What we wish we knew before an Alaskan Cruise

Alaska the Last Frontier bye Cruz let's talk about Alaska and the things that we wish we knew before we took an Alaskan [Music] cruise first section is all about the itinerary uh we went in not knowing much but we have learned through three cruises up to Alaska what you should do and a fourth one coming and a fourth one coming we do love Alaska so with Alaska you can either do a round trip from Seattle a round trip from Vancouver you can do a oneway which usually goes to Seattle to Seward there's several options when booking an Alaskan cruise you can also come Seward down to Vancouver or Seattle very true every Alaskan cruise stops in Canada because of the laws for maritime laws and then everyone stops in Juno and then the ports vary from there let's get into it a little more so personally I think one of the biggest things to make sure when you're looking at the itinerary is you're going to have a stop to go see glaciers so you either have hubard Glacier or you have Glacier Bay or do or do Glacier in our opinion I would say if you're doing this one time in your life yes we would highly suggest booking something that has Glacier Bay on the itiner and that is because Glacier Bay is a national park and they have is it nature people what's the word I'm looking for Rangers they have Rangers nature people they have nature people come on they have Park Rangers that actually come on board the ship and we'll give you some more information you learn a lot when it goes to Glacier Bay and it's just it's a lot more interesting it's really cool to see the glaciers but getting all that extra information is really interesting and good as well this will sound funny cuz it goes against what we say later Glacier cruising Glacier Bay maybe the one of the most relaxing crew day cruise days you will have um but still visually stimulating yeah cuz you're sitting and you're looking like you're not going and playing basketball or doing Bingo or like you want to be staring out that window the entire day you and everyone else so if you do that make sure you get up early um to get a good spot in addition to looking at where the cruise line actually goes I would also suggest you see how long you are in each port for yes because there are we made this mistake our first time first second time was the very last book but some of the larger ships don't stop in the ports for as long specifically Norwegian chips that's the ones we've experienced so and like with NCL if you go to catch can or Sitka there is a bus that you have to wait so you have to wait on a line to get on the bus and then from the bus it's about a 15 to 30 minute drive into town so you just have to factor that in as well like that you may be spending an hour to 30 minutes of just physically getting to and from the like where you get off the ship to get to the actual like if you're doing The Encore or the Bliss with Norwegian and you're going to catch a can you usually get in around 7:00 a.m. you have to be leaving the dock at 1 1:30 around there so that doesn't give you a lot time and the last bus leaves the city at like 11:45 something like that super early yeah it it doesn't give you a whole bunch of time so if you do an Excursion in catch can that's basically all you're doing um so you don't get to see the town and I'll leave a link here we did do a comparison with NCL with the two main stops that you would either do in the two different itineraries just so you can get a little bit more knowledge on that but I feel like checking out how long you're in each Port is a huge plus to your Alaskan trip especially if you're only doing this one time uh going to Alaska is not a cheap um Cruise you're not going to find a $119 uh three night trip to Alaska it's going to cost a little bit you can find good options if you go in the beginning and the end of the season so the season keeps expanding right now as we film this it's starting in April and ending in October um but if you go between April and early may you can get a relatively good deal and if you go after school starts in the fall you can also get a good price now the only watch out is if you go early in the season or late in the season a lot of the workers are seasonal in Alaska so a lot of the places can be closed if you get towards the very end or very beginning of the season I know especially say towards the end of the season possibly a little bit more than the beginning of the Season we were there the very end of September and a lot of places were like either already closed or they were saying they were closing like the first week of October and it were still like three weeks of cruising left yeah granted you can still do October and there's still things open but I would just keep that in mind that maybe some of it won't be open this is about the budget still shore excursions uh in Alaska can be really pricey um there are some epic shore excursions you can do whether it's helicopter or sea plane or fishing they're all not cheap I'm just going to be blunt there um but there are some budget uh like relatively fun ones that we typically do that are much cheaper than those really expensive ones I would say those expensive ones that you're mentioning probably start around 500 a person and go up from there just so you have like an idea if you go with nor region you get that $50 off really helps there are definitely some more budget friendly ones that you can book through the cruise line and there's also the option just to do it yourself and just go and explore and I would also say price match some of those excursions that you might see the cruise line is offering like for example Skagway if you're looking to do the train ride in Skagway the cruise line offers it but sometimes it's more affordable to just book it on your by yourself and usually the issue with booking things by yourself is if you're not back on board in time they will leave without you but if you're doing a train half of the train are people from the cruise line so they're waiting for them anyway yeah there's worse places to get stuck than Alaska true so like that's not a bad idea but there are some where I think you can also just book them on your own and just keep an eye out for pricing but we are also planning on doing an episode on budget excursions in Alaska so keep an eye out for that all right if you're expecting a cruise to be like a Caribbean cruise when you're going to Alaska I sadly to let you know that that is not how it is um in Alaska you are up and about you're walking around the excursions tend to be more like thrilling active um you can find some relaxing excursions not going to lie um but it is a much more active Cruise in the Caribbean you're not going to sitting on a beach yeah you would definitely want ask sitting on the beach um but typically like even during sea days they can be rougher you're not going to see as many people laying out in the sun beds on the decks now people will and people will also swim and surprisingly it can get warm in Alaska and the water can get warm too so you can swim but it's not going to be like that relaxing just sailing to the Bahamas or St Croy or St Thomas kind of cruise like the Caribbean offers yeah and I think to piggyback on that some of the ports you get in really early and depending on the ship line you're with you may not have that long in Port so you may be getting up and getting off that ship right at 7:00 a.m. it's really tough which is really really hard for me because I'm not a morning person at all but you want to maximize the amount of time that you have in town and seeing as much as you can so just kind of keep that in mind it's not going to be that like super chill calm relaxing It's the Last Frontier so yeah you gotta get up you gotta do stuff you got to see that last frontier people you're gonna be up north what is the one thing people want to see when they're up north me the northern lights are they going to see them learing on this only if you in the very beginning of the Season or the very end of the season and more like the end of the season and very lucky and want to stay up super late and keep your eyes out for it but there is a possibility especially in October to see the Northern Lights but the rest of the season not so much cuz it's just going to be sunny for most of the time and the sun does not set till very late I mean even in may we had the Sun up until like 11 11:30 so be prepared for it to be bright most of your trip all right this is maybe the most surprising thing on our first Alaska cruise and we mentioned it to people and people have no idea the the southern portion of Alaska where you're cruising is actually a rainforest so you hear about rain it rains that would be why R Forest make sure you bring your rain coat and your rain boots for the rainforest yeah be prepared for rain you will most likely have it at some point during your Alaskan cruise obviously you can get lucky and not have rain but you're probably going to have at least some one day yep so dress accordingly and it can be really windy so a lot of people carry an umbrella but it's windy in The Valleys um where you usually port and it doesn't help to have um so a poncho or a nice raincoat is highly suggested and also stay tuned cuz we're going to do a what to pack for Alaska as well and we will definitely be saying raincoats surprisingly shorts if you're Jack shorts we're going to show both extremes another reason to not choose peakes in a cruise to Alaska is they have the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen in my entire life they like to joke that it's the state bird yes and they like palmel your hand SI they're not that big they're really large though they're big mosquitoes they not that big best way I describe it maybe poppy hands like a baby hummingbird maybe size like that's pretty good accurate right I don't know but they're everywhere they're everywhere there is a lot of them and also your your Peak Seasons which are June to August tend to be the wetter Seasons so you're going to have more rain it's not going to be as cold as the beginning and the end of the season but you're going to have more mosquitoes and you may have a lot more rain so just keep that in mind mind if you're looking to book and price is an issue yeah and if you're sweet like me you know those mosquitoes love okay so another thing to keep in mind as well as the itinerary is this is probably the second most important thing to keep in mind yes so after the itinerary and the places that you definitely want to make sure that you you want to see is do some research on which Cruise Line you want to go with do you want more of the familyfriendly with a boatload of activities like Royal Caribbean or Disney or NCL if you have some older kids or do you want a more chill or relaxed do you want to do princess or celebrity or do you want to go on an expedition one yes I do I mean we do those tend to be a little bit more expensive but those would be a smaller ship but it's an expedition to the Last Frontier God look at tying it together you would be in ports for a lot longer you'd probably do be doing some more crazy activities talk about Str probably not as relaxing because you really are getting out there and seeing and doing as much so just make sure you do your research on which line works for you and your family best yep so like the lines that do do go just sum it up is Disney Royal NCL celebrity Viking uh Holland America princess silver sea um I don't know a bunch of them you there's more I'll make some more notes them here so if you can make it work within your budget we would suggest trying to get either a balcony or at least an ocean view just because Alaska is so scenic unlike the Caribbean where I don't know it's mostly water that you're looking at Alaska I mean until you get close to the islands but for most part you're just looking at the ocean where Alaska you are sailing closer to land and some of the views are just breathtaking especially when you're going through the Inside passage or you're going to any of the glaciers sometimes it's nicer just to sit on your balcony and watch the glaciers instead of having to go up and fight spa for space up at the top deck it's just something to keep in mind when you're booking and trying to budget for this yeah but if it's not in your budget but an inside room is in your budget and that's your deciding factor whether or not you can make Alaska work in an inside room to Alaska will work because there's so many places to sit on the ship and enjoy the scenery yeah or if you're just like I want to do Alaska but I want to do the helicopter ride I want to do the sea plane I want to go see Bears then have your budget go towards that instead of your cabin yeah just remember Alaska is about when you get there um not so much the ship in our opinion it's about getting to Alaska so one thing that may be a plus for you but is not a plus for us is um and that surprised Us big time and surprised us super big is at every port you will see diamonds International the jewelry stores you say in the Caribbean kind of some of the very similar shops that when you see in aiban they s like all of the ones that are the touristy so if that is your cup of tea they definitely offer it at every port or most ports yes most ports not icy straight point and then same thing with souvenir shops a lot of the souvenir shops are the same kind of all of them they're pretty much owned by a big box company and they just have the different shops but if you are looking for souvenirs and you want something that is more truly Alaskan Alaskan made look for the seal that says Alaskan made and that will prove that it is made in Alaska it's not made in China or overseas somewhere it is you're more authentic yeah we'll put it right here now if you're doing a round trip out of Seattle and you return back to Seattle the Port of Seattle actually does this amazing thing where if you've ever taken a cruise before you typically leave your suitcases out the night before and they will pick them up and then you get off the ship and when you're going through basically Customs you find and pick up your bag kind of like an airport in a sense but the Port of Seattle actually does this amazing thing where if you do that and you sign up for it they will take your bags directly to the Seattle Airport and so you won't see them until you land in your final destination and it costs the same amount as it would if you brought them yourselves to the airline if you also have a frequent flyer miles where your bags are included it's the same thing and it's just a really great service that they offer so you can go and explore Seattle a little bit more once you get off the ship so if you've liked this video it's helping you out new to the channel uh really like if you give it a thumbs up and if you really enjoy our Channel please hit that subscribe button and the notification Bell to keep up to date with our latest information it means a lot to us yes it does so lastly when you do an Alaskan cruise you are seeing it e ity bitty bitty portion of Alaska first obviously it's all coastal towns because you're on a ship but it's no but it's also just the like southern tip of Alaska you're really not seeing I never thought of that so much of Alaska so if you fall in love with it as much as we have personally I would suggest doing a land portion yourself whether you're more comfortable doing that with the cruise line or you do it by yourself it's very doable to do by yourself especially if you're willing to drive remember Alaska is the US it's just like going to visit any other state in the US it's really not that hard to do the land portion on your own when we did it the first time we did a cruise first and then the land portion and I may have fallen in love with the land portion more yeah and so the cruise lines offer like a you Cruise tour is what it's called so you can do a land portion with them as well uh we just wanted to let you know that you don't NE neily need to book that you can actually do it more affordable if you do it yourself um and you get to see more and you can time your own itinerary yeah you get the freedom of doing it on your own pace your own time and exactly where you want to go but if you don't want to plan anything and you just want to do the cruise tour and let the cruise line plan for it like it's it's a great experience we've met several people that have done that and they enjoyed it um with that though I would say try not to be in the beginning or end of the season yes because we did meet somebody who had done the beginning of the season and she had said a lot of restaurants were in open and just things like that so that one I would really try and not be on the beginning or end of the season andar but definitely go to the northern Port uh portion of Alaska and see the rest of the state it is beautiful Mount Denali is amazing Homer Seward it's a completely different experience than the cruise um I I think the cruise to Alaska gives you a good snapshot of what Alaska is like um but seeing the land portion it gives you the full experience agreed so till next time get out and live a little bye guys and I would say all Alaskan cruises have at least one stop in Alaska not in Alaska stop in Alaska Alaska cruises stop in Alaska that is really good information for the viewers really [Music] good

Channel: Live a Little

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Keywords: 1st alaskan cruise, Alaska cruise, Alaska cruise what to know, Disney cruise, Holland America, NCL, Princess cruise, Royal Caribbean cruise, alaska, alaska cruise tips, alaska cruise tips and tricks, alaska cruise tricks, alaska tips, alaskan cruise, alaskan cruise tips, alaskan tips, cruise to alaska, first alaskan cruise what to know, icy straight point, juneau, ketchikan, live a little, sitka, skagway, tips for alaska cruise, tips for alaskan cruise, what to know for alaska

Id: KKTke0ULxtE

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024