no1racefan1

Information for those of us planning to travel to Whittier by train in May. I had reached out because the Glacier Discovery train is not available to book online yet. This makes it sound like you will only be able to book round trip, but I did clarify that one way bookings will be available. Thank you for your interest in traveling with the Alaska Railroad! We are currently having issues with our system and being able to book for our 2024 summer season, we are hoping to have this resolved within the next few weeks but there is no set date at this time. As for the Glacier Discovery, we are scheduled to have it operate roundtrip only from Anchorage to Whitter on May 11th, 15th, 18th, and 19th. From May 25th to 31st we will have roundtrip service from Anchorage to Whittier and Spencer. Starting June 1st we will have our full service. Please let us know if there are any further questions!

Yikes! Princess is $299.

I have had the most success with Princess customer service (by phone and chat) by volunteering as little information as possible and just waiting to see what they will ask. This goes for any topic.

If you want to go to Alaska in 2024, I would book ASAP. In planning our 2024 Alaska trip, all of the vendors I have talked to have said their 2024 bookings are already through the roof, and most have just barely opened up availability online. Going to be very busy in Alaska next year! That being said, our cruise on Sapphire in May was showing tons of cabins of all types available up until a couple of weeks ago, and then all of a sudden all but a few cabins were unavailable--and it has stayed that way. I have a hard time believing that all of a sudden 90% of the ship got booked within just a few days, so I do think Princess is manipulating availability. Maybe to see if they can get bookings at higher prices? I have no idea. We booked in February when they first opened up.

Thank you. I started with $100 OBC. Yes, I did cancel the original Juneau excursion before booking the new one. No, I did not wait for OBC to be restored before rebooking. Maybe this is the hangup--the system can't figure out that it needs to restore my OBC since I paid with my credit card. The second Princess rep says a refund request has been submitted and I should receive an email confirmation when the refund processes within 3-5 business days. She couldn't tell me what that would actually consist of, so we shall see!

oh.my.goodness!! I am so glad you had an amazing time, thank you for sharing! I may or may not have stalked your profile the last couple of weeks to see if you were posting in Viking, haha.... I really appreciate the detail, especially the information about the restaurants! Also this confirms you were able to check your bags on the railroad directly to the cruise ship even though you didn't book through the cruiseline. Awesomeness!!

I was really hoping I wouldn't have any issues with my excursions but it appears that is not the case. I cancelled three excursions on 9/5 and have yet to see any type of refund. Is this what other people are experiencing as well? Juneau excursion for DH for $49.95, paid with credit card Juneau excursion for myself for $49.95, paid with shareholder OBC Excursion for myself for $39.95, paid with shareholder OBC I actually cancelled the $39.95 by accident, so immediately rebooked it, for which it charged my credit card. I also immediately booked a different excursion for Juneau, at a higher cost, that was charged to my credit card. So no potential refunds were applied anywhere else. By my calculations I am due $49.95 on my credit card and $89.90 OBC. Am I missing something? Does anybody else hate that Princess doesn't send any kind of cancellation notice for excursions? And why, when chatting with the Princess agents (two different times now) do I have to tell them the amount of the excursions, the dates they were booked, etc.? Do they really not have that history?

I booked a Resurrection Bay kayaking tour with Adventure60North https://adventure60.com/ for our last morning in Seward; their 2024 prices are slightly higher than 2023 prices. That's something I've noticed a couple of times, so make sure to factor that in to your budgets!

Ooooh, this is solid advice, thank you! PSA, if anybody uses the ibotta app, right now they have some cruise favorites on there such as Bonine, Tide pens, and Downy wrinkle release!

Today I noticed several excursions are now showing fewer slots available, so they are starting to fill up! Nothing is sold out yet, and several still have at least 20 spots available, but the ones that are smaller groups are definitely looking like they will sell out pretty early, as has been reported on CC. So for you 2024 cruisers, don't wait too long! Edited to add: I've also seen at least one excursion change times! DH's fishing excursion time has been moved by a couple of hours. So things are happening in the excursion department for 2024, for sure. I haven't seen any refund for the shore excursions I cancelled on 9/5, so I'm tackling Princess via Live Chat today. I wish Princess would actually send cancellation emails or even just be consistent about sending excursion emails, in general. Ugh. Will let you know how it goes!

Oh I see. Yes, I've never seen this that I can recall. I think it's probably the exception, not the norm.

None of the ships I've been on had glass above the railings...am I misunderstanding the question?

We see cruise ships as a floating hotel to transport us to places, rather than as the main experience, so it depends what your trip priorities are. We are sailing in an inside cabin in May 2024. We originally booked a balcony and then I called to change it. For me it was about budget and how I wanted to spend money in Alaska. I decided I wanted to have as much money as possible available for experiences in AK, rather than spending money on the cruise. By switching from the balcony to the inside cabin, we saved nearly $2K on the cost of the cruise, and I was able to allocate that to all sorts of activities and excursions. I know there will be places outside to view the scenery, and if an upgrade opportunity comes up later and it fits within our budget, I'll try for that, but will still be happy with our inside cabin otherwise!

I am none of these, and I was able to make dining reservations way before final payment, using the 'web version' as screenshotted above.

$139.95. I had to do a mock booking to get to the price. Seems like Celebrity's excursions are always more expensive!

aarp.org/rewards It's free to sign up.

I did book it! Our trip is May 2024, so it will be a while, but I will report back! There are mixed reviews on whether or not there will be time to walk to Nugget Falls, but I decided to go for it anyways. The price to book through Princess was identical as the price to book direct with Cycle Alaska.

Princess eliminated arrival times about a month ago.

Budget Update! Changes since last update: Rebooked flight using companion fare instead of points Paid off cruise fare. 8% discount on gift card from AARP helped save on that. Booked Matanuska Glacier hike. Added the glacier access fee to miscellaneous because I didn't realize that was additional. Reduced some discretionary categories to make up for the increases elsewhere I'm pretty happy with where we are so far. I was trying to get under $7K but there aren't a ton more things I can cut yet. Maybe as it gets closer some more things will change! I mean... probably.. LOL I started a wish list of things I'd like to splurge on if possible--upgrading plane seats with extra legroom, upgrading our cabin to a balcony, booking the thermal suite for DH. This will depend where we end up in a few months! $732.07 Plane tickets $732.07 Plane tickets $219.07 Rental car $219.07 Rental car $80.00 Gas in rental car Gas in rental car $1,161.74 Cruise fare+protection $1,161.74 Cruise fare+protection $85.59 Lodging in Glacier View $85.59 Lodging in Glacier View $192.00 Lodging in Anchorage $192.00 Lodging in Anchorage $512.94 Lodging in Seward $512.94 Lodging in Seward $259.70 Matanuska Glacier hike $259.70 Matanuska Glacier hike $100.00 Wifi on board Wifi on board $224.00 Onboard gratuities Onboard gratuities $888.55 Shore excursions $888.55 Shore excursions $80.00 Anchorage bike rentals Anchorage bike rentals $310.46 Orca quest tour $310.46 Orca quest tour $220.00 Seward kayak tour Seward kayak tour $200.00 Massages/spa Massages/spa $650.00 Dog sitting Dog sitting $100.00 Guide tips Guide tips $60.00 Extra ship tips Extra ship tips $650.00 Meals/groceries Meals/groceries $200.00 Train to Whittier Train to Whittier $80.00 Taxi/Ubers Taxi/Ubers $150.00 Miscellaneous Miscellaneous $90.00 M. Glacier access fee M. Glacier access fee $25.00 Fishing license Fishing license $30.00 Laundry Laundry $35.00 Bear spray Bear spray $400.00 Shopping Shopping $7,736.12 $4,362.12

Trip planning updates! I've been able to book a few of our independent tours and tweak a few things in our agenda. I switched out Mendenhall Glacier Explorer for the Bike and Brew Glacier View tour in Juneau. Thanks to a tip from @Arkiepig, I was able to look up the tour provide (Cycle Alaska) on TripAdvisor and confirm that there will likely be enough time to walk to Nugget Falls on this tour. This tour is more our style even though I don't drink--I'm sure DH will enjoy the beer sampling! This resulted in $180 increase spending on ship excursions. Oh, by the way--the tour price through Princess was EXACTLY the same as booking direct with Cycle Alaska! I booked through Princess because as I've said before, I like the ease of them making the arrangements for us. Side note, I ended up accidentally cancelling my lumberjack excursion while trying to cancel the Mendenhall Glacier excursion, because Princess's website is kind of terrible. So now I need to keep track and make sure I get refunded for both of those excursions (and I have no idea what payment I used sooooo I guess that'll give me something to do, haha). I did rebook the lumberjack show. I ended up cancelling and rebooking our flights from Denver to Anchorage because I had a companion fare on Alaska Air that needed to be used before next spring, and I wasn't sure where/when I would use it. That resulted in spending approximately $600 on flights, but I got 90,000 miles back that DON'T expire, so it seemed like a better idea to save those for future use and a better deal too. The only tour I haven't booked yet is our kayaking in Seward, because the company I want to use (Adventure 60 North) doesn't have next year open for booking yet. I'm trying to decide between a 3-hour or 5-hour kayak trip; the 5-hour would be $60pp more, but includes lunch, which would offset some of that cost. And it includes some hiking. Hmm, decisions, decisions.... And lastly, I paid off our cruise balance today! I bought a $500 gift card on AARP with 8% discount (bummer they changed it from 10% to 8%, but I'll take what I can get!) and applied that to our remaining balance. I do have about $100 left on the gift card that I will have GS apply once onboard. I had read that a few people have had luck being able to apply the extra as OBC ahead of their cruise, but I was NOT able to do that on the website. It only let me apply the exact amount that we owed. I'm not going to bother being on hold to try over the phone. YMMV.

Thank you, I appreciate your feedback. DH and I and MIL and her husband have all been to Alaska on a cruise, but DH's siblings have never been. DH and I are actually going to AK next year for a cruise/DIY land tour and will take the train from Anchorage to Whittier to board the ship. I did find information on the Alaska Railroad website about routes and such, and they list tour options, but they just give a very brief overview of what each tour consists of. You are correct, a brochure might help, I'm going to request one. For example, hotels are included? I think? Are tours/transportation/etc. included? What do they take care of, and what do we have to arrange ourselves? I'm still hoping somebody might have first-hand experience doing a multi-day tour via the railroad. MIL most definitely wants to experience Alaska via train since she's already done a cruise and her husband is a retired railroader.

Great tip, thank you!

Has anybody done a land tour through Alaska Railroad? There are several options on their website with most highlighted by a visit to Denali. MIL wants to do one of these with the family in 2025, and I can't find any reviews or way to research it--so I'm coming to my favorite travel peeps, even though it's not a cruise!

Has anybody done this excursion? If so, do you remember how much time there is at the visitor center/trail to Nugget Falls? https://www.princess.com/cruise-excursions/juneau-alaska-excursions/bike-and-brew-glacier-view?portCode=JNU&portDate=05222024

There's no way I would do it without a guide--I'm terrified of crevasses!