For our 30th wedding anniversary the wife and I, along with another couple, are planning a cruise to Alaska. It will be a new experience for all of us. Thinking about a one-way cruise to give us more time to explore Alaska away from the cruise crowd. If anyone has done this before your input would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure your cruise visits Glacier Bay. Book a cruise tour that visits Denali after the cruise or go to Katmai or Kodiak and see bears. Or do both. You'll see a lot on the cruise but there's still plenty to see and do once it's over. Stay as long as you can and spend as much as you can. It's worth it.

We went a couple of years ago on Princess (nice clean ship and fair casino) from Vancouver up to Anchorage (7-days?). After that we went to Talkeetna and stayed at their lodge to fish and visit Denali. There are several great excursions (dog sledding, fishing, flying to a glacier, etc).

Definitely worth the trip.

I live in juneau, feel free to drop me an email.

Jetescamilla at gmail dot com

tamc93 said:

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We went a couple of years ago on Princess (nice clean ship and fair casino) from Vancouver up to Anchorage (7-days?). After that we went to Talkeetna and stayed at their lodge to fish and visit Denali. There are several great excursions (dog sledding, fishing, flying to a glacier, etc).

Definitely worth the trip.

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Talkeetna looks like a pretty cool town where did you stay and what excursions did you like?

razor63 said:

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tamc93 said:

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We went a couple of years ago on Princess (nice clean ship and fair casino) from Vancouver up to Anchorage (7-days?). After that we went to Talkeetna and stayed at their lodge to fish and visit Denali. There are several great excursions (dog sledding, fishing, flying to a glacier, etc).

Definitely worth the trip.

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Talkeetna looks like a pretty cool town where did you stay and what excursions did you like?

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Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge - Took the kids zip lining, fishing, and on a plane ride to one of the glaciers on Mt. McKinley. I think we were there 3-days. Be careful on the drive from Anchorage there - several speed traps and I was able to contribute to the local economy via a ticket.

Did this in 2008.

https://texags.com/forums/54/topics/1185062

Enjoy!

Sandy that was great read! We are still very much in the planning stage of this trip, I really enjoyed and appreciate the detail. Thanks for sharing.

Did this trip in 2010

We went on the Holland America Statendam. Im not sure if it still does that trip or not. It was a smaller ship/small crowd which I like. The crowd was older, which I liked also even though at the time I was in my late 20's.

Ship left from Vancouver
stops in Ketchican, juneau, scagway, glacier bay, seward.
excursions we did: Float plane to the Misty Fjords, Helicopter rider to dog sled camp on a glacier and went dog sledding, whale watching. Glacier bay was awesome just sitting on the deck of the boat (since the ship has a smaller number of passengers we werent fighting for views.

once we landed in alaska, took the bus to anchorage we rented a car and did a week on our own. toured anchorage, went Glacier Hiking, whitewater rafting, drove to denali and took the long bus deep into the park: saw grizzlies and everything else, drove up to fairbanks panned for gold, went to chenna hot springs and their ice hotel, saw lots of moose.

we stayed in bed and breakfasts the whole time and since we werent on a scheduled tour we could eat where we wanted and venture off the beaten path whenever we felt like it.

may favorite vacation to date.

It's been 10 years since I took the wife and kids. We also did Holland America and I agree smaller ship/older crowd and I was good with that. If you have kids they do have activities for them on board. Mine were 8 & 9 at the time and they loved it. We did pretty much the same excursions as Austin. The helicopter ride to the glacier and dog sledding was awesome. We got lucky and had a crystal clear day, not a cloud in the sky. I did all our excursions on-line and saved the 10%-20% fee charged by the cruise line. When you book your cruise, they'll give you a list of excursions and you can go from there.

We also left from Vancouver, which I highly recommend. Many of the boats from Seattle spend a fair amount of time in open water. I ones from Vancouver generally stay close to the shore and all the scenery.

It's a great trip, have fun.

Whatsy

When during the year did you go?

We are looking at three different trips over the course of the next few years in the USA

COASTAL MAINE area
New Mexico Colorado area
And Pacific Northwest Might add a cruise out of Vancouver and wanted some idea of time cost of those excursions you mentioned

Wicked,

We went in early June.

The Helicopter/Dog sledding was in Juneau. I don't remember who we used but through google I found two companies, Coastal and Temsco. Both do dog sledding. Look at the pictures on their websites to get a feel for what they do. Ten years ago, I paid about $450 per person. Looks like it's up to $525.

The float plane was in Ketchikan. There are tons of planes taking people around Misty Fjords. Again, I don't remember who we used but I think it was about $75 a person.

We also did the White Pass railroad in Skagway. We took the basic 3 hour trip up to White Pass and back. They have longer ones but I thought 3 hours was plenty for my 8 and 9 year olds. That was about $100 for the adults and $50 for the kids.

Did this with my wife, parents and brother/wife.

Totally want to do it again with my kids when they are maybe in teens. We did round trip cruise, I think I'd def. want to do one way and explore alaska for a few days.

We did a whale watching excursion (private), and a hike in sitka.

Also, we tacked on 2 extra days beforehand to explore seattle a bit... Might as well since you're there.

Mucho austin said:

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Did this trip in 2010

We went on the Holland America Statendam. Im not sure if it still does that trip or not. It was a smaller ship/small crowd which I like. The crowd was older, which I liked also even though at the time I was in my late 20's.

Ship left from Vancouver
stops in Ketchican, juneau, scagway, glacier bay, seward.
excursions we did: Float plane to the Misty Fjords, Helicopter rider to dog sled camp on a glacier and went dog sledding, whale watching. Glacier bay was awesome just sitting on the deck of the boat (since the ship has a smaller number of passengers we werent fighting for views.

once we landed in alaska, took the bus to anchorage we rented a car and did a week on our own. toured anchorage, went Glacier Hiking, whitewater rafting, drove to denali and took the long bus deep into the park: saw grizzlies and everything else, drove up to fairbanks panned for gold, went to chenna hot springs and their ice hotel, saw lots of moose.

we stayed in bed and breakfasts the whole time and since we werent on a scheduled tour we could eat where we wanted and venture off the beaten path whenever we felt like it.

may favorite vacation to date.

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That sounds like our kind of trip. Cruises are great but the most fun we have is when we do our own thing off the beaten path. We would like to take at least one day and do some fishing. We are both avid fisherman and Alaska has a reputation of being a top fishing destination. Did you do look into doing any of that?

I'm not a big fisher.

However, I know there were lots of fishing excursions at the end of the trip in Seward, or at least leaving from Seward