Anniesgirl

The Harriman Fiord might just keep me out of a kayak. It sounds wonderful. 

1 hour ago, kennicott said:

 

Here is what I would do and many of them do, particularly those who leave again the same day, instead of running up to the big city. Matter of fact, in two weeks we have this 5.5 hour trip booked, for the 12.30 PM departure.

 

My wife has never visited the northwest corner of Prince William Sound, so we decided she should see it since she is from Cordova. I used to fly commercially on the Sound so I'm pretty familiar with it all and I even escorted her sister and family some years ago on a tour from Whittier to Valdez, which covered a lot of this same territory including Esther Passage. She drove a big van we rented to Valdez to pick us up for more touring of the State but wanted me to go with her sister so I could do all the blabbing. When I was flying out of Cordova she was running the office and working the radio keeping track of us. Believe she has earned this, about time.

 

https://www.phillipscruises.com/cruises/26-glacier-cruise.php      

 

 

This sounds like a great idea. Nice long tour with a meal.  I’m pretty much ready to abandon the idea of seeing Anchorage completely. We are also looking at the two kayak companies in Whittier as serious possibilities. They have full day excursions that would let us take advantage of the long stay in port. 

53 minutes ago, Northern Aurora said:

 

 

This is exactly my reaction to "Anniesgirl's" post -- apparently has not been to Whittier nor has read much about the community.

Perhaps I should have said “it seems odd that the ships dock in such an ill-equipped place, call it Anchorage in their itinerary and have no way for those of us not disembarking to access Anchorage for more than an hour or two on a day we spend 20 hours in port”.  I definitely haven’t been to Whittier but have read it’s almost non-existent.   I still think it’s odd that the cruise lines don’t do more for passengers. 

7 minutes ago, AKStafford said:

Then you are going to want to rent a car... Avis is the only car rental agency in Whittier.

Thank you. It seems odd that Whittier is so ill equipped for the ships that dock there. I’ll check with Avis. 

On 6/17/2019 at 8:36 AM, lax19 said:

We are using:

 

https://alaskacruisetransfer.com/ 

 

There are options that you can google. 

 

 

 

I looked up this company and they seem great if you are ending or beginning your cruise in Whittier/Anchorage but not so great if you are staying on for the ship's return south  Like the OP, we are looking for reasonably priced transport into Anchorage and back to Whittier.  Our ship is in port from 0030 to 2030 so there is plenty of time to drive the 60 miles into the city to look around.  These busses only drop off in Anchorage about 1100 and then start back toward Wittier about 2 hours later getting you to the ship around 1630.  That seems like a waste of a day.

Pf778c, good point about the more upscale cruise lines. That is in our future (I hope -fingers crossed!) but probably just for one or two week cruises. The price point is such that I’m willing to put up with some of the nickel-and-diming for more cruises. Sometimes. But I still grumble about it.

Hank, I envy those cruisers who cart on the cases of great wine but my wine drinking probably isn’t in that category. It does give me something to think about, though. I wonder how hard it would be to send a case from Vancouver to Singapore to meet us at the ship. We are spending time in Japan before going to Singapore and I cannot see carting a case of wine around for a few weeks. Ther must be companies that will ship it for us. Probably prohibitively expensive compared to just buying a wine package but something to explore over the next few months while waiting.

Cruising Cockroach, so true. I’m trying to save the $15/bottle corkage fees. Bringing on a couple of bottles at $15 each to last a week is not too painful. Paying corkage for several cases to last five weeks can pinch a bit. High class worries to be sure but it never hurts to ask.

CB, are you aware of any lines that allow more wine to be brought on board? I’ve done RC, X and Carnival. Going on Princess next. I thought all allowed the two bottles per stateroom. Maybe I need to research more cruise lines.

Does anyone know if any cruise lines relax their rules around bringing on your own wine for long cruises? It seems odd that I can bring on one bottle free of charge/corkage for a two day cruise and I can bring on one bottle free of charge on the 37 night cruise I’m planning for next year. Has anyone seen any discussion of this anywhere?