Princess Cruise Tour Questions

[the cruise is on]

My husband and I will be taking a Princess Cruise/Tour on Diamond from May 20 - June 10, 2006. I know that many of you will advise me to plan the tour portion of this trip myself. To be honest, I just do not have the time. If we enjoy this cruise, I'm sure we will go again sometime, and I'll be sure to do the land portion myself.

 

Now to my question - the Princess catalog speaks to optional activities at the various lodges, but the catalog is not specific as to what activities will be available. Is there any way to find out, in advance, what our options will be? Our time at each location is limited, so it would be great to have made our decision before we get there.

 

In case it makes a difference, our itinerary will be -

Day 1 - Fairbanks

Day 2 - Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge

Day 3 - Natural History tour into Denali Natl Park - on to Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge

Day 4 - McKinley Express rail direct to Whittier - then on to the ship

 

If any of you have traveled a similar route or stayed in the lodges, I would appreciate any information you may have. Thanks - I always get great advise from my fellow CC travelers.

[Yukon]

I'll start by saying that the Natural History Tour is a complete waste of time - virtually all of the wildlife sightings happen past the point where you turn around. Upgrade to the Tundra Wildlife Tour or switch to the park shuttles if at all possible. See http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=199606 for more information about that.

 

Murray

[Budget Queen]

I completely agree with Murray and will stand by him for the flames. :) But anyone who has been there - the Natural History is worthless. If you fully understand the tour and shuttle buses into Denali Park and this is your choice, certainly - your priority. But I suspect you do not???

 

I would instead suggest you look for a tour that has 2 nights at the Denali Princess - if you want wildlife and scenery into Denali Park. The McKinley princess is 100 miles away- probably another factor you may not realize??? The nearest town is Talkeetna 50 miles away. There is not much of anything at that lodge, Talkeetna is superb for flightseeing.

 

Coming into Fairbanks I would also suggest you consider getting there a day or two early, rent a car and see the area. There usually is little time for anything other than the scheduled boat ride and gold dredge otherwise.

 

Frankly- it is also simple to go on your own. There is plenty of help on this board if needed.

[the cruise is on]

My goal in choosing this particular tour was to get close to Mt. McKinley. Will the McKinley Lodge do that, or do I need to rethink that part of our trip?

 

Budget Queen - I'm a city-girl - my husband is the wildlife, nature guy. My plan is to leave a few days early - spend 2 nights in Seattle (maybe take in a baseball game - that's another of his loves). Then fly on to Fairbanks. I plan to get to Fairbanks mid-day and have that evening and the next day to explore Fairbanks before we leave on the tour portion the next day.

 

If you have any leads on things we should see in Fairbanks, I am open to suggestions.

 

Thanks to both of you for your thoughts and suggestions.

[Budget Queen]

My goal in choosing this particular tour was to get close to Mt. McKinley. Will the McKinley Lodge do that, or do I need to rethink that part of our trip?

 

Budget Queen - I'm a city-girl - my husband is the wildlife, nature guy. My plan is to leave a few days early - spend 2 nights in Seattle (maybe take in a baseball game - that's another of his loves). Then fly on to Fairbanks. I plan to get to Fairbanks mid-day and have that evening and the next day to explore Fairbanks before we leave on the tour portion the next day.

 

If you have any leads on things we should see in Fairbanks, I am open to suggestions.

 

Thanks to both of you for your thoughts and suggestions.

 

 

With only one day there- no. It is rarely visable and you need to consider a flight if McKinley is a priority, and AGAIN you need to best allow more than one day. As mentioned if you stay at the McKinley Princess you have a 50 mile each way shuttle to Talkeetna where the flights leave from. There are several different flights to consider as well, with my preference the summit flights (not the summit view flights). I have taken them all including ski plane landings. :) I had 3 flights canceled my last trip a couple weeks ago, never did make it. Weather is a big factor here and having a few days to consider will most likely get you on a flight. It works out great independent with a scheduled flight on the way north to Denali Park, and time on the way back if needed to reschedule if necessary.

 

As for Fairbanks plenty to see and do- request their visitor guide http://www.explorefairbanks.com You may want to really factor out and look at this tour carefully, I doubt it is what you think. Especially with your husband's wildlife priority, this tour isn't going to cut it with the Natural History tour.

[Alaska First-timer]

Go to princesslodges.com and the excursions are listed for each Princess location. Hope this helps it did for me ! Enjoy your trip. I am surely looking forward to our next May on the Island Princess including the land tour.

[the cruise is on]

Alaska First- Timer - Thanks - I'll go there now!

[naplesam]

OK, they expect this, but I will say this anyway! To compare the TWT and the NHT is fair! The TWT is so much better than the NHT! Do the TWT if at all possible. BUT......if your other plans keep you from doing the longer TWT, then the NHT is WAY better than sitting in your hotel room! Better to see some of Alaska on this trip and dream of your next trip. The NHT is NOT a "waste of time" if you compare it to sitting in your room. Do it and enjoy! There is so much to see in Alaska so do not let one event color your entire trip! I know of people who told me they were "bored" on the TWT. I don't understand that as we were entralled the whole time! But each to their own!

 

Bottom line...........take the TWT if possible, but if not, take the NHT, make the best of it and enjoy the rest of your wonderful trip to Alaska!!! We totally enjoyed our trips----one with the TWT and one with the NHT!

[Yukon]

>>The NHT is NOT a "waste of time" if you compare it to sitting in your room.<<

 

It's not a waste of time compared to browsing tacky gift shops, either. But it is a waste of time compared to any number of other excursions that you can do in 4 hours - the NPS sled dogs, whitewater rafting, naturalist or solo hikes, and dozens of others.

 

Murray

[Budget Queen]

My point here is to disclose the differences which a GREAT many people booking these tours do not realize. Did you when you booked, and had the Natural History tour or did you find out later???

 

There is a wildlife preference for one of the visitors, I will still say, the Natural History will not cut it for that priority. Having the information before they lock into a tour offers them the opportunity to make the choice.

 

It's one thing to chose the Natural History tour because of the time, etc and a whole different ballgame when you don't know the differences.

 

I was in Talkeetna with a whole group of RCI cruisetour folks, that I had sailed with. I was just heading north after spending 2 days in Seward and a day in Anchorage. They already were done on their last day heading back to Anchorage. Big complaints about the weather :) and not seeing any wildlife and couldn't understand the "big deal about Denali Park". All were on the Natural History tour. Clearly did not know of other options or what they missed.

 

This board is for information exchange, some may be helpful in the trip planning and I'm a firm believer in doing your homework for a great tour for your priorities. :)

[Genessa]

when we took a cruise tour in 2003 some of the excursions offered were:

 

Denali Princess Lodge - horseback riding and rafting

 

Mt.McKinley Wilderness - horseback riding, jet boat tours, all-terrain vehicle driving, wagon ride, jet boat tour to a homestead (we did the last two, wagon ride was hokey, but loads of fun and included a touch of gold panning and making s'mores. The jet boat ride to the homestead was one of the highlights of our Alaskan trip)

Our friends tried to schedule flightseeing, but it was cancelled both days due to weather.

 

We were very fortunate in that we saw Denali several times. Princess says that Mt.McKinley W is their closest lodge to Denali, but it is as a crow flies - humans can't access it. The road into Denali is by Denali Princess Lodge.

 

There were no tours offered when we were in Fairbanks that I can remember. We arrived a day early and took the shuttle Princess offered to Alaskaland/Pioneerland but after being frustrated with their schedule we took van rides to the rest of our destinations with Airlink Shuttle. Every place we stopped at in Fairbanks there were access to phones that you could call them and there were brochures with their number - we had originally heard about them from someone working at Alaskaland.

Aside from Alaskaland and downtown Fairbanks, on our own we visited the University of Fairbanks - definitely worth a visit - it is a natural history museum that gives you a great overview of the different climates and different peoples that lived in those climates.

 

There are three scheduled stops (included in your tour usually) in Fairbanks - the riverboat, gold mine, and pipeline.

 

It was, without a doubt, the trip of a lifetime!

Enjoy!

[the cruise is on]

Thanks for the information. A previous poster advised me that the tours are listed for the various lodges, and I was successful in finding those. Do I understand from your post that you would skip the Princess Wilderness Lodge?

[Genessa]

We loved the Princess Mt.McKinley Wilderness Lodge, but knew ahead of time that it would give us views (if the days were clear) of Denali, but wouldn't give us access to the park road. We knew that it was 45 minutes or so from the town of Talkeetna and that we'd have to take a lodge shuttle to go back and forth.

 

What we were looking for was something in a remote setting (it is), pretty (it is), and a place where we could relax, wind down (it is) and maybe take some optional excursions if we felt like it (we did). The only "bad" thing as far as any of us were concerned was that the couple that wanted to go flightseeing, couldn't. However, even if we had been travelling on our own, staying in Talkeetna, we would have gotten to Talkeetna on the same days and still that couple wouldn't have been able to go flightseeing.

 

We actually spent two nights (one afternoon, one full day, one morning) at Mt.McKWL and if we were going back to interior Alaska, we'd book again at this lodge, even if we were going independently.

While we used to camp, first in tents, then in pop-ups, now our idea of roughing it is a 3 star hotel.

 

So, I wasn't trying to warn you away from this lodge, but didn't know if you realized that it's closeness to the Denali National Park and Denali State Park didn't get you anywhere near INTO the National Park.

[Joy2Day]

I was on a slightly longer cruise tour this June. My review is buried back several pages. I'll try posting this link http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=199141

 

It describes some of the activities and our experiences at each lodge.

[Lsimon]

If you look around the internet there are a couple Alaskan companies that do full pre/post cruise tours where you can select from a packaged tour and/or customize it. The Alaska Railroad itself has packages and we took one of these which we mixed features of two their different tours. They were very accomodating. Through this we were able to stay three days in Denali including one at Kantishna at the end of the park road. We had stunning views of McKinley (lucky with weather two of the days) and saw lots of wild life. It was well worth the small additional effort to book this way. It was surprising comparing notes with other cruisers, how little some saw on their pre-cruise.

 

 

If you're really interested in McKinley, do try to work in a small plane tour of it. It was cloudy the day we went (from Kantishna Air Taxi) and view of mountain was obscured, but the plane knew how to fly around the clouds and we had fantastic views of McKinley and the range when we got close and above the clouds.

 

There are some of our pictures on our web site below.

[the cruise is on]

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my inquiry. I know that before May 2006 I will think of many questions, and I will rely on you for good advice.

 

Today, after quite a bit of research on the Princess website, I made the decision to change my cruise tour. In doing so, we will not get to Fairbanks, but we will get to Anchorage, have 1 nite at the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, and 2 nights at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. In addition, the change will allow us to have the Tundra Wilderness tour versus the Natural History Tour.

 

I wish we had more time to spend in Alaska, but two weeks is about all of the time we can spend on this trip. Our first grandchild will be born in January of 2006, and I need to save some vacation time for trips to Dallas. Also, we plan to fly to Seattle at the beginning of our trip to spend a day or two there.

 

Again thanks for all of the good advice. I've listened, read reviews, and looked at pictures. Now all I have to do is wait and wait and wait!

[Lp56]

If we decide to fly to Fairbanks early and stay at the princess lodge there, how do you get there from the Fairbanks airport? What does it cost for a cab to get there? If we fly early on our own we will probably have to provide our own transportation there. I pulled up the lodge price and it was $89 a night. If we book it with Princess, they will probably charge us $89 per person.

Linda

[scmomofboys]

We flew in a day early also, and booked our room directly with the hotel. When we got to the airport, we phoned the lodge and they sent a van to pick us up. As I recall, there was no charge, we just tipped the driver. We arrived at 4pm Alaska time and I think we waited maybe 15 minutes for the van. It was no hassle. If I recall correctly, it was fairly close to the airport.

[Budget Queen]

If you do decide to fly in early to Fairbanks, I still highly recommend you get a car. The Princess lodge is near the airport, but princess also uses several other properties. Cabs are a costly option getting around Fairbanks, the hotels run shuttles but again not an efficient way to tour. A car rental is a must in my opinion. Request their visitor guide and determine what you want to do and go from there. http://www.explorefairbanks.com

 

Last year at the Large Animal Research tour, 2 couples who had come in a day early on a cruisetour were blasting a cab driver claiming they were "ripped off" by him. Cab fare from the Bear Lodge was about $20?? They were so irate they kept it up during the tour. :) As the tour ended, they asked me if there was "public" transportation? I said yes but from the campus- asked me how to get there and how far. I told them there was a trail back about a 1/2 mile or so then they would have to ask bus drivers or get a schedule for the right bus. Last I saw them- 2 women in dress shoes, men carrying shopping bags, heading for the path. :)