cruising in August

How soon do we need to book excursions?

See your answer over on the Alaska board. It would helpful if you told us what cruise line you are on. Each cruise line has a different time line for putting it's excursions up on it's website.

Depends on the cruise, the ports, etc. Since you have given none of this info our recommendation is _________

Hank

As soon as the excursions are ready to book you should review them. Some do book up in advance for Alaska. Typically, these are excursions that involve helicopters. I would book those as early as possible if that is something you care to do.

Keith

Decide what you want to do...that will determine which, if any, excursions are available, and how soon you'll need to book!

If you know what you want to do, go ahead and book them. Some will likely sell out.

I spent a fair amount of time both reading various posts on the Alaska Port of Call board, and asking questions. You will see some strong recommendations for some tour providers, and some so-so ones as well, and you will easily get a feel for who is good.

I then booked all of our tours privately (except for one on the tour part of the cruisetour). Doing it privately has some advantages: you can tailor your day in each place a bit better (allowing more time to do other things, or even do back-to-back tours), costs a little less, and you can pick your providers. Alaska is easy since most tours are on small vehicles (boats, planes, vans), and you can reserve just the number of spaces you want, and they will book the rest if you do not fill up the vehicle. If there are enough of you to say fill a small whale watch boat, or a float plane, then you will get a slight additional discount. In some cases, you will be in a smaller boat than a ship's tour, and that makes it a little nicer (IMHO) as you get to talk to the guide more.

In Juneau, we did a whale watch and a glacier trek the same day. I talked with both operators, made sure of all of the timing, they each knew about the other tour, and were very, very, very accommodating. To use Dyea Dave in Skagway, I had to know for sure if we could catch the earliest fast ferry from Haines. I called the ferry people who a) told me that the ferry dock was on the other side of the same dock the ship would be on, and b) that we would be early enough as the ship was holding reservations for half of the seats on that first run of the day! You will find that the operators are all very easy to work with, though this time of year, they might not be watching their email every day.

I am sure that some will warn you that if a private tour does not get back in time, that the ship won't wait. That is technically true, but it is something that virtually never happens worldwide, much less in Alaska where the distances you are traveling are never huge. All of the operators guarantee to get you back on time or get you to the next port, but they never have to pay off on the guarantee --- they are wonderfully reliable (or would be out of business if they weren't). Besides, the ships use many of the same ones, they just charge more for the same thing.