Our trip to Alaska was a combination cruise and land tour. We started the trip on the Island Princess and sailed from Vancouver to Whittier. Then using motor coaches and railroad, we went from Whittier , through Anchorage, to Denali and on up to Fairbanks. Our entire trip was done using Princess, including the lodging. Between Princess and Holland American they pretty much own tourism in Alaska. They have their own lodges and even have their own railroad cars.
We made our trip in June which is about a month before the salmon run and unfortunately it was also very warm. As a result we did not seed all the wildlife we would have expected.
However, it was a great trip. The highlights were the glaciers, Mt. McKinley and our Kenai Fjord tour. We got up close to these massive glaciers, we got within 40 miles of Mt. McKinley and everything about the Kenai Fjord tour was outstanding. We saw Mt. McKinley from three different locations. Most tourist don't get to see it at all. It is fogged in much of the time.
We did the trip the right way, going south to north, visiting the towns/villages/cities on the way up and then taking motor coaches and railroad trips from Whittier north to Fairbanks.
Princess did a wonderful job. It was a great trip and we would recommend it to everyone.
One of the highlights of our trip was watching these gigantic glaciers calving. Click here to watch two videos of the calving.
