by terrydtx

[SusieKIslandGirl]

If you go midsummer, be sure to pack a pair of shorts. It was 92 degrees in Fairbanks when we were there. The hotels did provide fans but no A/C. Luckily, my SIL warned me about the possibility of it being quite warm and she was right!

[renee00]

On 7/11/2023 at 7:38 AM, HappyInVan said:

Thinking of a cruisetour (Whitehorse, Dawson, Fairbanks) to Alaska. I could book a suite on the ship. What about the land accommodations? Do the suite pax get better rooms, or do we get the same motel rooms?? Thanks.

 

Did the same itinerary in reverse earlier this summer. We were in a Signature Suite on the cruise, but you get the same hotel rooms as everyone else. Denali offers rooms upgrades but the price is steep ($100 per person per night). Most of the other hotels aren't great, but are clean at least. The Dawson one is rather nice and has a lot of charm.