Holland America,18 day Yukon/Triple Denali?

[Harrylinden]

Thinking about doing this land/cruise tour.Has anyone done it and if so,how was it? 

[PRPLE]

It was AMAZING!  our first land plus cruise... after lots of reading we did land first and glad we did it that way... we also did the last cruise of the season on purpose as my husband wanted a chance to see the Northern Lights... we were able yo see them in Dawson as well as Fairbanks.  HAL did a amazing job with all us.. we had two bus loads each with their our land tour guide who traveled with us.  They really looked out for us as we went.  We did a combination of Hal excursions and some we booked our own after lots of reading... and some we just winged it... in general you want to book things beforehand as excursions did sell out.  
 

Weather was getting cold and we had some rain... so you gotta pack in layers.  We did do laundry in Denali. Plus once we got on the ship we sent things out as we had free laundry with our cabin... 

 

on food we did not prebuy for the land... mainly as we didn’t want to be locked into the hotels although we did ate at some of the places.. yes food is expensive but we did better paying as we went.  I did use some of my luggage space to pack with my husbands favorite chocolate bars and other snack stuff as we are munchers. Our bus had water for us and occasional a snack item... a couple of meals are included in the land portion and they are listed on your documentation. As we decided to splurge we booked a aft Neptune suite which was fabulous!

 

i would so do this trip again!!!!!!  

[Alphen]

On 8/23/2020 at 11:01 PM, PRPLE said:

It was AMAZING!  our first land plus cruise... after lots of reading we did land first and glad we did it that way... we also did the last cruise of the season on purpose as my husband wanted a chance to see the Northern Lights... we were able yo see them in Dawson as well as Fairbanks.  HAL did a amazing job with all us.. we had two bus loads each with their our land tour guide who traveled with us.  They really looked out for us as we went.  We did a combination of Hal excursions and some we booked our own after lots of reading... and some we just winged it... in general you want to book things beforehand as excursions did sell out.  
 

Weather was getting cold and we had some rain... so you gotta pack in layers.  We did do laundry in Denali. Plus once we got on the ship we sent things out as we had free laundry with our cabin... 

 

on food we did not prebuy for the land... mainly as we didn’t want to be locked into the hotels although we did ate at some of the places.. yes food is expensive but we did better paying as we went.  I did use some of my luggage space to pack with my husbands favorite chocolate bars and other snack stuff as we are munchers. Our bus had water for us and occasional a snack item... a couple of meals are included in the land portion and they are listed on your documentation. As we decided to splurge we booked a aft Neptune suite which was fabulous!

 

i would so do this trip again!!!!!!  

We are also looking at this one; would you care to share if it was easy to find dining options around the HAL hotels along your land tour?

[rsldonk]

The nice thing with 3 nights in Denali is you have a really good chance of getting a clear enough day to see the mountain, plus enough time to take the shuttle all the way out to Eielson visitor center. 

[oaktreerb]

On 5/22/2021 at 12:48 AM, Alphen said:

We are also looking at this one; would you care to share if it was easy to find dining options around the HAL hotels along your land tour?

We have done the Yukon itineraries several times.  There are plenty of great dining options near the hotels at every location.  Whitehorse has a great place right across the street from the Westmark called Klondike Rib and Salmon.  Dawson City has several options since the whole town is walkable.  Fairbanks is a bigger city but has eateries within walking distance like Lavelle’s Bistro at the Marriott.  Denali has both the Princess and the McKinley Chalets which both have excellent food and there is Glitter Gulch across the highway.  The food on the train and at the hotels is excellent.  You may find it’s easier to grab the buffets for breakfast, especially in Fairbanks.  If you eat a lot, like desserts, and don’t want to be out and about you might enjoy the meal package.  Otherwise, explore your local options for dining at each stop.

[Alphen]

5 hours ago, oaktreerb said:

We have done the Yukon itineraries several times.  There are plenty of great dining options near the hotels at every location.  Whitehorse has a great place right across the street from the Westmark called Klondike Rib and Salmon.  Dawson City has several options since the whole town is walkable.  Fairbanks is a bigger city but has eateries within walking distance like Lavelle’s Bistro at the Marriott.  Denali has both the Princess and the McKinley Chalets which both have excellent food and there is Glitter Gulch across the highway.  The food on the train and at the hotels is excellent.  You may find it’s easier to grab the buffets for breakfast, especially in Fairbanks.  If you eat a lot, like desserts, and don’t want to be out and about you might enjoy the meal package.  Otherwise, explore your local options for dining at each stop.

Many thanks for these insights, indeed, did some research on google regarding venues around hotels. Just hoping they will still be in business next year after life hopefully returns to normal 😉

[rsldonk]

They put us in the Grande Denali Lodge.  The on site restaurant was good for the food, but pretty horrible for the service.  They only allowed seating in like half the restaurant, blaming a lack of menus (way before covid in 2018).  We waited like 45 minutes to be seated, despite half the tables being empty.  The food was slow coming out, but when it finally did, it was excellent.  The room was nice, but I was less than impressed with the restaurant.  We did not have dining included, but we were tired and didn't want to get on the shuttle to go somewhere else.

[oaktreerb]

2 minutes ago, rsldonk said:

They put us in the Grande Denali Lodge.  The on site restaurant was good for the food, but pretty horrible for the service.  They only allowed seating in like half the restaurant, blaming a lack of menus (way before covid in 2018).  We waited like 45 minutes to be seated, despite half the tables being empty.  The food was slow coming out, but when it finally did, it was excellent.  The room was nice, but I was less than impressed with the restaurant.  We did not have dining included, but we were tired and didn't want to get on the shuttle to go somewhere else.

I understand the views are great from the Grand Denali Lodge but I like being where the action is!   Holland America now owns the McKinley Chalets Resort and have added more cabins and suites since they bought it.  They also partner with Princess which has a nearby hotel property.  I’m reasonably sure that the longer Yukon tour groups will be in the Chalets.   The HAL property is huge and they have continually running shuttle busses throughout the property.  They also provide direct bus access from the Chalets to the park visitor’s center and the included Tundra Wilderness Tour.

[rkacruiser]

20 hours ago, oaktreerb said:

 Holland America now owns the McKinley Chalets Resort and have added more cabins and suites since they bought it.  They also partner with Princess which has a nearby hotel property.

 

No experience with the Princess resort at Denali, but, as an independent traveler in 2019, my Nephew and I did dine at the HAL resort.  The food, the service, and the pricing for a hotel restaurant were all very acceptable.  We enjoyed our experience.  

[SightCRR]

With the Canada border still closed I would not be surprised to see Canada part of tour package changed in many ways.  

[oaktreerb]

21 minutes ago, SightCRR said:

With the Canada border still closed I would not be surprised to see Canada part of tour package changed in many ways.  

Yukon cruise tours will not resume until 2022. Hopefully Canada will be ready to welcome visitors by then.

In fact, HAL cancelled all Alaska cruise tours for 2021.  In 2021 you can still fly to Alaska and take a Gray Line Tour in which you can enjoy travel on the Alaska railroad, stay in HAL and Princess lodges, and enjoy added excursions ..... which is the land equivalent of the cruise tours.

Edited May 26, 2021 by oaktreerb

[Alphen]

On 5/24/2021 at 2:17 AM, oaktreerb said:

We have done the Yukon itineraries several times.  There are plenty of great dining options near the hotels at every location.  Whitehorse has a great place right across the street from the Westmark called Klondike Rib and Salmon.  Dawson City has several options since the whole town is walkable.  Fairbanks is a bigger city but has eateries within walking distance like Lavelle’s Bistro at the Marriott.  Denali has both the Princess and the McKinley Chalets which both have excellent food and there is Glitter Gulch across the highway.  The food on the train and at the hotels is excellent.  You may find it’s easier to grab the buffets for breakfast, especially in Fairbanks.  If you eat a lot, like desserts, and don’t want to be out and about you might enjoy the meal package.  Otherwise, explore your local options for dining at each stop.

Deleted.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Alphen

[Alphen]

For anybody who has done the 18 day Yukon/Triple Denali Y1; we have a "Klondike Spirit Cruise" on our second day in Dawson, but this is not in our itinerary, in the Alaska brochure, it is mentioned as an "upgrade". Anybody know how this works?

 

[oaktreerb]

We had the Klondike Spirit as part of our itinerary in Dawson City.  We boarded the paddle wheeler and enjoyed a narrated cruise down the Yukon River just past Moosehide (a native village) and then back past Dawson City to the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike rivers.  We were cruising slowly along and everybody got kind of quiet as we tried to figure out what was in the river ahead of us.  It was a moose swimming from one side of the river to the other….a first for our guide!

 

HAL makes changes to its Yukon tours from year to year.  It looks like they may have added the Taste of the Yukon in Whitehorse and made the Klondike Spirit an upgrade(?).  I don’t see it in excursions and I have no experience with these upgrade items.  Maybe somebody at HAL can explain the process.  I wonder if this is something you have to add to your booking in advance.  

 

You already have included the Riverboat Discovery in Fairbanks.  Whitehorse needed to add an experience  since their riverboat attraction closed a few years ago.  Whitehorse is the weak link in the itinerary because the time there is so short.  

 

Dawson City is my favorite place on this itinerary.  Parks Canada has some wonderful tours and programs.

 

 

[Alphen]

6 hours ago, oaktreerb said:

We had the Klondike Spirit as part of our itinerary in Dawson City.  We boarded the paddle wheeler and enjoyed a narrated cruise down the Yukon River just past Moosehide (a native village) and then back past Dawson City to the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike rivers.  We were cruising slowly along and everybody got kind of quiet as we tried to figure out what was in the river ahead of us.  It was a moose swimming from one side of the river to the other….a first for our guide!

 

HAL makes changes to its Yukon tours from year to year.  It looks like they may have added the Taste of the Yukon in Whitehorse and made the Klondike Spirit an upgrade(?).  I don’t see it in excursions and I have no experience with these upgrade items.  Maybe somebody at HAL can explain the process.  I wonder if this is something you have to add to your booking in advance.  

 

You already have included the Riverboat Discovery in Fairbanks.  Whitehorse needed to add an experience  since their riverboat attraction closed a few years ago.  Whitehorse is the weak link in the itinerary because the time there is so short.  

 

Dawson City is my favorite place on this itinerary.  Parks Canada has some wonderful tours and programs.

 

 

Tnx for the info, also put down the question to HAL, the office in Rotterdam did not know the answer, they have forwarded it to Seattle, hope they can inform us about the upgrade.

[PRPLE]

On 5/22/2021 at 3:48 AM, Alphen said:

We are also looking at this one; would you care to share if it was easy to find dining options around the HAL hotels along your land tour?

We had no problems… I researched using Yelp and sources like here to find what was available…  of course it’s now post pandemic so double check what’s open now and if reservations needed (thinking Denali as I remembered doing some ahead of time) … also with the travel between points thought ahead so we carried refillable water bottles (Holland had water for us on the bus) and I packed snickers (hubbies fav) and periodically bought things for snacking so we would have if needed. It was a amazing trip!!!

[Alphen]

10 hours ago, PRPLE said:

We had no problems… I researched using Yelp and sources like here to find what was available…  of course it’s now post pandemic so double check what’s open now and if reservations needed (thinking Denali as I remembered doing some ahead of time) … also with the travel between points thought ahead so we carried refillable water bottles (Holland had water for us on the bus) and I packed snickers (hubbies fav) and periodically bought things for snacking so we would have if needed. It was a amazing trip!!!

Thanks for the tip, we are indeed hoping that the food options we find on internet, will still be there after the pandemic smoke is lifting, time will tell.