First Alaska visit questions

We are a couple in their 60's from the UK,on our first visit to Alaska, and first ever cruise, we are doing an 8 day Connoisseur land tour with Princess then a Southbound cruise on the Sapphire ending in Vancouver, my question is, what to do about packing, not what to pack, but how to pack things, as we are flying to Fairbanks via a stopover in Sea-Tac, can we just put all our stuff in one case each!, or do we have to pack separately for the cruise and the land tour sections, please ?? :confused:

Don't think you need to pack separately, unless you are truely wearing different clothes on the land tour, as opposed to the cruise. Yes, formal attire (if you bring it) won't be used on the land tour. But that is a small portion of your attire.

You will find lots of info on the Alaska board, here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

And will probably find helpful info on the Princess board, here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=197

hello and congratulations on booking your first cruise, and it is alaska ;). tell us a little bit about when your cruise is , how many nights you are going too be gone for the trip and if you will taking any tours. that way we can help you out a little more. you will have a wonderful time and lots of help here. go too the alaska port of call thread too read as much info as you can handle. have fun.

Thanks for the quick replies, we are travelling to Fairbanks on May 30th for an 8 day land tour , have not arranged any extra eventa beyond those included in the Connoisseur tour,(PB8), we are then taken by train to Anc to board the Sapphire Princess for the S/B cruise, I will be arranging a Green Jeep tour in Skagway and a Misty Tours flight in Ketchikan?, nothing arranged yet in Juneau, might just sightsee.

We arrive in YVR on June 15th when we will be staying with family in Port Coquitlam for 2 weeks before flying home on June 29th back to London.

On the cruise we do not like formal /posh dining,squiggle on a plate we call it, so we will probably look for "normal" dining area's.

We have been to the US about 6 times and BC about 5 times, but not to Alaska, so we are really looking forward to the trip. :):)

Thanks for the quick replies, we are travelling to Fairbanks on May 30th for an 8 day land tour , have not arranged any extra eventa beyond those included in the Connoisseur tour,(PB8), we are then taken by train to Anc to board the Sapphire Princess for the S/B cruise, I will be arranging a Green Jeep tour in Skagway and a Misty Tours flight in Ketchikan?, nothing arranged yet in Juneau, might just sightsee.

We arrive in YVR on June 15th when we will be staying with family in Port Coquitlam for 2 weeks before flying home on June 29th back to London.

On the cruise we do not like formal /posh dining,squiggle on a plate we call it, so we will probably look for "normal" dining area's.

We have been to the US about 6 times and BC about 5 times, but not to Alaska, so we are really looking forward to the trip. :):)

Not sure how Princess does it but on our cruise tour with Royal Caribbean we had 2 bags - one for the land portion and one for the ship which they stored somewhere and it showed up on the ship when we got there. Then we each had a small carry-on which went on the bus / train with us.

You might want to check Harv & Marv whale watching in Juneau - small boats and they definitely know where the whales are.

I had a co-worker who went on a cruise tour with Princess and they loved it.

My DW and I usually pack our own bag but on our last cruise we packed a "London" bag (winter) and a TA bag (moderate). It worked out well as the dirty laundry didn't mix with the clean. You could always do laundry at your relatives.

We met a couple of ladies from the UK who gave my wife an (fantastic?) idea. They bring older clothes to wear when visiting America and donate it to charity afterwards while filling their suitcases with new clothes. We found UK pricing high so that made sense to me.

Keep in mind the Princess ships have a laudramat so you can do your laundry and not worry about packing something for every day.