Purchasing meal plan for land tour in Alaska

[jan15]

We are doing a 5 day land tour prior to boarding the ship. Trying to decide if it is worth purchasing the meal plan. It is $374.00 per person for 5 breakfast, 1 lunch and 4 dinners. I am reading mixed reviews. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Thrak]

I suggest reading through THIS THREAD for info. It's a review from 2012 of a Princess Connoisseur Cruisetour. The reason I think it might be helpful to you is that it has photos of menus with pricing as well as info on the various dining venues available at the lodges. The review is from 2012 but I highly doubt that prices have gone down. :rolleyes:

 

Of course it also has a lot of other info I found interesting and valuable as well.

[floridalover5623]

While at first glance the price might see a little much but seeing that Alaska prices are on the high side it might not be a bad deal. I would get some reviews about the package & if many people were satisfied I would go with it.

[diane.in.ny]

Having done a tour with meals included last May, I can say it depends on what you like to eat.

 

If you are happy with toast and coffee for breakfast, a hamburger for lunch, and a salad for dinner, I'd say it isn't worth it.

 

However, if you want the breakfast buffet and crab legs or steak for dinner, it could be worth it.

 

The thread linked in this post brought back great memories and is very accurate about what we also did and saw. But I remember the breakfast buffets now being closer to $17-$20. So expect the menu prices shown to be higher also.

[Kamloops50]

Prices in Alaska and Yukon Territory tend to be about 20-30% higher than the prices in Florida .

[Potstech]

Where did you get information on the meal plans. We have been looking for specific info for awhile and could not find any. Can you provide a link to the information, Please.

[georgiacat]

We did a land tour after our cruise to Alaska in 2012 and decided not to have the meal plan. We ate in the Princess related restaurants some nights, but we also found great food and cheaper prices in other restaurants. We particularly liked what we found in Talkeetna and across the road from the Denali Princess lodge. If (and when) I go back, I do not plan to purchase the meal plan.

[Chitownsailor]

Where did you get information on the meal plans. We have been looking for specific info for awhile and could not find any. Can you provide a link to the information, Please.[/QUOT

 

I have been looking for this info as well, it shows in the 2016 Alaska book that they are now offering a meal plan for the land tour as an add on, cannot find it anywhere. I did call Princess and the rep said it would be in your cruise personalizer but I have not seen it. I even referenced the page they mentioned it on in the book to the rep since she did not seem to know what it was either since it is new for 2016.

[reedprincess]

We did a land tour after our cruise to Alaska in 2012 and decided not to have the meal plan. We ate in the Princess related restaurants some nights, but we also found great food and cheaper prices in other restaurants. We particularly liked what we found in Talkeetna and across the road from the Denali Princess lodge. If (and when) I go back, I do not plan to purchase the meal plan.

Same for us. We did a land tour this past summer and are very happy we didn't have meals included or a meal plan. We vastly enjoyed our off property meals and variety, and they were inexpensive in many cases, or on par with the Princess lodges. And we had a lot more variety.

You can view the Princess lodge menus and pricing at the Princess lodge website, http://www.princesslodges.com/?no_redirect=true. You can see what's on offer, how much stays the dame between the lodges -with some differences, of course - and costs.. We particularly enjoyed Talkeetna and Denali for dining options, Denali is a short easy walk across the street, while Talkeetna needs the shuttle. Worked great for the 4 of us to not have a meal plan.

[go fish 44]

We found that it was too much food.

 

A large dinner about 7pm remember you are on tour most days.

 

Then breakfast before 8am, as one again you are on tour.

 

We ended up giving half our meals to friends.

[annie99]

I agree. Buy your meals as you go. There is a wonderful pizza pub style place across from the Princess lodge with much lower prices and good food. You can have more variety this way and save some money if you don't want the full breakfast buffet.It is easier to buy the package, but more fun to try different places on the property - and cheaper.

[sunsetbeachgal]

Don't know which lodges your land tour is visiting, but there are other offsite options within a short walk of Denali Princess and Fairbanks lodge, and we enjoyed dinners offsite from both of these. There is nothing near the McKinley Princess Lodge, however that lodge has several restaurants. While food definitely is pricey, for us we would never eat that much for to make that worthwhile.

Edited December 19, 2015 by sunsetbeachgal

[margob111]

We went with the food included because I figured we would be on tours and would probably not want the hassle of looking or deciding where to eat. We were happy with our choice.

[rockdoctor]

We have 3 Princess Off the Beaten Path land tour behind us and have never heard of a Princess meal plan. It would have been useful for those tours. McKinley and Copper River Lodges have no alternate restaurants. The is interesting to me because we have 3 HAL land tours and always use their meal plan. HAL's plan doesn't cover Danali. Oddly enough, the best single meal I've ever had in AK was at the Westmark in Fairbanks.

[Potstech]

Page32 or so in the 2015-16 Cruise atlas

[hllwdcruiser]

Another vote for not being on the meal plan - we also did the land tour prior to the cruise. We met a lot of people on the connoisseur tour and although they had the ease of not making too many decisions as to where they ate we had many more options available to us and ended up spending far less.

I will say that we did not eat at any of the highest end restaurants at the lodges. The prices were exorbitant and we felt our money could be better spent elsewhere in Alaska (flight tours, whale watching etc). The high end restaurants were included in the connoisseur tour - but trust me, unless you are getting a last minute deal, you are paying for it in your fare.