Current information for alaskan cruise and port visits

Hi everyone,

We [2adults+2teenage girls] are travelling from Australia for our first Holland America cruise visiting skagway, juneau and ketchican in 33 days!!!!

Has anyone recently returned from one of these cruise ship/line and these ports? We are trying to decide whether to prebook shore excursions and wonder what current info you can give us........from the posts here it would seem that we might be better off waiting until we get into port for most of the shore tours.

We are really keen to get a feel for the local area, but are considering the Mendenhall Glacier floatplane or helicopter flights in Juneau + the Whitepass Railroad trip in Skagway.

I realise most of these questions have been addressed already on these forums but any current info would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers :)

Current information for alaskan cruise and port visits

So that I won%26#39;t appear redundant, I invite you to review all of my archives and then if you have further questions, feel free to fire away!?! DD

Current information for alaskan cruise and port visits

we were in those three towns during the last week of July and I can comment on the White Pass railroad and I found it to be very overpriced for what you receive which is basically a slow ride on a train. The scenery was modest in spots and I truly am in awe that the railroad was built with the technology available at the time, but it is not a very exciting trip and I thought that it was extremely overpriced at over $100. You would be spending over $400 to go on it and I think that you could spend it much more wisely. We took the Mendenhall float tour by boat, not plane, and that too, I felt was overpriced considering that you dont go anywhere near the glacier and you take a ride down a river with some modest rapids. Dont fall for the Lumberjack show in Ketchikan. It is attached to a gift shop and no one has ever said it was anything special.

Unfortunately, the shore excursions for Alaska are quite pricey. I agree that the 2 teenage girls may get bored on the 2 hour train trip. I paid $60.00 more for the Yukon Extravaganza, an 8 hour tour that takes you by motorcoach into the Yukon town of Carcross for a Barbque lunch (included in the price). There are scenic stops along the way. You then return to Skagway by the Whitepass RR, which I thought was very nice.

I took a whalewatching excursion in Juneau, but that lasted only 3 hours. It was fun however, and we saw many whales. My 14 year old daughter loves animals, so most of our excursions were relative to seeking animals. My cruiseship did not stop in Ketchikan.

To be honest Bilto, if I had to do over again, I would skip the cruise (though it was very nice, but very expensive), and use the money to tour Alaska on my own.

Bilto

After a few days on the cruise you will probably want to ';break away'; from the crowd......check locally at each port to see if there are bicycle rentals available......we saw a very happy family from one of the cruise ships (mom, dad and two teenagers) biking on their own through the woods here in Haines towards the river......was so enjoyable to see teenagers having fun with their folks with no hint of boredom.......

Walk into town and talk with the locals, ask about their favorite hiking trails, fishing holes, etc.......We are having a lot of rain in SE Alaska this week but we should have drier weather for you in September.....

We recently returned from a 7 day land and 7 day cruise. I enjoyed the cruise more then the land tour. I did get a flight tour in on the land portion (Mt. Denali) but was rained out on the float plane salmon bake in Juneau. Glacier Bay was cool, saw a large section of ice break off. I liked Skagway, rented a car and drove to Carcross. Enjoyed that and very economical. Might be a little too late to get a rental. We saw people biking down the mountain, it was cold and they were bundled up. I wouldn%26#39;t want todo that. We did visit Juneau next and ended up at Mendahall where we saw bears. Ketchican didnt seem like much. Make sure you have a shore excursion lined up there. We did the zipline canopy tour. Exhilarating but not much of a nature tour, still glad I did it.

I was in Alaska in July, and our cruise also stopped at those locations. First, I hope you followed advice, and looked up what dbigfoot has to say, I fully concur with his advice about Skagway, we took his advice and got a good feel for the area and the history.

In Juneau we took a local mini-bus tour, arranged on the spot. Saw salmon, the bus took us to Mendenhall, it is not far, and don%26#39;t see why you might need to do a floatplane for that.

We got lucky in Ketchikan, and had good weather. Biking would be great on that island. Our ship offered some good excursions where people went to the fishery (where they saw several bears) and other good locations, including the Totem park. They were quite pleased. I would definitely want my visit to the Totem park to include someone explaining about the various Totems, our little self arranged tour did not do that. I think that would be a good ship excursion.

Hope you have a great time, the state is awesome. Just remember, as dbigfoot suggests, take some time to get off the main drags and walk around and see the towns themselves.

Love2

We rented a car in Skagway (back in July) - got a ';good'; deal through Avis for about $60 for one day. Really, that is a good price for there. Anyway, we really enjoyed driving up to Caribou Crossing and having the freedom to stop and get out whereever we felt like it. We saw people in vans and buses who had very short stops at places that we spent lots of time exploring (like the little desert and the beach). We also actually walked down to Emerald Lake, and I can tell you that it%26#39;s a lot nicer from the road than it is up close - our boys tried to wade out into it a little bit and got stuck to their knees in very stinky mud! But we would never have had that experience if we%26#39;d been on a tour with a crowd. We also stopped on the way back along the road at a place with a bunch of boulders and tiny ponds - very beautiful and our boys hiked up a mountain. We could see the train to the Yukon going by in the distance. It was a wonderful day %26amp; provided lots of memories for the future!

Wow....thanks everyone for taking the time to reply with such useful information.....we have 3weeks to go and are really getting excited.

We had a fun cruise in August and enjoyed the Liarsville show and Salmon BBQ in Skagway. It was just right for our group which included my senior parents - fun but not physical.

My best advice for the cruise......Be sure to take along a multi-plug extension cord (surge protecter style is great) for the state room. Since they only have one plug on the vanity. I travel with my teenage daughter and she needs plenty of plugs for her cell, IPod, flat iron, etc.

Prepare the kids for lots of ';at sea'; time. We were 46 hours from Seattle to Juneau. Then the port times are quite short - bring along a DVD player, etc. The pay-per-view movies were $10 and they only played a couple movies each day on the free TV - over and over.

Have a grand time - it is so beautiful. Really makes you want to go back to Alaska and see more then the tourist towns and meet the locals.

blushed