Best Excursions for Cruisetour - need advice

[CruisinChic]

We are going to Alaska for a 11 day cruisetour on the Diamond Princess in June and are looking for some quick advice on what the best/do not miss excursions are?? Tell me what your favorites were in each location. This is where we will be visiting:

 

Mt. McKinley

Denali

Skagway

Juneau

Ketchikan

 

I have always been partial to booking excursions outside of the cruise lines since they price gouge, so any outside vendor advice is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!!

[oratheeexplorer]

We haven't been yet, but are going in August. We have an 11 day cruisetour on the Sapphire. Here is what we booked:

 

McKinley - Southface flightseeing tour with Talkeetna Air Taxi out of Talkeetna.

 

Denali - canceled Natural History Tour included and booked shuttle bus through Denali National Park to Toklat River.

 

Juneau - Whale Watch tour with Harv N Marvs (good recommendations on here and trip advisor for this company and fantastic to deal with when booking).....they will also stop for a 15 minute time frame at Mendenhall Glacier and they will wait for you to take you back, or if you'd like longer time there you can take the shuttle bus back to the pier for like $8 each.

 

Skagway - 7 1/2 hour Train/Bus Yukon tour with Chilkoot Tours (who also are highly recommended on here and trip advisor)

 

Ketchikan - just going to walk around the town, but they say the Flight tour of Misty Fjords is awesome....

 

Have fun deciding what to do and enjoy your cruisetour!

[CruisinChic]

Thanks for the advice...much appreciated!

[hockeygal54]

I'm just marking this spot so I can find it again....going in Aug on Coral. I took that ship to PC last March. My only whine was the fitness center wasn't much and was freq crowded with older folks abusing the time limits on bikes/treadmills. But it could be worse.....

[Budget Queen]

What tour are you on in Denali? This is the MOST significant feature of your entire cruisetour. IFit is the "worthless" (my opinion) Natural History tour, then you may want to rethink that choice.

 

 

Everywhere, else, has way too many choices to suggest, without some homework from you. Take a look at an excursion list and narrow down your interests- you need to determine your budget. My favorites are not all going to be yours.

[lithlith]

Denali - We canceled Natural History Tour, which was included in the price, and booked the Tundra Wilderness Tour for a little more money. It was well worth it and we were very glad we switched tours! The Natural History tour doesn't go very far and if you've gone all the way to Denali, then you might as well go as far as you can into Denali national park. Plus you'll likely have more wildlife sightings further into the park.

 

Juneau - We went whale watching with Harv and Marv. This was one of the best experiences of my life! The company was great and we had a spectacular solid 3 hours of whale watching.

 

Skagway - We took the Princess excursion that was a helicoptor ride to a glacier. The helicopter ride with all of the scenery was the highlight...walking around on the glacier wasn't anything special for us.

 

Ketchikan - We took the Princess excursion to Misty Fjords on a boat with 40 people or so. It was quite long way to get to the Misty Fjord in the first place and if you've seen fjords before, then it probably isn't worth your time. We wish now we would have either done some flight seeing of Misty Fjord or the Deadliest Catch fishing boat excursion instead.

[Mary Ellen1]

Here's what we did; some of this has already been mentioned:

 

• Mt. McKinley: took the Princess bus into Talkeetna & wandered around for the day & had lunch. Interesting museum. Beautiful view from the riverbank of the confluence of 3 rivers, with Mt. Denali in the background if you're lucky!
  
• Denali: upgraded from Natural History Tour to the Tundra Wilderness Tour -- saw tons of wildlife, although DH spotted more of it than our tour guide/bus driver did!!!
  
• Skagway: rented a car w/Avis & drove up to Emerald Lake.
  
• Juneau: Harv & Marv whale watching, with a stop at Mendenhall Glacier.
  
• Ketchikan: Deadliest Catch tour
  

 

I would do ALL of these again! Except for maybe Deadliest Catch -- it was kind of pricey, and I don't really feel compelled to repeat the experience.

 

I personally found the Princess excursion options at their lodges to be underwhelming & overpriced. But they have you as a captive audience -- there aren't very many choices. The McKinley Lodge had some nice ranger programs & presentations (free) that were interesting.

[realtorlady42]

Just upgraded our included Wilderness Denali tour to the Tundra tour based on so many people saying it was well worth the extra time, and the wilderness is a waste of time. We are booked for the 6;00 a.m. tour as we were told it creates best chance of seeing the most wild life, as they are feeding that time of the morning...well worth getting up extraearly if that is the case.

 

We are doing the Princess Off the beaten path 14 day cruise tour on the Saphire princess leaving June 2. It's our honeymoon and a bucket list trip.

 

Thanks to everyone for all your input on all the forums, I appreciate your taking the time so we newbies to Alaska can take best advantage of our time

 

Angela