SUPER ALASKA CRUISE

O. Excursions

Alaska Cruise Excursion Recommendations

To Excursion Summaries and Recommendations

An essential part of appreciating Alaska and having a fulfilling vacation on an Alaskan cruise is taking excursions in each port of call.  In addition, because of the small size of the ports visited, and the fact that often several large cruise ships will dock on the same day, it is essential that you do something in each port besides just visiting stores in walking distance form the pier.  All the cruise lines offer the same excursions for the same ports of call, given by the same companies, with exceptions for schedule limitations.  Based on the experiences on my cruse through southeast Alaska, I will present recommendations for excursions in Juneau, Skagway, Haines and Ketchikan. 

In addition to my recommendations, I have a link to the published list of excursions offered by the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), on which I traveled.  This is a useful guide for selecting cruise excursions, no matter what line or itinerary you take, though the code numbers vary.  I would recommend that you examine the list of excursions and get a general idea of which excursions you would like to take.  Once an information package with your tickets is received, I would recommend selecting excursions and mailing back the selection form.  If you cannot do this, since you received your information package too close to the date of your cruise, you should book your excursions as soon as you get on the ship because the best excursions fill fast. 

 

You do not pay for your excursions upon selection.  You will be charged for them on your shipboard credit account, and therefore will pay for them with the credit card that you used to establish the account.  If you reserve your excursions by mail, you or your travel agent may receive a confirmation sheet by mail (I did) and your tickets will be in your stateroom upon arrival.  If you decide not to take an excursion, you usually must cancel 24 hours before arrival at port and must turn in the tickets.  In addition, note that the tickets should be treated as cash (and secured in your safe) because anyone can use them since no list of who is taking which tour is given to the excursion companies, only how many people signed up for the tour.  If you loose your ticket, you lost your excursion.  Also, get to your excursions early on time, because they will leave without you if you are late, but note, if your ship is late into port the excursions will wait for passengers to unload.  In addition, if a ship-sponsored excursion is late returning, the ship will wait for the excursion to arrive back on the dock (but passengers must immediately get back on the ship). 

Finally, excursions operate no matter what the weather, and the weather must be extremely unsafe for an excursion to be cancelled, so dress appropriately.

As a blanket assumption, unless you are infirm, I do not recommend any excursion tours that just involve a bus ride around town since the downtown areas of the ports visited are very small and can be fully explored by foot, including visits to several stores, in an hour or so.

Excursion Evaluations 

Juneau Excursions

Skagway Excursions

Haines Excursions

Ketchikan Excursions

Alaska Cruise Excrusion Published List (This is the Norwegian Cruise Line's list.)  All cruise lines offer amost the same itineraries of excursions, by the same companies

 

To first Excursion Page (Juneau)

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