Excursions advice(Aug 2018)

We booked a 7 day cruise out of Vancouver on Holland America MS Nieuw Amsterdam. I'm trying to get all my excursions booked asap. It will be myself and my bf. We want to do some adventurous tours with great opportunity for photos. Can anyone give insight on some of the listed tours?

Vancouver- Stanley Park, Capilano Suspension Bridge

Juneau- Northstar Helicopter Glacier walk about. I was looking at the extended tour but was hoping to get some feed back if one is better then the other. Or if another company offers something close to this? If you booked the shorter tour did you book something else after? We are in port from 1pm-10pm.

Skagway- Skagway Glacier Point Wilderness Safari fromhttp://alaska-shoreexcursions.com

Ketchikan- Island wings Air service- I really think doing the Misty Fjords and Bear viewing combination tour sounds amazing!

I appreciate any feedback. My bf isn't really into traveling so, i do all the research and planning.

We loved both Capilano and Stanley Park. Just beautiful. We did Calilano at 5pm and saved 30% off the entry fee. It was open until 8.

We did a flight with Island Wings as well and it was incredible. We did the two hour flight.

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Vancouver- Stanley Park, Capilano Suspension Bridge

• as mentioned, take advantage of the 5pm Capilano discount. Catch the 4:15 or so free shuttles to the bridge from downtown.
  
• Stanley Park is VERY big. What do you want to see and experience there? Totems? Aquarium? Train? If you have a full day.... some combine the visit with the Hop On service to get around the park.
  

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Firstly, have you or BF ever done helicopter or very small plane trips before? Are you both comfortable with the idea of a potentially bouncy flight and water landing? These are expensive tours if it turns out that you don't like the flying part! Choppers are usually nice & smooth to ride in, but still make some folks uncomfortable in the small and noisy cabin.

Secondly, in and around Vancouver - Capilano is easily reached with their own free shuttle, so having it as part of any organized tour is a) guaranteed to jack up the price and b) have a time on site that is on the tour bus schedule, not yours. Stanley Park is, as mentioned, huge with many smaller components that not many tours hit all of.

Assuming you have the time available to spend pre-cruise, you could walk or bike around for a whole day and still not see it all! In August you should have access to the dedicated Park Shuttle, which stops at 15 spots around the park for $10pp to ride all day - and regular HOHOs also include a few stops around the park.

To me there's much better value in a HOHO ticket (approx $45pp) which takes you to many more spots around the city for a whole day plus a Capilano ticket (which after 5pm would be approx $30pp) than any of the packaged coach tours. The advantage to coach tours is luggage storage (if you're doing one on embarkation day for example) and being guaranteed a seat the whole trip (HOHOs obviously can never perfectly match available seats to folks who want to reboard at every stop - so you may have to wait for the next vehicle) but the downside of being stuck on a firm schedule and only able to get off at a handful of spots is huge to me.

My husband and I are booked on The Radiance northbound in August 2018. So far I have booked whale watching in Juneau with Jayleen's Alaska, and will be booking a helicopter/glacier landing with Coastal Helicopter tours once they have next years available. I researched a lot of helicopter tours and Coastal seems to have the best bang for your buck, so to speak. Of course, both of these excursions are in Juneau, and I haven't figured out the rest of the ports yet, but it's a start. In Ketchikan I'm thinking about the Wilderness Exploration and Crab feast. the reviews are fantastic, and crab is the only seafood my husband likes, so I think he'll enjoy this.

With Northstar Trekking, I only recommend the level 3 tour, the longest. Time, is a big priority, the shorter tours, frankly, can have "basic" travelers, that slow down an already, too short tour. You barely get out on the ice, when it's time to start back.

Pardon me for jumping in, but what about post-cruise Vancouver North Shore tours? We will have our luggage with us, so doing it ourselves isn't practical. It seems that we need a tour that is, effectively, an airport transfer from the cruise port. We found a great tour at ShoreTrips, but it doesn't start until 11am. (The tour ends at 5pm which works great for us.) How late will Nieuw Amsterdam allow us to remain on board? Are there alternatives?

Pardon me for jumping in, but what about post-cruise Vancouver North Shore tours? We will have our luggage with us, so doing it ourselves isn't practical. It seems that we need a tour that is, effectively, an airport transfer from the cruise port. We found a great tour at ShoreTrips, but it doesn't start until 11am. (The tour ends at 5pm which works great for us.) How late will Nieuw Amsterdam allow us to remain on board? Are there alternatives?

In approx reverse order:

• you'll be forced off well before 10am, last disembarkation groups are 9:30am IIRC (although I've never taken HAL into Vancouver so might be a slight difference from Princess/NCL slot times it's more governed by port logistics/ship size than brand)
  
• alternatives include storing your luggage (for a fee - bell desks at Pan Pacific/Fairmont Waterfront reportedly have a going rate of $5 per bag, while official storage at the pier CDS charge up to $8 for big suitcases) or, IMO the best way to go for any evening flight, having your bags sent to the airport for you by CDS ($40 for the first 4 bags, $10 per extra, collect at their YVR offices any time after 4pm) since this enables you to be 100% flexible about where you go downtown, no need to return anywhere for bags, and SkyTrain now becomes a total no-brainer for getting to YVR.
  
• Shoretours, I'm guessing, are simply reselling the LandSea or WestCoast product and possibly marking it up (there is never a saving using a 3rd party here, at best you pay the same rate as direct to the provider). While these are both long-standing and well-respected companies, that 11-5 timeframe is to be blunt a terribly inefficient trip - even if it is only Capilano and Grouse they stop at, you have wasted at least 2 hours of potential viewing time. Most of these tours also include the salmon hatchery (free to the public anyway, and might be of interest to you but if not you just lost another hour...) and some are even cheeky enough to include the free Lynn Canyon park instead of Capilano (~$45) and still charge a huge markup. Regardless of cost, they simply do not include enough time - you might just about manage to see all of Cap or Lynn in the likely 90mins on site provided, but Grouse needs 3+ hours absolute minimum and you won't get that long.
  
• Best idea is definitely to arrange independently if it's Cap & Grouse you want to see - they both have free shuttles, and they're both on the same road, and there are public buses between them (or call a cab for a few bucks - if there's more than 2 of you it might be less than bus fare!). This way you can get moving as early as 8am instead of 11am and maximize your time - and the fact you'll also save money is a nice bonus!
  
• Total cost of independently seeing the above for a couple approx CAD$250 for entry tickets, bag delivery, and transport between Cap & Grouse and then to airport on your own dime. Even less if Seniors, a weekend, or use SkyTrain to YVR after 6:30pm on weekdays.
  

Shoretours, I'm guessing, are simply reselling the LandSea or WestCoast product and possibly marking it up

Regardless, it's still an 11:00 am pickup - correction... LandSea says 10:45 am - after being booted from the ship before 9:30 am. So we need a place within very easy walking (and rolling of luggage) of debarkation to spend an hour to an hour and a half.

^From another thread I saw you on recently I believe your flight is 10:30pm? Arriving at the airport ~5:30pm therefore means that you are restricted to airport eateries for dinner (of which there are quite a few, pre- and post-security, but all are overpriced compared to other branches of the same chains) and again some inefficiency of timing. Even with the new and 'improved' US security regime, 3 hours pre-flight will almost certainly be overkill in the evening, and 5 hours early like your tour will drop you off means you may not even be allowed to check your bags when you arrive.

I can appreciate that a simple package tour might seem to be the easy option, but killing that first block of time stuck with your luggage before the tour then another at the airport after the tour would annoy the living cr*p out of my missus and cause much worse marital discord than using a couple of shuttles!

Close to the pier and able to deal with luggage FlyOverCanada springs to mind - total show length is about 30mins, plus some queuing if it's busy (a lot of folks do it cruise mornings as it's literally part of the same building complex). Like Disney's Soarin' ride, but over Canada. Free would be to walk along the seawall a little, check out the Olympic Torch and 'Lego' Orca on Jack Poole plaza just the other side of the Convention Centre.

You'll also literally walk right past the shuttles to Cap and Grouse, when you walk out of the cruise terminal whether it's up the ramp or by elevator through the hotel. Even if you weren't saving money I'd encourage you to do the independent thing because of the much more efficient timing. If using public transit is DHs issue, you could take a cab to YVR instead of SkyTrain - you've saved more than the approx $35 that costs already... and you open up the sensible choice of eating downtown after touring around, then heading to YVR when SkyTrain is even cheaper (it will cost less than US$5 for both of you) and you can easily still be at YVR 3 hours pre-flight.

Thanks I'll share this with my spouse and see.