Radiance Of The Seas Cruise Tour #2

[glee87]

Doing a landtour to Alyeska, Anchorage, 2 days in Denali and Fairbanks.

 

Would like to know if anybody did this tour? I wanted to find out if you have a detailed itinerary for these places. Checked with my travel agent and RCI and they do not have one. I wanted to know what time we will arrive in Anchorage and Denali so that I can plan what to do on our free time there.

 

Thanks,

Gina

[SunnyRay1982]

Don't know if this will help you or not..no one else was responding so I thought I'd try!

 

My family did the cruisetour #14 (Northbound on Radiance) two summers ago. We did not go to Alyeska, our itinerary had Talkeetna instead, So I can't tell you much about your first stop. However, I can pick up what we did going directly to Anchorage from the ship and maybe it will help. We got off the ship at about 8:30 AM and then rode via bus to Anchorage. When you get off the ship, you get on your assigned bus, meet the tour director who stays with the group for the rest of the trip, and get your intinerary. If you book activities with the ship, and a LOT of people were just planning their excursions on the bus, then the times you choose are accomodated around the tour. I only booked independent excursions for the ports on the cruise ships, so I am unsure how it would have worked doing so on the land portion. Maybe trying to time independent excursions around the cruise ship excursions would work? We had a very accomodating tour director and driver for people who booked independent excursions.

 

Anyway, our first stop out of Seward en route to Anchorage was at a Nature preserve (I forget the exact name). We were there for about two hours, and then finished the drive to Anchorage (about 2-2.5 hours from Seward). We got into Anchorage about 12:30 and had until 2:30 to have lunch and look around town. We then went to the Native Heritage Center which took about 2.5 hours, and then had time for lunch and shopping around town before boarding the bus to check into the hotel around 5:30. We then had the rest of the night free. In the AM we got on the railway and took the train to Talkeetna (won't go into this since you are not going). We rode the train out of Talkeetna to Denali. It took most of the morning and into early afternoon to get to Denali. We had the rest of the late afternoon and the evening to do an excursion after we checked into the hotel (went to Jeff King's husky homestead-pretty neat). The next AM we had a 7 AM Tundra Wilderness Tour that lasted until almost 4. We had the rest of the afternoon and evening free and went flightseeing over Denali since our dogsled was cancelled in Skagway. We rode the bus out of Denali the next AM at about 9 and into Fairbanks (took maybe 3 hours), did the Riverboat at about 1:30 and then had the rest of the afternoon and evening to ourselves after we checked into the hotel (I would really recommend booking an excursion here-not much to the town). Some people skipped the Riverboat tour altogether to do flightseeing around the arctic circle at this time. Once again, hope this was a little help! You will have a blast!

[glee87]

Thank you for your response Rachel.

 

We will be in Denali June 1-2 as part of our land tour portion with RCI. We board the motorcoach in the morning from Anchorage to Denali. I assume we will reach Denali in the afternoon sometime.

Do we have time to take the shuttle to Fishcreek?

Can I reserve the shuttle when we get there or should I reserve it now even though we don't really know exactly what time we would be able to board the shuttle?

 

Thanks again,

Gina

[SunnyRay1982]

No problem Gina, good luck and I hope you have a wonderful time! Here is the website that has the shuttle info from the park:

 

http://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/bus-reservations.htm

 

I would call or email them with your questions about the shuttle as they can probably tell you more about times, the hours of operation during your visit, ect than I can. You are going to love Denali and be so glad you did a land portion in addition to the cruise.

[Budget Queen]

Thank you for your response Rachel.

 

We will be in Denali June 1-2 as part of our land tour portion with RCI. We board the motorcoach in the morning from Anchorage to Denali. I assume we will reach Denali in the afternoon sometime.

Do we have time to take the shuttle to Fishcreek?

Can I reserve the shuttle when we get there or should I reserve it now even though we don't really know exactly what time we would be able to board the shuttle?

 

Thanks again,

Gina

 

It is a 6 hour bus ride Anchorage/Denali Park. Since you don't know what time you are leaving, you probably do not have time for the Fish Creek shuttle since the last one is at 2pm. You would have to book this in advance, if you want to take the chance. But you also have to make your own transportation arrangements. For clairfication, you book the Fish Creek shuttle for a specific time, and there likely is no walk up space. Cost $29.25

 

 

If you want to know your other timeframes, you need to list your itinerary and mode of travel and any activites included.

[england1]

Rachel,

I will be doing Cruise Tour 14 in July and your information gave me a good idea of what to expect. Do you remember what hotels you stayed at and what you thought of them? Also, did any have laundry facilities? I'm so afraid I'm going to run out of clean clothes. Thanks for your help.

 

Mary Jo

[agabbymama]

I haven't done this particular cruisetour, but I did do a 12 day HAL cruisetour. Even when we received our itinerary with our documents, there were no times listed. We came to the conclusion they do that on purpose in case a particular leg takes a little longer or a little less time, nobody can really complain if they were told approx. 3 hours.

 

When we boarded the coach, our tour director passed out flyers each day with a more detailed schedule of where we would be going and what we would be seeing, but still no exact times. Sometimes there was road work that slowed us down, then when it started raining we couldn't travel as fast. Lots of variables so they don't want to be tied to a set timetable.

 

The bus driver would usually announce what he thought the drive time would be, but always with the caveat depending on road conditions etc.

 

Go with the flow, and have a great time!

[SunnyRay1982]

Hi Mary Jo-

 

As far as laundry, we got our stuff washed daily on the ship (Our plane had mechanical issues and we missed the first two days of the cruise, and my brother's luggage was lost until we got to Anchorage, so the cruise line did 8 pieces of laundry for our room a day free and we all threw stuff in with his periodically). Maybe consider using the ships services if you are running low on clothes towards the end of the week and are desperate?

 

Here are the hotels we stayed in during August of 06-

 

Anchorage-Anchorage Marriott Downtown. Very nice and modern, city like hotel. Our room was very large, I think maybe because it was a corner room. You could walk a lot of places from this hotel and we did walk to dinner that night and to some shops and what appeared to be a farmers market/street fair going on downtown. Neighborhood seemed very safe. They only have valet laundry services.

 

Talkeetna-Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge. Took a lot of pics of this hotel. Very pretty and "lodge-like" with wooden decor and a nice modern feel. Mt McKinley wasn't out during our trip, but the location of the hotel with its perfect mountain view will make the location even better if it appears for you. (The hotel calls all rooms if the mountain does appear). Rooms were about average hotel size, my parents, myself, and my 23 year old brother fit in one room fine. You had to take the free lodge shuttle if you wanted to get back into town after the RCI bus takes you to check into the hotel, but it was pretty efficient. The town is small but cute. Good talk at the National Park Ranger station about what climbing McKinley entails. Not sure about laundry here.

 

Denali-McKinley Village Lodge-We walked around the Princess hotels and visited the Grande Denali Lodge, and to be honest they seemed a lot nicer than this hotel. McKinley Village just seemed a little old, but after staying in other hotels in national parks I guess it was on par with them. The rooms were small, there are no elevators which was a bit of an issue for an older lady on our bus, and it was a 5 minute walk to the lobby/restaurant/buses. BUT it was clean, the staff was great, and you are in Denali so it was all good in the end. Had dinner in the Gold Rush dining room. Also, there is a gift shop with lots of snacks adjacent to the lobby to stock up if you need food to take on Tundra wilderness. Our tour guide kept saying how the box lunch was extremely small, not filling, ect. However, to me it was more than adequate and I didn't touch my snacks. Not sure about laundry-maybe call the hotel?

 

Fairbanks-Wedgewood Resort-The room was bigger than my current 1 bedroom apartment, which was good since we bought so much stuff that we had to spread everything out and creatively repack to take it all home! This hotel seemed like it may have been codos or apartments at some point based on the room size. The decor was kind of 90ish, but it was clean and seemed well taken care of. I have heard great things about Pikes Waterfront Lodge and wished we had stayed there. The hotel was a bit out of downtown so we just had dinner at the Wedgewood, and surprisingly it was one of our best landtour meals. There wasn't much in Fairbanks overall. There is a bird observatory attached to the Wedgewood so we went over there to watch cranes and it was pretty neat. There are laundry facilities here.

 

Sorry this is long. Let me know if you have more questions and have a great trip!

[england1]

Rachel,

Thanks for alll the detailed information. RCCL should hire you. I just noticed the you will be doing a Southern Caribbean Cruise . We did the same one in January 2006. We loved it. Best Caribbean cruise we have taken. Friends of ours are doing the cruise 7/20 based on our recomendation. If you have any questions I'd be glad to help if I can.

 

Mary Jo

[SunnyRay1982]

Mary Jo-

 

Any and all info about the Southern Carib. cruise would be appreciated, especially what you thought of the ports and what type of activities/excursions you did while there! I am in the process of trying to plan everything right now. THANKS SO MUCH!