Alaska Cruisetours: Celebrity vs. Royal Caribbean

I have cruised many times on Celebrity and Royal Caribbean ships, but never did a CruiseTour with a land component.

Can anyone share their experiences, pros and cons, about these cruise lines' land tours in Alaska?

I've done Alaska Cruise Line Tours. They were fine.

I would look at all options.

In other words we look at tours offered by the cruise line, private tours and just seeing places on our own and we vary what we do by port.

Keith

Would you be open to putting together your own trip with a rental car? You can see & do everything that the cruisetour offers plus a whole lot more on your own schedule, at your own pace and often for much cheaper.

Just completed our first land/cruise tour through Royal Caribbean. We did the 11-day Wilderness Tour consisting of Fairbanks and Denali. We had a great time!

My recommendation is do the land tour FIRST rather than after the cruise. You are up early and on the go mostly every day. Once you're on the ship, you can relax.

Karen

More important avoid the short add ons. Poor choices with busing you to Denali in one day- 9 hours.

I do not agree with "do land first" claims. the "on the go" is not an ideal itinerary. Also consider evening out, and allowing enough time at destinations, rather than just cut out 50% of the cruise choices. Especially negative going May and Sept, where north can have significant benefits. It isn't that simple. I' am not "relaxing" on a ship either. Certainly can be active. Ideal is to have an "even": itinerary- strive for it perhaps?

The Talkeetna plus is their using Talkeetna Alaska Lodge and Alyeska in Girdwood. IF these areas are of interest and activities are taken advantage of. otherwise- why go there? A negative is their Denali vendor who is in a poor location without a car. Shuttles and extra effort is needed for activities. Essential for 2 nights at Denali. AND consider only the Tundra Wilderness Tour- again otherwise, why go there? It is about 9 hours by bus, to get to Denali- it is even reasonable to consider this without getting INTO the park?

Denali or Banff? Which is better?

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Denali or Banff? Which is better?

 

 

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They are both entirely different. They can't be compared.

You might check out HAL for cruise tours also. We did that last month and they have a great itinerary that includes the Yukon and Dawson City as well as Denali. We started in Anchorage and went north to Denali on the train, then off to Fairbanks. From there, we flew to Dawson City in the Yukon and continued down to Whitehorse. We boarded the White Pass into Skagway where we also spent the night. Skagway is like a ghost town when the last ship leaves at night. It was pretty cool.

From Skagway, you board the ship and it goes to Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, the Inside Passage and ends up in Vancouver. For us, we especially liked finishing the trip on the ship. The land part gets intensive.

It was a wonderful trip, check it out!