This is just a short generalised write up on our trip to Alaska back in 2012. We booked a cruise and added on our own short “DIY” land tour. This is really just to give you an idea of how easy it is to add on your own extension to an Alaskan cruise, which in our opinion, was very worthwhile. The cruise part of it takes care of itself with a multitude of excursions & activities on offer to suit everyone’s interests.
You can get pretty lucky with the actual cruise deals if you are fairly flexible on when you go, and you shop around. The likes of Travelzoo often have good deals.
However when we booked, Silversea, who are a high-end all-inclusive cruise line, were already offering a great direct deal, with free flights from the UK and spending money (the latter if I remember right was $500, which went quite a way towards paying for excursions).
Add to that a little bit of negotiating by taking the Silversea deal to a couple of travel agents to see if they could better it (they did, saving us a few hundred pounds more). We went to a couple of travel agents and ultimately chose the one who offered us the best deal.
Although Silversea are a high-end cruise company, we always compare what they offer against the other cruise lines, as its not unusual to actually get better value for money with them once you consider everything that is automatically included (beautiful spacious cabins, marble bathrooms (with tub!), your own butler, room service 24/7, soft & alcoholic drinks including champagne, all tips…) And on top of that their cruise ships tend to be smaller (100 – 600 people) so everything is more intimate, getting ashore is quicker, and by the end of your cruise you have usually got to know a lot of the staff & passengers.
To change the inclusive flights to suit us, we paid only £50, then we were good to sort out our own 5 night pre-cruise land trip. We chose only 5 nights as we wanted to fit the holiday into 2 weeks annual leave, so with 2 overnight flights and 7 nights cruising, this worked well. On the down side, it did however, limit how much we could do.
I am not going to say much about costs as this trip was in 2012 and I’m sure things are probably more expensive now, so it won’t be of much help.
The Land Trip:
We booked a B&B outside of Anchorage for the first night, then 2 nights in a lovely lodge near Denali National Park, 1 night in a beautiful lodge in Talkeenta, and a final night in Anchorage city centre at the Captain Cook hotel. Happy to recommend all of them, especially the Denali one (for the location & the view from the balcony).
Denali National Park is an amazing place! We were very lucky to see the highest mountain, Mount McKinley, without cloud (which is apparently very unusual). This is the highest mountain in North America at over 20,000 feet high!
There is only one road in Denali and it is 92 miles long. Private vehicles can drive a small part of it, but most of the road is open only to bus traffic.
There are two bus options in Denali – tour buses and transit buses. We chose to use the transit bus as you may disembark and then re-board anywhere along the road, so it provides more flexibility. They also stop for wildlife viewing if any wildlife is spotted along the way (we saw plenty grizzly bears, including a mum & cubs) & the bus also makes stops for photo opportunities. This is a great government website to find out all you need to plan your visit to Denali.
Another thing you can visit in Denali, which is of interest to a lot of visitors, is the bus that Chris McCandless lived in. If you have read the book or seen the movie about him, it is called “Into the Wild”.
With only having 2 nights in Denali we were limited in what we could do. As well as a day visiting the park, before moving on to Talkeenta, we walked part of the Triple Lakes Trail which was excellent. We saw a huge moose in the shallows of one of the lakes, and a hiker wearing only boots and a G-string! (Go figure….!) I must admit we were a little bit scared we might run into a grizzly bear during our hike, but I’m glad to say we didn’t!
Our next stop, Talkeenta, was a really pretty little historic town and we enjoyed just a few hours absorbing the atmosphere. With only having one night, we didn’t have time to do much else.
Finally a night in Anchorage, which only consisted of a stroll round, a few drinks and dinner!
The Cruise:
I won’t say much about the cruise as it was a “packaged” holiday. Our cruise was for 7 nights and started with a scenic train journey from Anchorage to Seward. It was on one of these panoramic trains with beautiful scenery to see along the way.
Our first main point of interest after Seward was the Hubbard Glacier. Being in a small ship meant we got very close, which was great as we could both see and hear the glacier calving as sheets of ice fell off into the sea!
The rest of the route went as follows: Juneau – Skagway – Sitka – Ketchikan – Inside Passage – finishing in Vancouver, Canada.
During this time we did some kayaking, a photography tour (not recommended – it was very expensive and the tour guide didn’t seem experienced at all! – this may have been rectified now of course), looking for black bears (which we saw, including a cute cub in a tree), hiking (“DIY” ones), and a “DIY” walk to (but not on) the Mendenhall Glacier.
In addition, as we had an evening overnight flight home, we were given a complimentary tour of Vancouver (we had been before, but it was nice to have another look around and to visit the beautiful VanDusen botanical gardens which we missed the last time).
Life on Board:
Sheer luxury! It is very romantic & you will feel totally pampered! Perfect for a birthday or anniversary!
Beautiful cabins with sitting area (ours was a Terrace suite, the 2nd cheapest type, so we also had a shared terrace we could walk out onto. Tip: ours was the last of the Terrace suites, so we never had anyone, except the odd staff member, walking past our cabin).
Your own butler who shined your shoes, tidied your room, kept your fridge filled with your favourite drinks (that includes bottles of spirits and champagne if you so wished!), brought you “supper” of your favourite snacks, even if you didn’t ask (he found out very quickly what we liked!) Note: All tips are already included in Silversea, so there was no need to add tips for this, or any, service!
The food was fantastic, especially the deck Grill where seafood and steaks are served on hot rocks, allowing you to cook them to your own taste.
The staff were extremely nice & friendly, always with a smile. Entertainment was good, the atmosphere was relaxed, and the pool & jaccuzzi were only ever used by Paul & I!
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