no1racefan1

WHO CARES--wear whatever you want! We dress up because we never get a chance to dress up in our regular daily routine and I think it's fun. Our dressing up is not as formal as some people and may be more formal than others. I have never, ever seen anybody wearing anything that negatively impacted my vacation experience in any way, whatsoever.

Hi @Stowaway LFC I actually started a cruise planning/review thread for my May 2024 trip. I have it on the Alaska board because I am not just discussing finances, I am discussing all aspects of the trip planning and research, and I will also review the trip once it finally comes. However I am sharing budget and financial information in that thread because it's the kind of thing I would find extremely helpful! I'm hoping to share some information/research that is helpful to others. I haven't been kicked out yet so I think it's okay? Haha.

The two replies have all but convinced me we should just drop our luggage off and not board the ship. We would just need to be strategic about what we have in our carry ons that we have to hike with.

This sounds perfect!

We are considering hiking the Portage Pass Trail in Whittier prior to embarking, since we don't sail until 8 pm (guessing all aboard is 6pm). We will be arriving in Anchorage via train (self booked) at 12:05pm. Has anybody hiked this trail prior to embarking? I know I've seen reviews where people doing B2Bs hiked it on their day in Whittier, but wondering about the additional logistics of doing it prior to sailing. The things I'm trying to take into consideration are: -We could drop our checked luggage w/ porters without boarding the ship, so that's taken care of. -We would need to carry whatever we have in our carry-ons with us on the hike. This means we likely would not want to buy any wine to bring onboard (which we've never done, but were somewhat considering it for this trip). Or, we could check in and hope our rooms are ready so we can drop off carry on stuff. -Either find something to eat in Whittier, where there's not a lot of options, or if we board we could grab lunch -If we board first, eat, and drop off our stuff, would there still be enough time to do the hike? I've read to plan 2-3 hours. I just want to know if it has been done comfortably. I'll probably just scratch the idea if it's going to cause any anxiety about boarding times.

Awesome!! I'd love to hear more about your planning as it goes. I saw that there was a 10% off for early booking for the orca cruise, so I'm thrilled about that! I've looked at the TourSaver book and haven't been able to determine yet if it would be worth it--I'm going to keep checking though! There is another similar coupon book called Northern Lights you might want to check out! I'm keeping an eye on that one too.

Ditto

The problem people are having is the gift card payment option doesn't show up online for excursions because they aren't technically allowed to be paid by gift cards, per Princess's terms. So they call to see if they can get somebody to finagle it. I understand, I have considered doing the same thing...but probably won't since I see how much of a hassle it is. I'll just use them to pay for my booking online.

Technically the Princess gift cards terms state 'Gift Cards are only redeemable for purchases onboard Princess’® ships or applied as payment to a Princess® booking' so I don't think it's fair to say he was clueless because he said they can't be used for shore excursions. There are plenty of cases where people report they were able to get them applied to shore excursions, and just as many people are not able to. It's not 'technically' allowed. It does sound like he didn't know how to process gift cards in general, though.

I was able to make all our dinner reservations already for May 2024. Cruise is not fully paid yet. We are gold level. I did this through the web version, not the app. I'm kind of expecting them to disappear and having to redo them, lol.

Budget update! For those of you looking for ways to plan/budget/save money as you plan your Alaska trip.... I have been continually tweaking the budget as I am able to do more research on certain activities, find deals, or change our itinerary. I haven't gotten the cost down too much yet since I posted the initial budget, BUT the update includes two additional possible tours (flightseeing and Hubbard Glacier) that weren't included before. So we are making progress! Column on the left is projected, column on the right is what has actually been spent so far. I hardly ever see people talking about actual numbers in their trip planning so maybe this is actually taboo... but I know I find this kind of information extremely helpful when planning! $1,000.00 Plane tickets Plane tickets $600.00 Rental car Rental car $80.00 Gas in rental car Gas in rental car $1,786.56 Cruise fare $274.60 Cruise fare $153.36 Travel insurance Travel insurance $160.00 Lodging in Palmer Lodging in Glacier View $200.00 Lodging in Anchorage Lodging in Anchorage $300.00 Matanuska Glacier hike Matanuska Glacier hike $100.00 Wifi on board Wifi on board $224.00 Onboard gratuities Onboard gratuities $1,800.00 Shore excursions $347.75 Shore excursions $600.00 Denali flightseeing Denali flightseeing $150.00 Lodging in Seward Lodging in Seward $300.00 Orca quest tour Orca quest tour $400.00 Massages/spa Massages/spa $650.00 Dog sitting Dog sitting $100.00 Guide tips Guide tips $60.00 Extra ship tips Extra ship tips $550.00 Meals/groceries Meals/groceries $200.00 Train to Whittier Train to Whittier $50.00 Taxi to airport Transfer to airport $200.00 Hotel in Denver Hotel in Seattle $300.00 Miscellaneous Miscellaneous $25.00 Fishing license Fishing license $30.00 Laundry Laundry $45.00 Bear spray Bear spray $500.00 Shopping Shopping $10,563.9 $622.35

Exactly....

Why? If you bought a plane ticket a year in advance and then looked at prices before flying and realized they dropped significantly, would you feel entitle to a refund? (Maybe with the more lenient policies airlines have since COVID, this would work--but certainly not how it used to be!) If you were satisfied with paying $619 when you booked the cruise, there's no reason you should no longer be satisfied just because somebody got a better price. People use coupons, points, and all sorts of things to save money on all types of purchases. You probably pay more or less than other people for almost anything you buy. If it's going to bother you, you should probably stop looking at the price after final payment. Although, if it were me, I would maybe try a second call to talk to somebody else and see if they could offer me any kind of upgrade. But if not, I'd accept it and enjoy my cruise. Saying that you don't want to go because of it is very dramatic, IMHO.

Or you could look at it as, they didn't used to offer a discount for not picking a cabin before.... Other lines do this. I was honestly surprised to learn this is a new thing. I don't see it as 'charging extra'. I see it as you get a discount if you let Princess pick your room.

Woohoo, I booked an excursion today!! I want to take advantage of the 6% back on paypal from Discover right now. I can get 6% cash back on up to $1,000 in paypal purchases through the end of May. So if you have a Discover card, check your offers! I got this paypal offer in an email, and it's in addition to the rotating 5% cash back categories. My take on excursions: I booked the Alaska Fishing & Wilderness Dining in Ketchikan for DH. We almost always book ship excursions because it's worth it to me to not have to make any of the arrangements (unless they are waaaay more expensive, but in the case of Alaska, I have found most ship excursions are comparable or just a few dollars more than booking independently). Having said that, I am pretty picky about ship excursions, or excursions in general. I usually try to avoid coaches, hoho buses, city highlights, etc. I look for small group tours and I read the reviews to get a sense if something will be a good fit. We have never had a bad ship excursion, and most of them have been the highlights of our trips!

I have never been on a ship-sponsored excursion where I had to worry about any kind of transportation. It's always been arranged. If I was booking this, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. But that's just me.

I almost always book excursions through the ship 😁 We always do self-assist luggage/walk off.

Oh! I got an AARP membership (I signed DH up because he's...more mature...) It was on sale for $12 for the year and it came with a free gift--a multi-USB port charger thingie. I was actually planning to buy something similar for our cruise that was $15 on Amazon, so basically the membership already paid for itself? Unless the multi-USB port thing is a piece of junk. Will update when I receive it! Anyways, you can get the discounted Princess gift cards from AARP without a membership. However, they offer a lot of other gift card options available to members only. Some that may be of interest to CCers: Carnival, American Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Hotels.com, Airbnb, Celebrity... I am most interested in the Airbnb gift cards. They are only 5% off but money is money, amiright??? You can also get various supermarket cards for 8% off.

I spent this afternoon fine tuning our tentative itinerary--I'm already so excited for this trip!! By looking at this it probably seems like I'm one of those people that wants to have every single day planned out to the minute, but I'm really not! I like to have *ideas* for what we could do in a day, but we're very much go with the flow type people. Monday, 5/13 B-airport L-airport Fly to Anchorage Stay @ Hyatt Pick up rental car D-49th State Brewing OR Haute Quarter Grill Tuesday, 5/14 B-free at hotel Denali flightseeing trip? Explore Anchorage Buy groceries L-picnic Massages? Wild Scoops ice cream D-Anchorage Stay @ Hyatt Wednesday, 5/15 B-free @ hotel Drive to Glacier View Matanuska Glacier guided hike L-The Butte Burger Place Bodenberg Butte hike? D-leftovers Stay in Palmer? Thursday, 5/16 B-groceries/make our own Drive to Seward Scenic stops along the way L-picnic Visit Exit Glacier D-The Cookery OR Woody’s Thai Kitchen Stay @ yurt in Seward Friday, 5/17 B-groceries/make our own Orca quest tour in Seward OR Kayak tour L-Seward? Drive back to Anchorage Buy wine & soda for cruise? D-Anchorage Drop off rental car Stay @ Hyatt Saturday, 5/18 Embark Whittier 8pm B-free @ hotel 9:45am-12:05pm Alaska Railroad L-onboard or eat remaining groceries Portage Pass Trail hike? 5:20pm dinner in MDR Sunday, 5/19 Hubbard Glacier 3pm-8pm Laundry day 3:30pm-5:30pm Hubbard Glacier cruise? 6:40pm dinner in MDR Monday, 5/20 Glacier Bay 9:15am-7:30pm 5:20pm dinner in MDR Tuesday, 5/21 Skagway 7am-8:30pm 7:30am-11:45am Chilkoot Hike & Float Lunch back on board Walk or shuttle to Gold Rush Cemetery Hike to Lower Reid Falls? Shopping in Skagway 6:40pm dinner in MDR Wednesday, 5/22 Juneau 6:30am-4pm 7am-10:30am Mendenhall Native Canoe Lunch in town—fish & chips Mt. Roberts Tramway? 5:20pm dinner in MDR Thursday, 5/23 Ketchikan 10am-6pm Breakfast in MDR 10:30am-3:30pm Fishing excursion (Wade) Lumberjack show? Walking tour/shopping 6:40pm dinner in MDR Friday, 5/24 Sea Day Laundry day 5:20pm dinner in MDR Saturday, 5/25 Disembark Vancouver 7:30am Breakfast on board Taxi to airport L-airport D-airport Stay night in Denver? I've started a wish list of 'would like to do this if we win the lottery' things to do (we don't play the lottery....) such as flightseeing in Denali. I'd like to know what everybody's ONE thing in Alaska is to do, if you did nothing else--what would feel quintessentially Alaskan to you? (We did a helicopter flight to dogsledding camp on top of a glacier on our first cruise, so that's why those experiences are not included in our trip this time. We also did the White Pass train ride in Skagway. Both highly recommended!!) For budgeting purposes, I'm trying to map out when/where we might be eating meals so we will know what to grocery shop for. I've also started researching restaurants in various places to see if there are any 'must do' places! I don't eat seafood sooooo....yeah. No crab legs here! Recommendations welcome, of course! Part of the reason I started this thread was to help give other people ideas as well... and the other reason I started this thread is to keep myself amused and give myself an outlet for my over 400 days left of trip planning I'll be doing....

Yes, that is also a factor!

In today's trip planning news...okay, so I actually research this trip basically every day in one way or another, but it would be get pretty boring if I posted about it here every day. Here's what I do in an effort to stay on top of costs and look for deals: --Check CC of course, to see if there's any chatter about Princess/Alaska/tours/etc. Sometimes one of our CC friends might find a good deal or coupon code for something and post about it! This is where I learned you could buy Princess gift cards from AARP Rewards for a 10% discount. --Go on Princess.com and do a mock booking for my same cruise/cabin type to see if prices have decreased. They have already dropped once since booking and I was able to call and get re-fared. Also while I am on princess.com I check out shore excursions. I have 'favorited' the ones we are interested in but I'm not ready to purchase yet, so I look to see if they still show the same number of tickets available. So far, so good. Today I purchased a $100 Princess gift card from AARP Rewards for $90 and applied it to my balance. I plan to do this every payday, which will pay off the cruise portion of this trip relatively painlessly. The only downside is if we for some reason end up cancelling...that's going to be a lot of digital gift cards to keep track of when they issue refunds. That's incentive to not cancel, ha! Before purchasing I checked my rewards credit cards to see which would give me the best deal on my purchase. Discover is offering 6% cash back on Paypal purchases through 5/31, so I paid for the gift card via Paypal and bam! Another 6% off. I *might* change my card buying strategy and buy more before this offer expires so I can take full advantage of this deal. DISCLAIMER: I AM IN NO WAY RECOMMENDING THE USE OF CREDIT CARDS FOR UNNECESSARY, UNPLANNED PURCHASES OR IF YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO PAY THE BALANCE IN FULL EVERY MONTH. I DO NOT CARRY A BALANCE ON ANY CARD. Itinerary-wise, even though we made a revised itinerary we are still going back and forth on whether we should come in Sunday or Monday and add Denali back to the trip. On the one hand, yes it cut out a few hundred dollars and several hours of driving to drop Denali. On the other hand, it would be a lot less expensive to include it in this trip than it would to plan a whole other trip to Alaska someday to visit Denali. So many decisions!! (A person on Tripadvisor recommends a flight-seeing trip over Denali which sounds really amazing and also like it would be *adding* to the budget, not taking away from it....but also, amazing! Sigh...)

I've had this problem before. No idea what was wrong, but the next day I tried it and it worked fine.

Yeah I kind of feel like DH would be very displeased if I booked us a 4 hour bus ride, so it's probably a no go, but I'm looking at all options anyways. Second question: what would be a minimum layover time you would book if we were changing airlines in Seattle and had to collect bags, go back through security, etc.? 3 hours?

Does anybody happen to know how long the Princess transfer (assuming it's a coach) takes to get from Vancouver to Seattle, if this was an option we wanted to explore? Wondering what time we would want to book the flight from Seattle.

I did not know this!