Good points, well put.
I know a lot of folks really do like the cruises quite a lot, and my visitors have always spoken well of them. But I would be much more likely to book a short cruise on my own, as you mentioned, and not have it be the whole of my visit.
Depending on who opts in we could be an eight person group. Is driving practical?
Any specific thoughts on the Uncruise one’s itinerary? Any less boring to you?
I once rented a van when I had five visitors, so they’re available. Either that or rent two cars. With eight people, whatever you do could get very expensive.
As for the Uncruise, it looks like it covers part of the Inland Passage. Now, I spent my first ten years in Juneau, and I’ve never traveled the Passage, but I know that it’s really dramatically beautiful. A boat is the only way that you can see that area, really. But I think if I only had limited time, I’d try to see more of the state than just the Panhandle, unless you’re planning to return.
I think that a lot of first-timers are a bit leery of trying to tour in Alaska on their own. It’s a bit out of some folks’ comfort zone, even though the roads are mostly decent and it’s nearly impossible to get lost unless you do something criminally stupid like go off hiking in back country without proper gear or try to pet a moose.
Your user name is unusual. Are you Alaska Native?
I’ve done several 7-person car trips in rented Ford Expeditions or Chevy Suburbans. I’ve always done 90% of the driving, so my perspective on the comfort is going to be biased, though. It always seems fine, but make sure you take turns on who has to sit in the middle of the rear row.
I did one 7-person trip in a rented mini-van, and I’d strongly recommend the full size SUV over a mini-van.
If you have 8 people then you’d probably need a full size passenger van. Considering you’re all adults, getting two cars might be the way to go. That gives you more flexibility, but could also create two parallel vacations, instead of one big group vacation.
A work colleague did an Alaska honeymoon, and I think they rented an RV and drove from Anchorage to Haines. I don’t know if that would work for 8 people.
On the cruise we stopped in Haines, and everyone else in my family went to the hammer museum, and still can’t stop talking about it.
Are one of the ferries a possibility? See a bunch of the coast but not quite a cruise – no idea if that is a good option or not.
Brian
Depends on how much time one has and what your goals are. We drove our RV to Whittier, AK, put it on the ferry and got off in Cordova, where we stayed in an RV campground. Drove out nearly to the Million Dollar Bridge, had some really good king salmon at a restaurant in town, got back on the ferry and got off in Valdez. Then drove from Valdez to Kennicott, took a flight seeing trip down the Copper River, then drove back to Anchorage. It was a good trip, and we spent a couple of weeks doing it.
Data point on this. A friend of mine here took a ~10-day round-trip cruise from Seattle up to Glacier Bay and back, finishing also in Seattle. This was Jun 4 to Jun 15 including the air travel MIA-SEA & back. So about 2 weeks ago now.
They did the usual stops in Victoria BC, Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. maybe one more; my debrief on his trip wasn’t very thorough. Not an adventurous experience except the helicopter up onto one of the glaciers. And not exertion-filled at all. He’s also old and raggedy, so it was a reasonable choice for him. Probably not for the OP.
With all that background, here’s the punchline:
They had glorious sunny weather almost the whole time. But …
The folks in one stop said it had been two months since they’d seen the sun, except for the day he was in their town, and the day prior. After the voyage ended the ship immediately started another identical voyage. In Juneau the ship broke free of the dock, snapping every mooring line in 50 knot winds and driving rain. They took an unexpected tour around the harbor in the course of regaining control of the ship. Fortunately the crew was on high alert and nothing worse happened than breaking their mooring lines.
So yeah, quite variable and rather unpredictable.
Not a bit. I just happen to have lived in New York, Virginia and (for the last 34 years) Alaska.
A moose once bit my sister.
Lived in Alaska 7 years back in the late 70s. Definitely spend time on the Kenai Peninsula. My favorite Easter camping spot was out on Homer Spit. Cold, no snow, camp on the beach. Not for the comfort seeking.
Basically anything would see in Denali you can outside the park.
We did a trip in late May '22 with the Alaska Railroad as the backbone of the vacation. Flew to Fairbanks, spent a couple days there (Museum of the North), then on the train south to Denali. A couple nights there and excursions included the bus ride into the park past the road closure - lots of wildlife(!), ATV tour, and a guided day hike to three lakes near the edge of the park (with less wildlife, thankfully!). Then a long train ride to Anchorage for a couple nights, with excursions including a bike ride for some moose viewing. Then on to Seward which included a sightseeing boat ride up to the glaciers, sea life including orca! Then back to Anchorage for the flight home. All-in-all fantastic time, and great weather. The train was great with the Gold Star service - the train car has a patio in the back so you can watch the mesmerizing scenery go by. My wife is not super active but was game and enjoyed all the activities.
Ah, okay. Very clever. Since I’m no longer living there, I can reveal my blueberry picking spots, although after 34 years, you may know of them. People hold this information pretty close to the vest so they don’t get overrun.
The first one is at the campground at Tangle Lakes. First time we stayed there, I was walking around and spotted loaded berry plants on the hillsides. Most people staying there were either just spending the night or there for the fish. Nobody picked the berries.
Second spot: the trails behind Sheep Mountain Lodge. Again, they never got picked because that’s not why people stayed there.
But the best spot was the Alascom Road just a few miles past Sheep Mountain Lodge. Acres of berries and few pickers.
As we talked about, Hatcher used to be a favorite, but the crowds of people and the commercial pickers who strip the bushes ruined it.
But now the whole internet knows of your spots. Some “influencer” will find this post via google and summon a thundering herd to denude those slopes of all vegetation, not just the blueberries.
Treasure greater than gold. Thank you, Chefguy. I will definitely keep this info.
Oh, I hope not.
Keep in mind I’ve been gone from Alaska for about 15 years now, so who knows if these are still good spots. Man, I miss the place.
Apologies if mentioned upthread. Don’t do a round trip boat from Seattle. There are two all day cruise days that are BORING. I highly recommend one way on the boat, time in Alaska, and flying out. And, for me, the highlight was cruising up close to a glacier, seeing seals on icebergs.
This is a long post, with something for everyone! So if a paragraph is boring, skip to the next.
Reporting back on my Alaska land tour. As linked previously it was the Family Journey. I think in our group the age range of the kids was 8-16, with a total of 4 families. If there are kids, this is a great option, because everyone else is a parent and understanding of how kids work, but definitely not the way to go if your group is all adults.
The tour was National Geographic G-Adventures operated by Windigo. The guides were excellent, and the planning and logistics was flawless. Of the 9 adults on the trip, 3 were physicians, so clearly there is lots of appeal to people that are busy and would rather pay to have someone else handle the details.
I really don’t know if the activities we did would be the ones I would pick given the same time and budget, but they were all good. I can enthusiastically recommend Nat Geo/G-adventures/Windigo if you just want to throw money at someone and have everything taken care of. They have adult only tours and camping tours.
It was more expensive, but the cruise from Juneau to Sitka was more fun. In many ways, because it turns out I like being on the water, but also because even during the down times or just traveling from event to event, you’re not sitting in the back of a van, your on ship. Sleeping your not in a 3 star hotel in Anchorage, your on a ship…
Below is some more detail on what we did.
We started in Anchorage, drove to Seward, then Talkeetna, then Denali National Park, and finally back to Anchorage.
In Seward we did a cruise, visited the Sea Life Center, and Kenai Fjords National Park. There was also kayaking.
On the way to Talkeetna we stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.
After Talkeetna we went to the Husky Homestead to see Iditarod winning sled dogs. This was by far my kid’s favorite part, because “you get out of the van and they just hand you a puppy!”
Everything in Alaska is expensive, so $64/adult for a tour of the facility (not a tour on a sled) might not be that bad. It was included in our grand tour price, and they do a great job telling stories. If you end up near Denali National Park, and don’t get hung up on the price, I can recommend this. As the Rangers at with the National Park sled dog demo put it, Husky Homestead are the Ferrari dogs, and the national park has Mack truck dogs.
As others have said, Denali National Park was kind of a mixed bag. If all I wanted to do was hike in the mountains with lots of other tourists, and maybe see a moose, Rocky Mountain National Park is much easier to get to. Counter to that, I can see Longs Peak in RMNP by just walking a few blocks from my house, and Denali mountain is a bit more impressive. It rises 18,000 feet from where I was looking, instead of Longs which is only 8,000 or so.
We did a white water rafting trip, which was great fun, but was not included in the tour package. Everyone in the tour group opted to do it, though.
We had a too brief stop at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. We got a private guided tour of reconstructed Native homes, but didn’t get to see any of the other exhibits. There were Native artists selling stuff at much more reasonable prices than in the downtown Anchorage shops or in Talkeetna.
I remember way back in the late 80s, when I got a scholarship[1] to the University of Alaska, one of the reasons I didn’t go (along with a very limited selection of majors) was the 4 to 1 male to female ratio in Alaska.
With the sole exception of the white water rafting guide, every single guide on this trip was female. Both of our tour guides, the ship captain on the cruise, the guide from the Denali Education Center, the professional dog sled musher, the national park service dog sled musher, the bus driver and guide in Denali NP, the tour guide at the ANHC, the guide at Kenai Fjords, and others. I really don’t know what my point is, other than that I was surprised.
Anyway, that is a very long post summarizing what I did this summer in Alaska.
the same as everyone else in the top 25% or so of my high school class ↩︎
Thank you.