Alaska cruise tour #6 Holland America-Help

[ranles]

Sorry, tried search, but could not get a response.

 

Wife and I are going to fly to ANC, take a land package with Holland America followed by a 4 day cruise Skagway to Vancouver, staying 6 nights in Canada (not part to the package). We have a few Quesions:

 

On such a short cruise, should be expect formal night (s)?

 

Has previous cruisers with HAL, will that have a Mariner "special event" with placks, etc to recognize us, as they do with longer cruises?

 

We have not booked the cruise tour trips yet. Does it make since to get a verandah? We have in the past.

 

There is an optional meal program for food while on the tour portion of the trip (10 days). Any one have experience in the convenience or value involved? ($429pp, 8B, 1L, 5D). Some on train, paddlewheel, etc.

 

Any other suggestion, comments, ???

 

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

[furlong]

On the short cruise, I believe it is on the Statedum as I just return from that cruise and we picked up passengers and deposited passengers at Skagway. Yes, there is one formal night on the cruise from Skagway to Vancouver.

 

I cannot help you with the other questions since I was on the cruise, not the cruise tour.

[PennyAgain]

Several people have posted over this summer that they regretted not buying the food packages/plans for the tours. They ended up spending more money that the package/plan and not saving money as they had assumed.

 

Alaska is expensive!

 

Alaska is very expensive!

[agabbymama]

ranles,

 

I did cruisetour # 1, in the opposite direction that yours is going in.

 

We did have a formal night on our 3 day cruise from Vancouver to Skagway.

 

No recognition for the 3-4 day cruises. They didn't even consider the 3 days as cruise time. It's classified a cruisetour and it doesn't count towards days cruised. After returning home, and coming on this board, another poster said she thought it should, so I wrote HAL and they did send me a tile, but it is just plain white with HAL logo, nothing special.

 

Yes, to me it makes perfect sense to get a balcony. I won't cruise any other way. It's cool out there, but we spent a lot of time on our balcony.

 

And definitely buy the meal plan. Each night when we arrived at the hotel, it was between 5:30 and 6:30. By the time we would walk around to find a restaurant, to find them all full because everyone else is trying to get there to eat too, 7:30 was normal eating time. We finally just started staying at the hotel restaurant to eat, and they always ask for the voucher. You won't be able to eat any cheaper, unless you go to the grocery store and buy sandwich makings (which we did a couple of days). I think HAL meal plan at $300 pp equaled out to $25 pp, and we ended up spending $30 pp for many meals. I think there were 3 lunches included on the cruisetour itself. In Fairbanks we went to the Goldredge and had a Miner's lunch of biscuits & stew (excellent), a stop along the Yukon River with a buffet of sandwiches and salads, and a sandwich on the Yukon River Queen. The rest of the meals were on our own. We did splurge and do the Ester Gold Camp dinner with a show for around $50 pp, but it was all the crab legs you could eat. Breakfasts were usually $15-20 pp, lunch $15-20 and dinner $25-40.

 

You will have a great trip! Enjoy.

[aggie_gal]

I asked this on the HAL website too. My parents are doing cruisetour #7 next summer. It include 3 nights on the ship (Zuiderdam) and 6 nights on the tour. Is there a meal plan available for this tour? How exactly does it work?:confused:

[agabbymama]

I asked this on the HAL website too. My parents are doing cruisetour #7 next summer. It include 3 nights on the ship (Zuiderdam) and 6 nights on the tour. Is there a meal plan available for this tour? How exactly does it work?:confused:

 

If you go to HAL 2009 brochure, page 53, it says meal plan is $279 for this cruisetour. They would have to call their TA to get it added. They would receive meal vouchers with their documents, and once at the HAL hotel restaurants, they would present those vouchers for their meals. I would definitely do so.

[aggie_gal]

Thanks! I don't have a copy of a brochure and I think my mom's is for 2008. They didn't book through a TA, so I'll just have her get it figured out. :rolleyes:

[agabbymama]

Thanks! I don't have a copy of a brochure and I think my mom's is for 2008. They didn't book through a TA, so I'll just have her get it figured out. :rolleyes:

 

The brochure is on the HAL website, but if she booked through HAL, it should be really easy to give them a call and add the meal plan.

[St. Louis Sal]

I have to disagree with the suggestion that the meal plan is best. The first time we did the land tour the meal plan wasn't offered and we managed just fine. The second time we did a two week land tour we skipped the meal plan because it was all eating in the Westmark (HAL) hotels. We always find something around, we've never starved yet.

 

Not sure which places you're hitting but the bar at the Westmark in Skagway was good. And I hear there are several other good choices as well. In Whitehorse there is a great little walk in pizza place that has calzones to die for. They were recommended by the HAL tour personnel in the office in Whitehorse. I'll try and find the name and post it. If you do Dawson City don't miss Klondike Kates plus there's a cute fish restaurant on 1st Ave. The meals are reasonable and they have all you can eat french fries. :) In Tok hike down to Fast Eddies. It's a bit of a walk but tons better than the Westmark dining room which has Mexican food (and not very good Mexican either.) Fairbanks has lots of choices. And I believe the hotel shuttle will take you to local groceries if you ask. The meals on the train are just so-so, the fun part there is just the atmosphere of a dining car. But the booths are small and cramped. We stuck to just doing breakfast and for instance grabbed sandwiches at the Subway across from McKinley Chalets to take with us for lunch when we left for Anchorage. We were the envy of lots of other passengers on the train. A suggestion for eating at McKinley Chalet is to order a sandwich at the Nenana Grill (the hamburger was huge, no way one person could eat it) and order an extra side dish.

 

If you really would rather get the meal plan you might try what the TA of one of our fellow travelers suggested. They bought just one meal plan (the portions at most restaurants are pretty big) and then just ordered a salad or soup extra. As you can tell we are not into spending a lot of money on food. We saved more than half of the cost of two meal plans. If you do decide to do the meal plan certainly many of our fellow travelers seemed to enjoy the convenience.

 

Have a great time planning your trip,

St. Louis Sal