masterdrago

Max elevation on our flight around Denali and landing at base camp was about 7,800'. Should not be a problem. There are trips that go higher but they are not pressurized cabins but do provide air masks. At 20,000' your ears will feel it.

I think for us it was a very individual thing. DW is very cold sensitive. Me not so much. The only day that I felt the need for 4 layers was while at the glaciers when running on the fast boats and outside on the deck. When we went into Prince William Sound, DW wore a layer more than me and we both had taken along the thin outer water resistant Gore-Tex 4th layer in case of rain. Hers one one of the 3-N-1. Me just a Marino piece over Under-Armor.

The day on Resurrection Bay was very cold (40ish) and rainy. DW wore all 4 layers.

On 1/21/2020 at 3:15 PM, SuperCrewBear said:

 

I've been to Emerald Lake twice with Dyea Dave Tours in Skagway.  I give them two thumbs up!  They will pick you up at the dock, stop at the train office in town to pick up your White Pass tickets (book your train tickets ***WELL*** in advance by calling them directly - Dyea Dave does not provide tickets) then you'll be off on your tour.  Dave's buses hold maybe a dozen passengers (once we had only four total and the next time there was about 10) so it's very easy to make quick stops for photo ops and such.  Dave does not take deposits nor credit cards.  You reserve your spot and pay at the end of the tour - his guarantee is that if you're not happy you owe nothing.  You can either pay in cash or with a personal check.  How much better can that be?  We were dropped off to catch the train from Fraser then he was waiting for the train back in Skagway - he'll take you to your choice of drop-off points (back to the dock at your ship or anywhere in town).  Excellent, excellent service!  Good luck!

Another two thumbs up for the tour with Dave. Most excellent grand service you could hope for.

Thanks for the suggestions Mapleleaves. Making notes🙂  Especially driving directly from Seattle staying on Vancouver Island. We are in the very pre-planning stage for a late summer 2021 trip.

1 hour ago, luckyinpa said:

related question. is it worth the extra for the balcony vs inside/OV rooms?  they really kick up the prices for balcony

For my DW, it is. And Grand Suite to boot. I think I could easily go with the inside room to save a few grand to only spend it elsewhere. Like on a bear close encounter. DW is so afraid of being eaten/attacked by a bear that she would not even make the short mile long walk from the ship to Hoonah. I did get some nice shots of the famed Grizzly through the transit bus window but for me, I'm wanting the close contact that folks can only get with a specialized tour.

1 hour ago, luckyinpa said:

 

how much was the one way drop off fee? articles say thats killer.  how long was the border crossing? 

Car rentals are interesting. We reserved for the 8 day land adventure pre-cruise from Enterprise Anchorage airport. They had the lowest rates and the best reviews. For our May trip the price in January on 1st booking was ~$460. Checked in February - $265. Then I rebooked in late February for $218 for the full 8 days. It was a 4 door Chevy Malibu Hybrid with a large trunk to hide luggage. We rented a car in Vancouver at the offsite airport location for 134CAD ($97US) for a single day to drive the couple of hours to Seattle and dropped that afternoon at the airport location. They upgraded us to a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We had a 2+ hour wait at the border crossing. What fun! Some guy was pushing a cart selling ice cream to folks in line. Not sure what the fee was - did not say in the paperwork. Way cheaper than the air from Vancouver for the two of us plus having to upgrade the passports from cards. Plus DW had found us 1st class to Houston on AlaskaAir for $265ea.... had a really bad experience seated next to a 400# disagreeable guy on the way up!

2 hours ago, luckyinpa said:

 

not true. cruises leaving from usa, as long as you dont do air to foreign countries you are fine with passport card  or birth certificate and  license. ive done this both to canada and bahamas and bermuda with others and those docs were just fine. no one ever had full passport and just stopping in canada does not mean you need one. 

 

ive never left from canada so i cannot comment there. but i do you know you can take train/bus from seattle to canada which i believe some do in order to avoid flying to canada

We did it with only the passport card as we rented a car in Vancouver after debarkation and drove to Seattle for a flight home. Saved $$ on Vancouver to Seattle flight, passport upgrade and got to sight see along drive south. The big negative was the long wait at border on day of cruise ship arrivals.

1 hour ago, luckyinpa said:

 

but that's not a cruise 🙂 i could never do Alaska without a cruise. it just seems to be such an integral part of the journey. but i haven't done it so maybe not. What are you're must do items? I've already learned the smaller ships are better and don't miss important things

DW is all about the cruise again but I want to save $$ with inside cabin. She is all about a balcony/suite. I've tried to talk her into one of the small ship cruises like Seabourn, Alaska Dream or Lindblad but might be a bit over budget.

What we want to add to the next visit to Alaska (late shoulder season) is ....
1) Time between Fairbanks and Cantwell to attempt to observe aurora
2) Denali Fall color
3) Full day 8.5hr Northwestern Fjord Cruise on Viewfinder with Major Marine
4) A couple of days bear watching with Alaska Bear Adventures out of Homer
5) Calving glaciers (Seward) most likely with the Major Marine tour on Viewfinder
6) Possible flight seeing over Prince William Sound

7) More sightseeing on the Glenn Allen highway

       Bore Tide attempt again on Turnagain Arm but highly timing dependent

       Also interested in the drive down Richardson Highway - Fairbanks to Valdez

There were 8 but cannot remember the full list now.

I know that the services at the Princess Lodge are comprehensive and for folks that do not want to plan their own makes perfect sense. I think that the loss of complete freedom was what drove us to cancel our RCI land tour and book DIY. We stayed at the Grand Denali Lodge which was not far from the Princess Lodge. We had an incredible view of the distant scenery from a high point and the tours we took had shuttle services that would come and pick up at the lodge.

We are seriously considering a 10-14 day land only next trip to Alaska. After spending 16 days with cruise last May, it only whetted my appetite for more. Now I have 8 items on my must do for the return trip. All running from Fairbanks to Homer and Seward.

On 1/22/2020 at 6:45 PM, 2-4-T said:

Some input please... I disembark in Wittier and we'll take a bus (I guess) to Anchorage. I have yet to book my flight home and wanted to add 3-4 days at in Anchorage & area. Is that too much time? What would a relatively active 40's couple do with that time? Neither of us have been to Alaska before - no knowledge about the area.  I'm at the beginning of my planning process and will be in Anchorage in late May. And yes - we are absolutely open to renting a car.

We drove to Wasilla for dinner and the drive east towards Glenn Allen is beautiful with many stops along the way i.e. Mantanuska Glacier as Mapleleaves mentioned in post 23. Take a look online for the The-Ultimate-Alaska-Road-Map-Book

https://www.alaska.org/assets/content/related_items_pdfs/The-Ultimate-Alaska-Road-Map-Book.pdf

If you like a relaxing dinner with a view, check out Simon & Seaforts. The view is out over Knik Arm and west to the bottom end of the Alaska Range and the 11,000' Mt. Spurr Volcano. Also Mt. Redoubt Volcano which last erupted in March 2009 is visible.

DW took this view with her cell phone as the Queen Elizabeth cruised out.

On 12/31/2019 at 1:15 PM, Gardyloo said:

 

If this is possible re the cost, I'd do this in a heartbeat.  Right next to the Anchorage airport is Lake Hood, the largest seaplane base in the world.  You could do a flightseeing trip around Anchorage, or over the Chugach Mountains toward Prince William Sound, and it would be a spectacular introduction to Alaska.  Look at Rust's - https://www.flyrusts.com/ - for ideas.

We had tried to work their Prince William Sound flight tour into our schedule but it did not work out. You might seriously consider that - see Alaska if at all possible. We stayed at the Lakefront Anchorage on Lake Hood and while eating breakfast watched at least 25 sea planes come and go.

On our last cruise, we took an RCI bus/shuttle to the airport to pick up a rent car to drive ourselves to Seattle. Looking at next cruise to fly into Vancouver and possibly stay a day or two prior to northbound cruise. Have not decided where to stay yet but do most hotels have shuttles from the airport and then to the cruise terminal? I suspect that while we are touring Vancouver, we will use public trans (TransLink, Ferries, SkyTrain, etc). We definitely will want to visit Butchart Gardens while there. Any thoughts or advice? We are in the very pre-planning mode right now.

I've never had a big issue with sea sickness except on one carnival ride. I've found that staying outside and being able to view the horizon has always prevented the issue. We took several small boat excursions when in Alaska last May and I almost never remained in the cabin. We carried the recommended meds but never took them. If your sensitive, make sure to use something like the patch mentioned.

Unless you are very prone to sea sickness, you will not find it an issue - you mentioned cruising inside passage. We had spectacular weather on our mid May cruise and all the mountains and some other areas had good snow cover which was what we expected to see in Alaska. Renting the car pre-cruise out of Anchorage worked very well for us on the 8 day land portion. It gave us so much more freedom. We had originally booked land portion with RCI but after seeing how much time we would be on the rail or standing in line, we cancelled and planned our own. Much better accommodations and we ate when and where we wanted. Stopped when and where we liked for scenery, etc. I had never planned anything like it but DW was a spreadsheet queen and that helped immensely. One of our mistakes was not being in Denali when we could take the full transit bus tour. That's on our bucket list next trip. Did I read correctly that you will be booking a May/June trip sometime in early March? Take a close look now at the availability of any excursions that really interest you since they may begin to get booked up for the May/June time frame. 2021 or this year?

We are looking to make another trip to Alaska late summer 2021 and the Northern Lights are definitely on our bucket list. Like Canuker says, consider it a bonus. Right now we are at the bottom of the solar cycle so activity that produces them is very low. However, they are being seen. In Fairbanks, in -40 degree weather, on clear nights. https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=158765

There are some tours in March but the weather prospects are very poor in Alaska then.

On 1/19/2020 at 3:00 PM, mapleleaves said:

They're ranked in this Ketchikan visitor guide, and Traitors Cove is ahead of Neets.

https://www.experienceketchikan.com/bear-viewing-in-alaska.html

 

If you have mobility issues be mindful of the details.  Margaret Creek requires walking a little over a mile, whereas Neets is only 1/4 mile. 

 

I'd choose Margaret Creek, not only because of the higher ranking, but apparently Taquan is the sole provider for Neets and IIRC they had 2 crashes last summer within weeks of each other. 

 

Also, the pilots with Island Wing who do Traitors Creek are very experienced and Michell (owner of Island Wings) is just a fantastic person to fly with. All of her crew are great to work with.

All of our tours except one were booked through independent operators. The one we booked through the Radiance of the Seas was changed to a different time and we did not know this until we boarded. We had to cancel that tour. I booked all of our 16 days packed to the gills with tours much to the dismay of DW.

We took two pair - 8x40 Steiner and 7x35 Nikon. Both fully sealed and waterproof. I decided to opt for lower power than 10x due to the possibility of being in motion while trying to view. Turns out the whale watch tours on the small boats always had a good selection of quality binos onboard. We mainly used them on a large boat tour, Denali transit bus tour and from the rent car on land portion. I would bring my own again unless I was really weight limited. My camera backpack alone weighed 20#. We never had any issues with light grasp due to the long daylight hours in Alaska.

We did the 12:00 Misty Fjords and lake landing in May. Incredible company to work with. Michell and her very accomplished and experienced new pilot Adam are well known as some of the very best in Alaska. The morning flight may have more fog to deal with. We tried to add the Soule Glacier flyover but the timing was wrong with the possibility of fog.

We are going to do her Traitors Cove Bear Viewing tour in 2021. Michell did photos for everyone on our flight when at Lake Manzoni. Just awesome service. When Michell mentioned that it may be warm in the plane (we had dressed in layers but warmly), DW immediately bought me a tee from their shop. Just got our Happy New Years card from her.

We were on a southbound Radiance last May and did a marvelous Misty Fjord and lake landing flight with Island Wings in Ketchikan. Our ship was docked all day so we had plenty of time. It was not on the ships list of tours but we had plenty of time to board the ship. If you want to do more than one, you'll need to look closely at all the tour times. Island Wings has a number of tour times. I honestly think that in Ketchikan, we could have done two easily.

I'm glad it went without hiccups. I didn't see the lights dim here north of Houston☠️  Transfers of data have always bent me the wrong way. That two-mouse-thing has me really messing up. It seems you've had a good year building the new putr. My youngest son has always made his from scratch as well as all his ARs and has tried his darnedest to get me to do the same. I've always been to skeert to do that, so do the off-the -shelf thing. I would definitely go with the all red even though it will be hidden. Makes for a cool nite lite.

On 1/10/2020 at 10:15 PM, gottagoacruzn said:

Anybody else reading this, go with DyeaDave, he's the best!!!😄

A big ditto on this tour. One of the best land tours we took while in Alaska 16 days last May. The scenery is some of the most spectacular I've seen. Did van tour to Carcross/Emerald Lake and back to Fraser where we picked up the WPYR back to Skagway. We stopped at that lake on Memorial Day. It had thawed and there was a slight breeze.