Traveling to Alaska? Anyone been?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone taken a trip or cruise to Alaska? Where did you go, and what would you recommend?

We're looking for some natural beauty with some (light) adventure, and to try something a little different. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[Anonymous]

It was one of our best trips ever. Here are some of the things we did.
Anchorage: we went to a show on the Northern Lights. On Saturday there is a market in town.
We took a drive down the Turnagian Arm to the town of Hope - not much to do, just pretty. If you do this, you have to know not to walk on the quick sand.
We took a day trip on a glacier cruise and another to hike on a glacier (that was about an hour or so north of Anchorage and it was the only place we found where you could actually hike on the glacier).

Then we went to North Pole and Fairbanks. In Fairbanks we took the river boat cruise. We made a stop in Chena Hot Springs - if I were doing it again, I would have spent the night there instead of in Fairbanks.

Then we went to Denali. We took a bus trip into the park one day, stayed in cabins outside the park for two nights (the restaurant had the best pancakes I've ever had in my life). We went back and hiked in Denali for awhile, but you can't go very far into the park unless you are on a bus trip.

Then we went to Seward and Kenai Fjords. While there, we did another glacier boat trip, went on an Iditarod ride - they teach you about the iditarod and then take you for a ride by hooking the dogs up to sleds. We went to Exit Glacier. The only other thing I remember doing was Mount Alyeska Tram in Girdwood, which was on the way back to Anchorage from Seward.

I wrote to the chamber of commerce in Alaska and they sent me a travel guide that lists all of this stuff and more. I was traveling with three kids, including a 2 year old, so I was limited in what I could do.

[Anonymous]

We did our first cruise to Alaska and enjoyed it alot. I think Alaska is a good place for a cruise because some places, like Juneau, are only accessible by boat or plane and bcs the scenery is so nice that just sailing from place to place we would sit and watch.

If you want to cruise I would start by looking for a one that starts in Vancouver and visits Glacier Bay.

[Anonymous]

We did one that started in Vancouver, went through Glacier Bay, and ended in Seward. I recommend renting a car to drive from Seward to Anchorage instead of paying for the ship transfer to Anchorage -- it's a beautiful drive and there are nice places to stop. We should have built in more time for that. Seward has a gorgeous aquarium. And there's a fabulous native culture place outside Anchorage that I wished we had a full day for. You can also go from there into Denali. The bus trips into Denali are very long, and we had little kids so we didn't do it.
Our big splurge (and man was it expensive) was a helicopter ride over the glaciers, stopping on a glacier to visit a dog sled camp and ride a dog sled. It was awesome. I wanted to take up dog sledding as a hobby it was so fun.
Its different than other cruises because the port stops are really beautiful places in their own right, so you don't necessarily need to buy excursions, but there's ton to do.
The one excursion we regretted was a whale watching boat trip. We saw more whales from the cruise ship.
Note that some of the bigger fancier cruise ships can't go into the bays as well. So there's a trade-off with ship amenities versus maneuverability. We took Holland America, and the ships are smaller than RCL but bigger than the really expensive high-end cruises. There's a ton of info on cruisecritic.com.

[Anonymous]

I've done both a non-cruise trip and a cruise trip. If you're up for "light" adventure (which is a good way to describe us), I would definitely do a non-cruise trip. We flew into Anchorage, stayed there 2-3 nights and did some hiking nearby and saw a really neat Native cemetery (don't remember the name). Then we drove to Seward and stayed there 3-4 nights, and went on a wildlife/glacier day cruise in Kenai Fjords National Park where we saw whales. We also did some hiking up to a glacier in Kenai Fjords and a guided half-day kayaking trip. We then drove up to Denali National Park and stayed outside there for 3 nights, rode the bus into the park and did a little hiking.

The cruise was fine, but it's hard to feel like you're getting away from it all--the shore excursions are all with a bunch of other people, and the towns are pretty touristy.

Alaska was very easy to drive around in the summer.

Alaska for Dummies and the Milepost guidebooks were helpful.

I'm sure you'll have a great trip!