What to wear in Alaska/California in mid September

[Ocean Dancer]

We are doing our first cruise to Alaska next Sept, 2017. We leave from Vancouver, do Alaska for 7 days and have tacked on the Pacific Coast making it a B2B ending up in LA.

 

How cold will it be? Yes, we have the hooded light weight rain jacket that we can wear over a hoodie for tours.

 

How does one dress on the ship? I have a closet full of sun dresses and DH has many Caribbean style shirts for dinner. Do I put a sweater over my dresses?

 

What about dressing in California in September?

 

We are East Coasters in Delaware, and in Sept, we are usually still wearing shorts, sundresses, sandals and white! ;)

 

Thank you for your help, be back tomorrow.......good night everyone. :)

[NorthernLite]

Google each stop on your itinerary as those dates hit this year to get a temperature range. The rain jacket and Hoodies or half zips are fine on top. You'll want a pair of water resistant pants because it rains a lot from Monterey, CA north in the summer/fall. Only pay for water repellent Gortex if you are planning kyjak trips or other major adventures. Jeans and knee hi's will be good for bottoms for chilly areas. Do bring a pair or two of shorts because the sun can come out and heat up and Ts. Check out your line's dress code for evening wear. Alaska tends to ease the evening dress code a bit for most people.

 

For the California coast, sure, bring sundresses and a cardigan. They will not look at you weird for wearing white in LA. Your husband can also wear his Hawaiian shirts and khakis south of about Seattle but it rains even more there. So look outside before putting on silk. Take sunscreen and bug repellent. Mosquitos can fly through a typhon! Hats!

Edited July 29, 2016 by NorthernLite

[Ocean Dancer]

Thank you so much Sue. We need to start looking for water repellent pants!

 

Any one else?

[jhsocal]

September is usually a hot, dry month in Los Angeles area and you will definitely see people wearing white. Sundress will be fine. However, S.F. is a different story, often cloudy and cool. Even in L.A. it will be cooler near the coast. Others will have to tell about Alaska.

[cruise kitty]

September in L.A. is often our hottest month, expect dry, dry conditions & temps in high 80's on the West side, evenings should cool off rather drastically, unless you go further inland, which you probably won't.

 

My parents did an Alaska cruise on the Solstice about two years ago, it was around the first week of September, they had warm weather where people were wearing shorts during the day. :eek:

 

I understand the week prior & after had rain, rain rain & was cold, so plan for all possiblilities in Alaska.

 

San Francisco will be cool to cold in the evenings, you know the old joke about "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" :D

 

I'm not sure where else you stop, but if it's Monterey or Santa Barbara, you'll experience cool evenings there too.

 

Enjoy!

[SadieN]

On your southbound it might not be warm-ish until past south of San Francisco. Far Northern CA (north of SF) has the PNW climate. Land temps will hit the upper '60s, cooler at sea.

 

 

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Edited July 30, 2016 by SadieN

[NorthernLite]

Kitty we had a very dry and warm cruise in 2011 too. We went on a 14 day round trip out of Seattle where it rained on both sides. But on the cruise we only had a few sprinkles in Kodiak and a fine mist in Homer. We saw it hit 80°F in Juneau and the same in Sitka. I did pull out the fleece lined windbreaker and jeans for the glaciers though. Very sunny but those things generate cold! I think the most important layers are the rain jacket and pants as the next cruise it poured almost every day.

 

We are packing much warmer as we are going above Canada this time. But even for this I am adding thin silk layers of long John's that double as a T or turtleneck that I can wear alone if I wanted. The spouse also bought 2 wicking but warm and lightweight first layers for up top. We both decided to go with Army uniform long underwear pants that we could get at our PX. North of Nome we might need them. But we each have one comfortable warm weather outfit as it will be mid-September as we come down to New York and every time we have been at Bar Harbor if has been hot.

 

I am still trying to decide if I want to bring heat shirts for sleeping or my comfy thick cotton jerseys.

Edited July 30, 2016 by NorthernLite

[Lois R]

Great itinerary:)... the west coast climate and temps are a lot

different from the east coast.

 

Mark Twain once said "The coldest winter I ever I spent was the

summer in San Francisco". The city by the bay seems to always

be chilly. I have been there in May before and had to layer.....I

would suggest checking the weather about a week before you leave

to get a better idea of temps.

 

I see the sundress recommendation in the previous post........I was

going to say (and this is just my opinion) but sundresses would not be

on my list for this one.

 

I do hope you have a great trip though:)

[conwakr]

We went in late September, last cruise of the season, and it was quite warm in Vancouver...mid-seventies.The rest of the northern part of the cruise was pleasant and probably sixties. It was colder in the glaciers, the first snow on the glacier tops that day and i was glad i had a cotton hat and gloves and a down sweater for that portion of the trip. I did not bring jeans, but did wear lightweight pants and we did encounter rain in Juneau and I was glad I had brought a lightweight packable rain jacket. The "layering concept" is spot on for these types of cruises where you can go from the seventies where tshirts and shorts are perfect to the forties and fifties in temperature in no time flat.

 

I brought shorts, short sleeve t-shirts, long sleeve cotton tees, lightweight quick-drying pants, dresses for dinner, a fleece vest, a Patagonia down sweater, a packable rain jacket, a cotton knit hat and gloves. I used everything in various combinations. I had a pair of Sketchers Go-Walks for the boat, a pair of lightweight trail shoes for land and a pair of silver sandals to wear with my dresses for dinner. The dining room was of a temperature that I was fine with short sleeve dresses (not sundresses) and a Pashmina for walking outside after dinner. My husband had the guy version of what I had and for dinners wore a blue blazer, pants, shirt and tie. We were on Princess.

Edited July 30, 2016 by conwakr