redneck joe
Supreme Mariner
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2009
- Messages
- 11,446
bucket list for me, wife eh. And insights/thoughts?
Sounds fantastic! Is this all in one package?
Even before we did Alaska, we did an Iceland/Greenland cruise we really liked a lot. One trip I really want to take, but pretty sure it‘s outside of my budget, would be a cruise around the Galápagos Islands.
Yes, quite a few shops, are not just staffed, but are actually owned by the cruise lines. Spent a couple days in Denali Village, and we were told, the Village completely shuts down mid/late Sept and doesn’t open back up until May and yes, pretty sure most of the shops there are owned by the cruise lines as well. I believe some of the hotels are also owned by the cruise lines.
The Anchorage to Denali to McKinley Lodge to Whittier to Vancouver is a package. The other excursions are add-ons.
I didn’t see any local sight seeing flights on your list of activities and that’s a good thing. I’m a retired pilot, but still follow the industry and fly little airplanes (my roots!). The accident rate for sight seeing flights in Alaska and Hawaii is elevated for good reasons— challenging weather and terrain and time pressure to get you back to the ship on time. Two of those three affect boating safety as well.
Been on a few cruises, by far the best were Alaska and Galapagos Islands.....On the Alaskan Inside Passage trip most of the passengers were retired/elderly folks who were there to see Alaska, not getting drunk and partying. The Galapagos trip was more of an expedition than a laid back cruise. It was awesome, and I could have bought a nice boat for what I laid out for that trip.....but you only live once.
got a pilot friend from high school no flying is planned....
Retired pilot here as well (rotorhead).....a guy I used to work with quit to go fly with a tour outfit in Hawaii. He had an "incident" and flew his AStar into the ocean, killing 4 of his passengers. The authorities in Hawaii thought his actions were reckless, and nearly filed voluntary manslaughter charges on him. They ended up dropping it, but he was pretty much black balled in the industry after that. No tour flights for me.......
Lots of options available. All of the cruise lines offer land and cruise packages. When we went, we did the cruise with Princess, but we did all the land stuff through Alaska Tour and Travel. They handled everything from the time we got off the plane in Fairbanks until we got on the ship in Whittier. They were great and offer quite a few travel packages.
Just curious, when you went, which ship did you use? If I win the lottery, I’m booking Celebrity Flora
That's the one we went on. Very nice ship....only carries about 100 passengers plus crew. That ship was made just for the Galapagos. There are no cruise ship terminals in the islands, so every time you get off the ship they use RIB boats with Yamaha OBs to get you to shore. The rear of the ship was designed with a special docking system to facilitate getting on/off the ship. I highly recommend it....like I said before it's not a cheap trip. But you can't take it with you, as they say.......
