Missie,
Thanks for the tip.
On our European Interlude Tour we met some Canadians who have renewed our interest in Alaska and Canada. The shipping line they mentioned was
Holland-America.(I will check their site)Yesterday we obtained the Trafalgar Brochure to start our research.
David

quote:

Missie,
Thanks for the tip.
On our European Interlude Tour we met some Canadians who have renewed our interest in Alaska and Canada. The shipping line they mentioned was
Holland-America.(I will check their site)Yesterday we obtained the Trafalgar Brochure to start our research.
David

Wonder whether the Volendam is one of the ships that Trafalgar uses. I was told it was a beautiful ship, and they had a wonderful time.

David,

Most of the cruise lines would all offer the same Optionals. You can check out.

Holland America
Princess Cruises
Carnival Cruises
Norweign Cruises

I agree with Suegreg about booking well ahead of the cruise, as all the good optionals sell out fast, these include helicopter trips to Glaciers and dog sledding on ice.

Jenno: All the cruise lines that do the Alaskan cruises are beautiful ships, they seems to send their best ships there for the cruise season May to September.

In one of the harbours I counted no less than eight cruise ships at one time, not all ships are docked as the harbours are not big enough to accommodate all the ships at one time, and no ship stay in harbour overnight.

Thanks Missie, I will check all those cruise lines on the web.

We have visited Alaska in June/July and August and had a wonderful time on the trips with Inside Passage cruises on both Princess and Celebrity cruise lines.

All together we have probably spent a couple of weeks touring through the National Parks in Alaska and there is a lot more to see than just Anchorage, Denali and Fairbanks. Trips north of the Arctic Circle to Kotzebue and Nome are quite fascinating as well and staying in a hotel on the Tundra that has refrigerating poles surrounding it (to stop it sinking into the ice) will always remain an unusual memory for me.

An enjoyable land tour is to travel from Anchorage to Denali to Fairbanks and then travel inland down to Skagway via places like Dawson City. From Skagway you can then join a cruise ship to Vancouver.

We experienced fine weather in June and July but some periods of rain in August. Oh yes, and we have never been bothered by any mozzies or flies.

Do the trip... you will enjoy it.

quote:

Originally posted by David 1:
On a 5-7 day Alaskan cruise tours, there are no cruise options listed. In order to budget I was wondering the approximate cost if all the options were taken. (very approximate) Thankyou.
David

It is impossible to take all the options--called shore excursion--that are offered by the cruise line. I don't know if TT offers their own. But for real choice, see the shore excursion booklet. There are many offered in each port from a simple walking tour to a helicopter or plane ride to an area far away. These are very expensive, but wonderful. Depending on your time in port and how far away your excursion goes, you pick one or two. What you need to do is study the booklet carefully and take a flight over a glacier in one port, a bus tour in another etc. I highly recommend the White Pass and Yukon railroad trip up the gold rush trail in Skagway. It was part of our land tour so we did other things at the Skagway stop on the cruise.

Good advice Suegreg, I didn't take any land excursions as I was travelling with my elderly mother. Also because of all the rain a lot of the helicopter excursions were cancelled. There were several excursions I would have been interested in if I had travelled with my husband.
Since the cruise ships are huge it takes a lot of time to disembark at the ports, we walked around in the towns which are very small. Our tour did not go to Skagway, I would have enjoyed the Yukon rail trip there, I think. We were on Celebrity which went to Sitka which was interesting because of its Russian heritage.
It gets very crowded in the small towns since there are often at least 5 cruise ships in the harbour, only about 3 or 4 can dock and the rest have use tenders.

Hi Marie:

I was on the Diamond Princess, our ship was docked each morning when we woke up so there was no rush or line ups in getting off the boat.

I did notice some ships never seems to get to use the docks and had to use tenders, I imagine there would be line up's for that.

I don't know how the docking process works, maybe the highest bidder gets the docks.

The White Pass railway trip was excellent. I didn't do a lot of optionals and found the towns very interesting to explore.

Missie, I don't know how the docking process works, but there was a problem with one of the pods of the ship so we were sailing more slowly than planned. They still operated this ship for about a month before they repaired it, they had to cancel the second trip after ours. I was led to believe that this was the reason we never docked, except for pickup one time. It took a very long time to get onto the tenders.

Marie: I agree with you I don't like Tenders, we had to use them on our South Pacific cruise to get on and off of some uninhabited Islands and they are not user friendly for older people.

Hey now,l I'm an older person and I had no trouble with the tender at Santorini! And we had really rough seas. Of course, I'm born and raised on the south shore of eastern Long Island and I've been around boats and water all my life, so I'm probably more comfortable with the movement than some. The trip I'm looking at is Majestic Alaska combined with 7 night cruise. The ship they mention is the Coral Princess and it doesn't look like it's that big. I know in Greece the ships took turns docking close to town, further from town, farthest from town and using tenders (except Santorini where everyone tendered). Maybe they do the same in Alaska. Good to hear you had no trouble getting the optionals you wanted though.

Ashkitty - Where on LI are you? We are in Glen Head so are use to the same weather. We went on an Alaskan cruise from Vancouver to Seward in mid-August 2004. We had cool-cold weather with no rain on the ship. With a fleece, sweater and gloves on the ship it was cold by the glaciers. The ship gave out wool blankets to use on deck and we were glad they were there. We had a gorgous day in Juneau when we took a helicopter tour of the glaciers (a must do imho, although it cost $325 pp).

As soon as we landed in Seward it was cold and rainy for most of the rest of the trip. We rented a van with another couple and spent 1 night in Anchourage (not my favorite city) and then drove to Denali Park and spent 2 nights there. It is considered fall there by mid-August, in fact the town of Denali closes mid-Sept. since it is already winter there. It snowed one night 10 miles form our hotel, so it wasn't my imagination that it was cold. They celebrate "Christmas in August" in the National Parks and in the town of Denali on August 24, and it felt like it was November-December weather. We took the 11 hour bus tour of Denali park that is offered by the US Parks Dept for $35. That was fantastic. We didn't make the 30% club, the percentage of people who actually get to see the top of Mt. McKinle. But since it is almost winter, the animals were out in droves in a feeding frenzy to prepare for winter. We were told by a native Alaskan who take this bus tour of Denali each year that this was the most animals they ever saw on the tour. My friend went in July and saw next to no animals on the bus tour. We also went to the free dog sled demonstation that was in Denali park which was great. My two regrets were not spending a few more days to see other areas and also I had researched that the Alaska State Fair would be starting the day we were leaving, outside of Anchourage. The information I saw when we arrived in Alaska said the fair wasn't starting to the following day, so we didn't go, but found out too late it had started the day we were leaving and could have gone for 1/2 a day. It is a great trip.

Jenno
Holland America and Celebrity cruises are considered premier cruise lines. The other ships are much larger, the food not quite as good. Holland America generally gets to dock at most ports as it was the first cruise line to run cruises to Alaska. I have been on Holland America, Celebrity, Princess and Royal Caribbean cruises up to Alaska. Holland America, which the Volendam is part of, is the best in my opinion.

We took Princess Line to Alaska and were happy with them. My travel agent told us that Holland America and Princess lines have the permits to enter Glacier Bay, which the other lines don't have those rights. Our agent suggested that we take a cruise from south to north, since the scenery gets better and better as you go north, instead of it becoming less spectacular as you travel south. She also said that if you only take an inside passage cruise you miss the best scenery.

quote:

Jenno
Holland America and Celebrity cruises are considered premier cruise lines. The other ships are much larger, the food not quite as good. Holland America generally gets to dock at most ports as it was the first cruise line to run cruises to Alaska. I have been on Holland America, Celebrity, Princess and Royal Caribbean cruises up to Alaska. Holland America, which the Volendam is part of, is the best in my opinion.

Thanks Mid Life Travellor. I went to an information evening on Canada and Alaska. Michelle from TT did the presentation, and she did do a good job. She told us that TT use Holland America, and Princess Lines. Will research this trip more, but now we are thinking of 2009, and not 2008, so we have plenty of time to find out lots more info, remembering that it is best to book 12 months ahead. Canada is a stunning place, and would like to see more of it than the Grand tour of Canada has in the itinerary.