Anchorage hotel assignment for Alaska cruisetours

[LynKev]

I read that HAL mainly uses the Westmark in Anchorage, but we could also possibly be assigned to a different hotel.

 

When you booked your cruisetour, when did you get the information on what hotel you would be staying at in Anchorage?  Our final payment is due at the end of February, so I'm assuming it will be after that.   I'm currently looking at flights and coming in a day earlier, so we will need to book an extra night in Anchorage if we do that.  It would be easier to not change hotels.

[Mary229]

Check HAL prices as their pre hotel extra day price may be reasonable (of course it may not be😉). When I went that is how I handled it and  stayed in the same room both nights. Of course calling before final payment date may be the most expedient method.  I went in 2022 when tours weren’t filling up so my experience may not be comparable but as I recall it was a month or two before 

[Haljo1935]

We were booked at Captain Cook's in Anchorage. I don't remember how far in advance we received notice.

[Alphen]

17 hours ago, LynKev said:

I read that HAL mainly uses the Westmark in Anchorage, but we could also possibly be assigned to a different hotel.

 

When you booked your cruisetour, when did you get the information on what hotel you would be staying at in Anchorage?  Our final payment is due at the end of February, so I'm assuming it will be after that.   I'm currently looking at flights and coming in a day earlier, so we will need to book an extra night in Anchorage if we do that.  It would be easier to not change hotels.

It will be in your booking confirmation/itinerary, where part of the detailed itinerary, is also which hotel you will be staying, but this is not for all of the locations. In our case, it remained listed as Anchorage area hotel, during the land tour we were informed that it would be the Westmark.

[AKJonesy]

Westmark - yuk.  Captain Cook - yes.  

[JerseyGirl1007]

On 2/4/2024 at 2:44 PM, LynKev said:

I read that HAL mainly uses the Westmark in Anchorage, but we could also possibly be assigned to a different hotel.

 

When you booked your cruisetour, when did you get the information on what hotel you would be staying at in Anchorage?  Our final payment is due at the end of February, so I'm assuming it will be after that.   I'm currently looking at flights and coming in a day earlier, so we will need to book an extra night in Anchorage if we do that.  It would be easier to not change hotels.

We're compete newbies to cruising and are in the same situation.  Our tour begins on 5/23, but we're flying in from the east coast on 5/22 and trying to figure out where to stay.

[Mary229]

48 minutes ago, JerseyGirl1007 said:

We're compete newbies to cruising and are in the same situation.  Our tour begins on 5/23, but we're flying in from the east coast on 5/22 and trying to figure out where to stay.

If you are on the cruise tour your hotel and transfers from the airport are included in the tour package. If you are only sailing you might want to try the Hampton downtown, it is fairly new.  The Captain Cook always gets good reviews 

[JerseyGirl1007]

6 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

If you are on the cruise tour your hotel and transfers from the airport are included in the tour package. If you are only sailing you might want to try the Hampton downtown, it is fairly new.  The Captain Cook always gets good reviews 

We're arriving a full day ahead of when our cruise tour officially begins, so we definitely need to book for one night on our own.  Our TA told us that since we're coming in a day early, we're on our own for getting from the airport to our first night hotel and from that hotel to whatever HAL has us booked into for the official first night.  Does that make sense?  I have discovered that she's not the best TA out there, having screwed up suggested flights so badly that we just booked them on our own and plan to do the same for the extra night.

[Mary229]

41 minutes ago, JerseyGirl1007 said:

We're arriving a full day ahead of when our cruise tour officially begins, so we definitely need to book for one night on our own.  Our TA told us that since we're coming in a day early, we're on our own for getting from the airport to our first night hotel and from that hotel to whatever HAL has us booked into for the official first night.  Does that make sense?  I have discovered that she's not the best TA out there, having screwed up suggested flights so badly that we just booked them on our own and plan to do the same for the extra night.

That doesn’t make sense.  The dates you gave indicated you were coming in the night before the tour starts, is that right?  If you are coming in earlier you can add on a night through HAL and get transfers from the airport and have the same room for two nights.  I am not a big fan of the Westmark but I am not a big fan of moving hotel to hotel either😉

[JerseyGirl1007]

1 minute ago, Mary229 said:

That doesn’t make sense.  The dates you gave indicated you were coming in the night before the tour starts, is that right?  If you are coming in earlier you can add on a night through HAL and get transfers from the airport and have the same room for two nights.  I am not a big fan of the Westmark but I am not a big fan of moving hotel to hotel either😉

No, the cruise tour starts 5/23, we're flying 5/22.  HAL provides a hotel for the night of 5/23, we need to book one for 5/22.  I agree about moving around, but I don't know what hotel HAL is putting us up in on 5/22.  I can't seem to find anything on the HAL website that lets me add a day on at the beginning.  Am I missing it?

[LynKev]

Hi JerseyGirl1007 -

We are doing the same thing that you are, flying in a day in advance of our cruise tour.  We are travelling in late May as well.

Our travel agent had checked with HAL regarding adding an extra night in Anchorage and was told that it would be sold as a package and was sold out for the date we needed.  She said the crazy thing is that we still haven't been assigned our hotel in Anchorage.

So rather than wait on our cruise hotel, I booked a hotel room for the extra night on our own at the Four Points Sheraton downtown. This option was less in cost than either the Westmark or Hotel Captain Cook.  I did not want to be in a position that we would have trouble finding a hotel room for the extra night, and I made sure it can be cancelled if needed.

Our agent suggested we cancel the transfer from the airport with HAL, and we will just take a taxi to our hotel.

We made our final payment on Friday, so I am hoping our Anchorage hotel assignment will show up soon in our itinerary.

[Mary229]

44 minutes ago, JerseyGirl1007 said:

No, the cruise tour starts 5/23, we're flying 5/22.  HAL provides a hotel for the night of 5/23, we need to book one for 5/22.  I agree about moving around, but I don't know what hotel HAL is putting us up in on 5/22.  I can't seem to find anything on the HAL website that lets me add a day on at the beginning.  Am I missing it?

Call them or have your agent call them. 

[JerseyGirl1007]

1 hour ago, LynKev said:

Hi JerseyGirl1007 -

We are doing the same thing that you are, flying in a day in advance of our cruise tour.  We are travelling in late May as well.

Our travel agent had checked with HAL regarding adding an extra night in Anchorage and was told that it would be sold as a package and was sold out for the date we needed.  She said the crazy thing is that we still haven't been assigned our hotel in Anchorage.

So rather than wait on our cruise hotel, I booked a hotel room for the extra night on our own at the Four Points Sheraton downtown. This option was less in cost than either the Westmark or Hotel Captain Cook.  I did not want to be in a position that we would have trouble finding a hotel room for the extra night, and I made sure it can be cancelled if needed.

Our agent suggested we cancel the transfer from the airport with HAL, and we will just take a taxi to our hotel.

We made our final payment on Friday, so I am hoping our Anchorage hotel assignment will show up soon in our itinerary.

Makes sense.  I suspect your TA is much more on the ball than ours appears to be!  Thank you.

[LynKev]

I wanted to post an update that we were finally assigned our Anchorage hotel for our cruisetour.  We will be staying at the Westmark.  

The only reason I know our hotel assignment is that we asked our travel agent to change our dining time on the cruise.  When she sent us an updated booking confirmation, the hotel was listed on the itinerary page.   

When I sign into our itinerary online, it doesn't show the hotel. Our travel agent wasn't notified of our hotel assignment either, so I'm glad we received the updated confirmation. 

[JerseyGirl1007]

14 hours ago, LynKev said:

I wanted to post an update that we were finally assigned our Anchorage hotel for our cruisetour.  We will be staying at the Westmark.  

The only reason I know our hotel assignment is that we asked our travel agent to change our dining time on the cruise.  When she sent us an updated booking confirmation, the hotel was listed on the itinerary page.   

When I sign into our itinerary online, it doesn't show the hotel. Our travel agent wasn't notified of our hotel assignment either, so I'm glad we received the updated confirmation. 

Thank you for that info!