Thread: alaska excursions

Taking 2 grand kids on westerdam May 14th
excursions look very expensive...200 to 490 dollars
anyone taken any of these excursions and are they worth the money
4 x4 tour
canopy tour
helicopter and dog sled tour
thanks PatMack

I haven't but I found this, and it may help!! When you hit on a tour, and check for prices it bring you to Adobe, and it lists every tour and a page!! To the left of the list, the bottom says pages, hit that and the scrowl down to the page. That will have the prices. Have a wonderful cruise!!

http://www.alaskaunusual.com/Private...ions.html#JNU3

What age are your grand kids, and what cities will you be stopping at on your cruise?

I have done the helicopter and dog sled tour and it was AMAZING!!! I had the time of my life and it was worth every single penny I spent on it. So much so that I would defintiely be willing to spend that money again and go a second time. The experience is amazing and also something you really can't do anywhere else. Every single second was a thrill.

There are however some ways that you can save money with this tour. Just let me know what city your considering doing it in and what cities you'll be stopping at on your cruise and I'll try to help you out.

this is what the dog sled camp looked like as we approached it via helicopter

this is a view of the dog sled camp from the ground

this is a view of our dog sled team of 9 dogs

out on the 2-3 mile dog sled trail

this is one of the 2-3 breaks we took along the trail, to give the dogs a rest, us a chance to take pictures, and also to interact with the musher

finally at the end of it all.. you get to meet the dogs on your dog team

this is my friend and i getting friendly with the dogs

The other general piece of advice I give to anyone who's worried about excursion prices:

They ARE spendy... even more so when the cruise line is getting a 20% to 40% commission for the sale! Look around for independent versions of the tours you want to do and compare. There are still a FEW tours that are contracted only with the ships, but most can be booked privately as well.

Sometimes the savings isn't totally monetary either. A $149 private whale watching tour might stay for 3 hours or more on the water whereas the $149 "big boat" tour is only on the water for 2 or 2.5 hours.

Lastly, when looking for good deals (aka: hidden jewels or bargains) for water related tours, think about just chartering a boat. My rate for a 3 hour tour is $500. That might seem like quite a bit at first, but when you account for the fact that it's YOUR boat/tour for 3 hours it's not too bad... $500 divided amongst 4 people is only $125 per person. If there are 2 more who might want to go, that makes the per person cost less than $100 for a totally personalized whale/sightseeing tour. The $129 or $149 alternative through the ship is guaranteed to be on a larger boat with about 100 other folks listening to the same PA system you are...

For land (city) tours, one of the best deals running in Juneau is to hop in a taxi cab. They'll usually do 6 folks in a mini-van for around $60 or $80 for an hour-plus long tour...

-Case