Alaska 2007--Cruisetour or on our own?

[Fritzie]

Newbie here in charge of planning an Alaskan trip for late July 2007 for my family of 4 (two kids age 9 and 13) and my senior parents. Originally thought a cruisetour would be nice, but WOW--the cost! And I've read a few comments about kids not necessarily being interested in a cruisetour.

So, I'm hoping for lots of help from you all.

Any recommendations on cruisetour vs. doing a few days of land travel on our own?

Any cruise lines/itineraries you'd highly recommend?

Any shore excursions?

Northbound vs. southbound?

Feel free to jump in with any thoughts. I'm a bit--no, A LOT--overwhelmed!

Thanks!

[ShrinkinTexas]

My husband and I just returned from our first trip. We went with our parents (50) we are 30 and my brother who is 13. I planned for over a year. I would recommend an independent tour, but to each person, that may be different. Along our way, we met many people who we doing a cruisetour who had wished they had done it independently as they wanted to be on their own a little, and not “herded like cattle”.

I recommend doing plenty of research on this board and asking lots of questions. Everything for my 19 day trip came from here. These people have a wealth of information!!!!

First you have to decide if you want to do a cruise only or add a land portion, which I would recommend. We did the land portion first, which was lots of traveling and go...go...go. Finally, once we got to the cruise ship, we could relax, unpack, and settle in for a week. I would recommend doing a southbound for that reason.

You might want to look at which ship. I haven't looked at 2007, but look at itineraries, glacier days, ports, etc. We have always heard that there aren't many kids on an Alaska cruise. We were on the Radiance of the Seas (RCCL) and we very surprised at the number of youth on board. Nothing similar to the Caribbean, but my brother found many friends and had a good time. Something like Holland America may not suit your taste for your age group.

That's a good place to start. Might want to try and hold something soon, as the good cabins sale out soon. It's only a deposit, which is refundable (check just to make sure). Then you'll have to decide on interior, OV, or balcony. Some people saw, "Oh you have to have a balcony to cruise Alaska." I disagree. Save your money and splurge on your shore excursions. Do the helicopter flights and the seaplane rides, etc. Besides, we had a balcony and I found it kind of cold out there and didn't really enjoy spending much time out there except on the glacier day!!!

Have fun planning!!! It really will be here before you know it!

[Budget Queen]

I am biased, I have nothing good to say about cruisetours, and definately you do not want one with kids. Extremely few if any are on the cruisetours and the fixed long transits just are terrible with a family. You can do far more at a much lower cost going on your own. Plenty of accurate first hand information on this board.

 

As a start- to too like southbound cruises because I really love sailing inside Vancouver Island during daylight. But have actually done more northbound trips. :) Planning is the key- they never should be a marathon trip. Factor in time at destinations and be well aware of distances.

 

A great deal depends on how many days, I really recommend another week for a nice variety of touring the highlights, take advantage of being all the way there. :)

 

With a min. of 5 days, I suggest Anchorage 1 night, Denali Park 2 nights, Talkeetna 1 night, Seward 1 night, then touring before getting on your ship.

 

This allows time for the shuttle to at least Fish Creek in Denali Park and a Kenai Fjords boat tour of at least 6 hours.

 

Do your homework, compare with cruisetours, and pick out your interests. You can easily duplicate any cruisetour according to your interests. Toursaver can offer significant savings http://www.toursaver.com and staying in Alaska B&B's offers the most wonderful "view" into another way of life which you will never get in a cruisetour lodge with only other visitors. Get out and see some of the "small" stuff that all the tours miss. :) Extremely easy to go on your own.

[Naturluvr]

I just returned from a 12 day cruise tour on Thursday night. I went on Holland America with my 73 year old mother, traveling northbound from Vancouver to Seward. The land portion included Anchorage, Denali and Fairbanks. We took a motor coach from Seward to Anchorage which took approximately 3 hours. The hotel was not ready for us so the coach driver took us for a short side trip through the Alaska wildlife park. It was an okay stop and broke up the trip - plus that was about all of the wildlife we actually saw on the land portion of our trip.

We had time in Anchorage to walk around the town for a short time and ate dinner there. Then we had to pack up an overnight bag for Denali and the cruise line transported our large baggage to Fairbanks for us.

We boarded the McKinley Explorer in Anchorage for a very long rail ride to Denali. I think if we had driven or gone by motorcoach it would have taken about half the time of the train trip. The literature provided to us by the cruise line highlighted the scenery and wildlife we would see on the train ride. Mostly we watched about 10 million trees go by, and saw a few waterfowl. Our train arrived at Denali over an hour late and people were getting pretty impatient by then. We were then transported by motor coach to our hotel - the McKinley Chalets Resort. The resort was nice enough, but our building was all the way at the back end of the property. Due to my mother's age and energy level we had to wait for the "Bear Bus" to shuttle us back up to the main lodge. That bus was so full of people that they were standing in the aisle all the way up to the white line behind the driver. We were able to walk over to a little pizza place at the Princess resort next door and got a great deal on pizza $4.oo per slice! It was good pizza too.

Our Denali tour was the Natural History Tour which left our hotel at 6:30 am the following morning. Since the tour lasted 4 1/2 - 5 hours and check out time was 10am we checked our bags at the hotel for the day. The Natural History tour was sort of a bust - we did not see any wildlife and others on our trip had a noon train to catch so the driver hustled us back to the hotel.I heard from people that took the Tundra Wilderness Tour that they saw some wildlife, so it was a better trip. Also, Denali was not cooperating that day and we were unable to see her. Our guide said that she is only visible about 30% of the time. Our train did not leave until 4pm which left us the rest of the day mostly hanging around the lodge. There were other excursions we could have done, but by this part of the trip my mother was getting pretty worn out so it was out of the question.

We took the McKinley Explorer up to Fairbanks and arrived there around 8pm where they checked us into the Westmark Hotel. That did not leave us any time to check out Fairbanks the first night. Our Riverboat/Gold Dredge tour was at 9am the next day. That was a nice excursion and pretty low key.

I have to agree with the people who feel that the cruise tour portion is like a cattle call. I was really tired of being herded onto buses and trains, etc. during the land portion. Plus on the particular trip we took there wasn't really alot of time to yourself between the transportation and excursions they have planned.

I know I wrote a lot of things here, but in short I would make sure to do the research and try to do the land portion on your own. Budget Queen's itinerary is very manageable and will allow you to see what you want on the land end. Also, southbound is a great idea because you get to relax on the ship for the last portion of your trip.

Happy Alaska Travels to you!

[agabbymama]

It's going to be expensive anyway you do it. Everything in Alaska is expensive. I compared hotel prices, car rental and the cost of fuel $$$$. Then add in the sightseeing costs. I even checked out motorhomes to eliminate the hotel costs. That would have been cheaper, but then I would have been cooking and cleaning (NOT a vacation to me). I couldn't get close to the cost of a cruisetour. We are older and won't have any kids with us, so that does make a difference. You have to check out what you want to see and do. We did Alaska Inside Passage in 1999, so this time I decided to leave the ship in Skagway, we will take the rail up to Whitehorse, Dawson City, then a catamaran on the Yukon River to Eagle, coach to Chicken, Tok, Fairbanks, Denali and back down to Anchorage. Only 3 days on the cruise, then 8 days on land with HAL.

 

That Toursaver coupon book looks great. Might have changed my mind if I had seen that before I booked!

 

Good luck and have a great trip!:p

[tinkerme1]

I am biased, I have nothing good to say about cruisetours, and definately you do not want one with kids. Extremely few if any are on the cruisetours and the fixed long transits just are terrible with a family. You can do far more at a much lower cost going on your own. Plenty of accurate first hand information on this board.

 

As a start- to too like southbound cruises because I really love sailing inside Vancouver Island during daylight. But have actually done more northbound trips. :) Planning is the key- they never should be a marathon trip. Factor in time at destinations and be well aware of distances.

 

A great deal depends on how many days, I really recommend another week for a nice variety of touring the highlights, take advantage of being all the way there. :)

 

With a min. of 5 days, I suggest Anchorage 1 night, Denali Park 2 nights, Talkeetna 1 night, Seward 1 night, then touring before getting on your ship.

 

This allows time for the shuttle to at least Fish Creek in Denali Park and a Kenai Fjords boat tour of at least 6 hours.

 

Do your homework, compare with cruisetours, and pick out your interests. You can easily duplicate any cruisetour according to your interests. Toursaver can offer significant savings http://www.toursaver.com and staying in Alaska B&B's offers the most wonderful "view" into another way of life which you will never get in a cruisetour lodge with only other visitors. Get out and see some of the "small" stuff that all the tours miss. :) Extremely easy to go on your own.

 

BQ: I must disagree with your assessment of a Cruisetour. We just returned from the Southbound on the Radiance, and took Cruisetour #15 which was outstanding. We had at least eight kids in our group, and even more in the group which was co-located with us. The tour gave us a great opportunity to experience Alaska from Fairbanks all the way to Seward. We had two segments of the train which really fascinated the kids. The age groups on the tour were extremely varied, and the timing was like a well-oiled machine. It gave us opportunities we would not have had if we planned it on our own.

 

I know that many folks here on the boards are happy to plan their own itineraries, and that's wonderful if you have the time and "know" where you want to go. Personally, we have a much better understanding of planning our own trip the next time we go. Since Alaska is so big, you definitely cannot do it all the first time, and will hopefully you will return on trip #2, #3, ect.

 

ShrinkinTexas: We really do agree with you about the "balcony" thoughts. We used our balcony for just brief periods of time, since it was windy and chilly to darn right cold most of the time. Hubbard Glacier was best viewed from the bow of the ship, not from the balcony. There are family inside cabins that easily accommodate family of four. The earlier you book your Alaska cruise, the more apt you are to get a better price for the cruisetour.

[Budget Queen]

It's going to be expensive anyway you do it. Everything in Alaska is expensive. I compared hotel prices, car rental and the cost of fuel $$$$. Then add in the sightseeing costs. I even checked out motorhomes to eliminate the hotel costs. That would have been cheaper, but then I would have been cooking and cleaning (NOT a vacation to me). I couldn't get close to the cost of a cruisetour. We are older and won't have any kids with us, so that does make a difference. You have to check out what you want to see and do. We did Alaska Inside Passage in 1999, so this time I decided to leave the ship in Skagway, we will take the rail up to Whitehorse, Dawson City, then a catamaran on the Yukon River to Eagle, coach to Chicken, Tok, Fairbanks, Denali and back down to Anchorage. Only 3 days on the cruise, then 8 days on land with HAL.

 

That Toursaver coupon book looks great. Might have changed my mind if I had seen that before I booked!

 

Good luck and have a great trip!:p

 

 

There is NO rail to Whitehorse, you will be in a bus, loaded at Fraisier BC.

[agabbymama]

BudgetQueen,

 

Yes, you're right. It's called the Rail + Bus connection. The White Pass Rail does go to Fraser then it's a bus from Fraser to Whitehorse. Still I thought the Yukon part of the trip sounded interesting, but I wanted to do Fairbanks, Denali and Anchorage too. When we did the Inside Passage we landed in Anchorage but was put right on a bus to head to Seward. So didn't get to do any land sightseeing other than the busride down to Seward. Denali wasn't even open yet, they opened the day our ship sailed. I had wanted to do Denali prior to the cruise, but the agent told me it was closed, so didn't book any additional time in Alaska on our own. Wanted to see as much in the two weeks as I could this time.:p