Alaskan Cruise and Mountaineer Train Trip

Hi,

We are thinking of doing the Mountaineer train trip followed by an Alaskan cruise.

Can anyone help and suggest the best cruise line for the cruise?

Suggest the best time or month to go?

Suggest the best clothing to take, bearing in mind we are in the UK?

Sorry for all the questions but this is a sort of bucket list holiday and we want to get the best out of it, we have cruised before.

Thanks in advance.

Rodger

Welcome to Cruise Critic!

Take a look over on the portion of Cruise Critic devoted to Alaska, here:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

You will see hundreds of discussions on those "best" questions, which by the way, are tremendously vague and hard to answer, as we don't know you, and your definition of "best". As commonly discussed there, as to clothing, the weather in Alaska is really variable...so layering is the very common recommendation, with your outer layer being water and windproof.

Yup, as Bruce says it's simply impossible to answer a question about the best line or time. Depends entirely on YOUR priorities.

What you want to see/do in Alaska helps limit the time element (e.g. if you want to see bears eating salmon, you need to go when the salmon are running; but if you want minimum chance of rain you need to go early in the season; these are pretty much mutually incompatible!)

Best line is like asking how long is a piece of string... budget, tastes in food, budget, size of ship, budget, which ports you want to see, budget, how much time you are able to spend on vacation, budget, and your date range all help figure out your viable options of vessel.

Short of coming back with an opus detailing everything you & your traveling companions enjoy, ranked in order, and a full financial statement and calendar of your availability, reading over other folks trip reports until you find one that you go "Bingo! That sounds like our kind of trip!" seems a really good way to start your research.

We (4 siblings and spouses) did an Alaska cruise out of Vancouver in early August 2012 on the Coral Princess (DH's and mine's favorite Princess ship and our second northbound cruise on it) and the following year all of us did the Rocky Mountaineer to Jasper, also in early August. We stayed in Jasper for 4 days and drove to Banff for 3 days. We all loved both trips. Whatever you chose, make sure you add a couple of days in Vancouver. It is a lovely city with lots to do. If I had time and money, I would fly into Calgary, rent a car and go to Banff and stay a few days and either 1) pick up the mountaineer there to Vancouver or 2) (and much better) continue your driving trip to Jasper, stay a few days, and get the mountaineer to Vancouver. Then stay in Vancouver for at least 2 full days.

Regardless of the month you will want to dress in layers for Alaska. Jasper and Banff were quite comfortable and the only time we dressed in multiple layers was when we walked on a glacier between Jasper and Banff.