Thanks for the vote of confidence everybody. If you need or want any assistance Minnie Shone please feel free to contact me. Either here or at [email protected] and I will do my best to help you.
I don't think a travel agent has specials not available through the WDW reservation line. That said a travel agent generally gives better advice, is more likely to find and know about discounts and specials available and of course help schedule travel plans. That said there is no savings going direct and a knowledgeable agent helping can really make sure you have a great vacation.
Well, I found my TR (below) for the land portion, but for the life of me I can't find the cruise portion - but some thoughts first: RCCL does offer the reverse of what we did, starting in Anchorage and ending in Vancouver. As you want to end in Vancouver, check out the train trip from there to Seattle. It sounded fun and may save you in airfare. As I pointed out in my TR, Verizon does not have data in Alaska (or they didn't when we were there). Data is expensive on the ship, but most ports have places close to the ship where you can get it. Here goes for the TR We had a great time, but I'm still not sure the value to fun ratio works out. Alaska cruises are expensive and the airfare is high also. Some thoughts - Most cruise lines have similar Alaska itineraries. Check the weather before you go. We took clothing to layer and ended up hot all the time. All we really needed other than dinner time was shorts & tee shirts. The only cool day was cruising in glacier bay. The glacier was spectacular!! According to the crew of Radiance, we got the closest and had the best viewing of the season so far. Most days have been fogged out. We got within a mile of the glacier and the fog lifted for about an hour while we were there. As we left the fog dropped again and the glacier disappeared. All of the ports are a lot alike. If you just walk off the ship without plans they are all great big tee shirt shops and jewelry stores. I highly recommend Island Wings in Ketchikan if you go there. http://www.islandwings.com Internet on the ship is expensive, so i stuck to hotspots on land. In Ketchikan there is a a neat saloon across from the port (1st City Saloon I think). Cheep drinks and free Internet with a purchase. In Juneau there is a nice coffee shop a few blocks from the ship, again, free with purchase. I've been surprised I've had 3G cell service almost everywhere but my Verizon hot spot did not work in Alaska. I thought the land portion would be lame, but boy was I wrong. The land portion is far better than the cruise. Royal Caribbean (RCCL) uses Premier Alaska Tours, Inc. as the provider of the land portion. They are a great company and the employees we dealt with knew their stuff!! We had the same bus, driver and tour guide for the whole trip. They handled all baggage moving. We put them in the hall the last night of the cruise and the next time we saw the bags was when we arrived in our hotel room in Anchorage. This worked the same each day, put the bags out in the hall in the morning and they will be in your room in the evening. Many folks took advantage of the tour operators offer to just keep some bags on the coach, and only bring one or two bags to the room each day. The down side to the land portion is that meals are not included, but that did not seem to be a problem. We landed in Seward and took a bus up to Anchorage, spending the nite at the Marriott there. After lunch a visit to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center provided a history of Alaska. the room for the night was standard Marriott, but we found that they have a music on the green concert series Friday nights. Food trucks, a small beer garden and live music. It was local music (no named acts) but made for a nice evening. Day 2 we took the Wilderness Express Deluxe Domed Railcars from Anchorage to Talkeetna, AK. These rail cars are wonderful, and appear to be used only by RCCL passengers (but I'm not sure about that). They have 80 first class style seats up top and you get a great view of the land as it goes by. Downstairs is dining area and the food is delicious, and not really overpriced by Alaska standards. As this was a morning trip, breakfast was on the menu. After breakfast it was back upstairs to watch the beautiful Alaskan wilderness roll by. I took advantage of the bar and had a specialty coffee as I road along. Talkeetna is a quirky little place that folks say the TV show Northern Exposure was patterned after. Lodging this night was at the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, which is spectacular. The only down side is that rooms do not have A/C, but the view is to die for. There was time in the afternoon for additional activities, but we did a little hike and relaxed with a bottle of wine left over from the cruise. Day 3 allowed us to sleep in and than we were back on the Wilderness Express for our trip up to Denali National Park. The late start had us on the train for lunch and into the Denali area in the afternoon. Our hotel for the next two nights was the McKinley Village Lodge. Again, basic rooms with no A/C but a beautiful location. We got in early enough for another hike, this one a little longer (a little over 2 mile out/back), but it took us out into a beautiful forest where we found fields of wild blueberry bushes and a beaver lake. We were able to just sit by the lake and watch the little guys working on their home before winter. Peope on TA complain that you are locked in to the restaurant at the hotel because "town" is about 8 miles away. The hotel shuttle stops running around 6:30, but most to the restaurants in town will take you back to the lodge after dinner. Day 4 started early for the tour of Denali National Park. The tours are run by the park service vendor and puts you in a school bus (OK, the one we were in had upgraded seats, not the bench seats of my youth) and supplies a box lunch (very spartan). This was fun, as we got to see grizzly bear and carabo in the wild, but it was also long and hot. RCCL pays for you to get the "Wildlife Tour" which is the longest offered by the park and takes around 8 hours... We stopped often for necessities (there are park service bathrooms out on the trail) and our guide was knowledgeable, but after about hour 5 most were looking for the wine and hot tub. After the tour it was back to McKinley Village Lodge for the evening. We stayed on the back deck of the lodge playing Cornhole and having a few glasses of wine. it was here that I really discovered that due to the longer day (it was still light at 11PM) I was loosing more and more sleep each day. Day 5 was on the bus for a ride up to Fairbanks, the end of the trip. You get in to Fairbanks early enough to play tourist for the day. Activities are included, and there are additional tours you can sign up for. The hotel for the night was the Wedgewood Resort. This property is unique in my travels. The room we had was an actual one bedroom apartment, and they had several building just like ours. I found out that it had been built as long term housing for workers on the Trans-Alaska pipeline. Older and a little dated, but clean with lots of room to spread out in. Day 6 was our travel home day, but our flight was not until 9:30PM so we did a little more touring while the hotel held out bags. Even though the tour was over, Premier Alaska Tours stayed on top of things and mad sure we were picked up at the hotel and take to the airport for our flight. Looking back, we decided that Sandals blows away a cruise vacation. For what we spent on the cruise we could have taken two (maybe 3) trips to Sandals. Granted this was a unique situation as the DWs father wanted to go to Alaska - but I want to go sit on the beach!! This year it will be Fort Wilderness in December and Sandals in Jamaica in February. Oh, I retire in November so hopefully the trips will happen more often.
I've got a 2004 Yukon XL with 5.3 L V-8 that will pull that pup and it has the tow package. So if you ever wanted to buy a bigger TT.It will haul all the waffle batter you'll need for a GG. If me and my family don't go. We would eat you out of house and home and waffles. Lol!
Sounds like a good reason to plan more GG now that you have a camper, just need a tow vehicle to carry all the supplies you need to become Chef Jason!!!!!!
Jason puts up with my OCD planning. And he even changed my cabin in minutes on our RCCL when I found out that a corner aft cabin became available at like 9:30 PM. That's service!
X4....... For reasons none of us understand it is better to use an independent Travel Agent, such as Jason, to book your reservations. They are able to find the discounts and in many cases sites/cabins/rooms when the Disney Web Site or their Agents on the phone say there are none.
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