Newbie

[Magictam]

Hi all. I've gained a lot of info already just reading the posts. My husband and I are taking our first honeymoon (after 20 years) and cruise the last week of August. We're travling on the Noordam to Alaska for 7 days. Any helpful hints, ideas anyone would like to share would be greatly appreicated. Are the shops on board the ship, what to you have to pay extra for, places to see in Sitka, Junuea and Ketchikan.
Thank you very much, Tammie

[Greyson]

The Alaska port site can answer your questions. I have posted places to see and things to do in each port in the past. Have fun, you will love Alaska.

[fruby]

Hello,

Consider renting a car when you are in Juneau and Skagway because this will give you the flexibility to see and do more than if you take a shore excursion. Shore excursions are fine if you are in a foreign country but Alaska is as american as apple pie, with excellent roads. Out of Skagway you can drive up into the Canadian Yukon and see some truly wonderful scenery. For Juneau make sure that you can return the car in downtown Juneau because you do not want to be stranded at the Juneau airport. Just an idea for you...

Hope that this helps.

Fred

[Greyson]

If you do rent a car and go out on your own, pray your car doesn't break down or you get stuck somewhere because if you aren't back to the ship in time, so sorry. Its your responsibility to get yourself to the next port. Could get costly. My advise, stick with the excursions because if an excursion is late, the ship waits. If you are on your own and you are late, uh oh.

[Magictam]

Thanks for the car idea, but I think I will stick to shore excursions just to be on the safet side. We're looking at doing the mendenhall & whale quest, or just the whale quest in Juneau and my husband is doing the wilderness guided fly fishing from Ketchikan. I'am just overwhelmed on the choice and picking one.
Anyone have any thoughts?

[Greyson]

Do Mendenhall and the whale watching, both are great. The glacier is gorgeous, we saw bear while we were there. We saw a bunch of whales on the whale watching part of it as well. In Ketchikan, if you like Crab they have a boat trip where you go out and pick up crab out of the trap and then you get to go to a crab feed. Walking through Creek Street is awesome too.