Thread: B-B's on 1-way Alaskan cruises (same ship) -- PVSA violation?

My hubby came up with an idea of doing back to back Alaskan cruises (south to north, then north to south) in order to avoid having to flying in or out of Anchorage. I thought this would be a violation of the PVSA unless we stay one night in Anchorage area and then boarded a different ship.

I would imagine you've had clients who wanted to do this type of cruise. Any problems with staying on the same ship?

You'll be fine doing a B2B Alaskan cruise.

All of the one-way Alaskan cruises either begin/end or make a port stop in Canada and thereby meet all the requirements.

As for B2B, check out the itineraries to ensure you'll be doing different ports on each trip. Another possibility would be to either do different ships that arrive and leave on the same day, or even spending a night in Anchorage and then doing another ship on another day. Lots of possibilities.

Pete

thanks for the info, Pete. I don't think having different ports is important to us, it's having a cruise that's longer than seven days.

Hubby came up with this idea for June 2012 (not this summer as our girl gets out of 8th grade in mid June and then start high school in mid-August):

1. rent a mini van (we both have small cars)
2. drive up to Vancouver with stops in cities such as San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, including stops at UC Santa Barbara, Cal Berkeley, Stanford, U. of Washington -- our teen says she wants to see big cities and I imagine touring some college campuses would be a plus too.
3. get on a ship in Vancouver
4. hopefully stay on the same ship and head south
5. rent a car for the return home (doing some of those stops from #2 at this step instead)

I think hubby wants to stay on the same ship if possible for less hassle, luggage wise.

This way we don't have to fly, he can take his guitar (he loved playing on our last two cruises), and we can give the girl what she wants to.

I was concerned that there would be a problem with the PVSA, but I'm guessing that starting and ending in Vancouver wouldn't be a violation, but starting and ending in Anchorage would. Which is fine, as we want to avoid having to fly in or out of Anchorage.

As I said, all of the Alaskan cruises are fine for B2B - you won't have any problems no matter how you do it. Whether it leaves out of Seattle, Vancouver, or Alaska makes no difference.

You mentioned Vancouver, which is a wonderful city to visit, but you'll also want to consider those cruises out of Seattle as there are many to choose from.

As for doing back-to-back, I hear what you're saying about luggage, but if you have the time, you might want to consider spending some time in Alaska. It truly is a remarkable place to visit. you could rent a car or take the train up to Denali, which is awesome. Anchorage is a beautiful city and so is Fairbanks. Plus, if you do a cruise combined with a tour, the cruise line takes care of all your luggage, making it much easier than doing it on your own. We did a 10-day tour after our cruise and never touched the luggage except to pack it.

As for renting a car both ways up, you might consider doing the train in one direction - great way to travel.

Just some ideas for you to consider. You've got plenty of time, but it's a good time to start planning because the popular ones will sell quickly. Plus, at that time of year because of the popularity, the prices could go up on you, so booking sooner is better than later.

Pete

We took the Coast Starlight from Oxnard (closest station to us that checked in luggage at that time, unless we wanted to go from downtown LA, that is) up to Seattle in 2004. Interesting trip to do once, but for the girl (then 7), the scenery got a bit boring. We were glad we had booked the RT out of Seattle without booking an one-way/cruise tour. )She hasn't yet gotten into scenic views at age 13.) I think that since then, Amtrak has tighten their weight requirements too.

This will take a bit of planning on my part (hopefully with their input) but I've dealt with two trips with then that involved a lot of logistics. In fact, that Alaskan trip involved an Oxnard hotel pre and post train trip, Seattle hotel pre and post cruise, vehicle rentals going up to Oxnard and back (one-ways) and rental pre and post cruise. With hubby insisting that I don't book any ancient hotels (and you know that in Seattle, there are some old ones).

My real challenge was about ten years ago. Hubby had me book a cruise eight days prior. We also did a week in Southern Florida after that. So in a weekend, I booked the cruise, the flights to and from LAX/Miami, with a stop in Vegas as it was National (no red eye flights please), Miami hotel pre-cruise, Miami hotel post-cruise, Key Largo hotel, Key West hotel, Miami airport hotel pre-flight. Also a rental minivan for that second week. Whew.

The only mess-ups were the rental place (name of a Texas landmark). It was a mess to get their shuttle from the port (and no one was picking up the phone at their office -- probably because it was a zoo, as we discovered by the time we got there). We had to wait over an hour before they told us they didn't had a mini-van. (like that Seinfeld epi). Finally someone brought one back. There were also some billing issues (like saying we went over the time period for the sixth day).

The airport hotel also gave us a room on the smoking floor (and I know I requested no-smoking for each hotel). After an hour, we got another room, on a non-smoking floor per the little signs by the elevator, but that room stank of cigars (I know that smell from having a father who smoked cigars). Another wait til they found us another room (hubby turned down an offer for a thorough cleaning of that second room).

Other than that, a great vacation.

There is a longer Celebrity cruise that does the Vancouver - Alaska - San Diego route in, I think, a 12 day cruise. Might be something for you to think about.....

Originally Posted by cruisin' chick

thanks for the info, Pete. I don't think having different ports is important to us, it's having a cruise that's longer than seven days.

Hubby came up with this idea for June 2012 (not this summer as our girl gets out of 8th grade in mid June and then start high school in mid-August):

1. rent a mini van (we both have small cars)
2. drive up to Vancouver with stops in cities such as San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, including stops at UC Santa Barbara, Cal Berkeley, Stanford, U. of Washington -- our teen says she wants to see big cities and I imagine touring some college campuses would be a plus too.
3. get on a ship in Vancouver
4. hopefully stay on the same ship and head south
5. rent a car for the return home (doing some of those stops from #2 at this step instead)

I think hubby wants to stay on the same ship if possible for less hassle, luggage wise.

This way we don't have to fly, he can take his guitar (he loved playing on our last two cruises), and we can give the girl what she wants to.

I was concerned that there would be a problem with the PVSA, but I'm guessing that starting and ending in Vancouver wouldn't be a violation, but starting and ending in Anchorage would. Which is fine, as we want to avoid having to fly in or out of Anchorage.

Another option you can look into is Holland America's 14 night r/t cruises from Seattle.

If you are going to rent a minivan to drop off in Vancouver it can be expensive. The per day rate is very high when doing a foreign drop off. If you drop it off in Seattle and then re-rent another one for drop off in Vancouver, that way you only pay the high rate for one day. On the trip south do the same thing. We rented an SUV one way from Vancouver to Seattle a couple years back and it was $145 per day.

The UW has a very nice campus about 3 miles from my house.,

No problem with PVSA as you sail from and return to the same port.

And remember that your back to back cruises are 2 seperate cruises...not lumped into one cruise.

Originally Posted by nealberk

There is a longer Celebrity cruise that does the Vancouver - Alaska - San Diego route in, I think, a 12 day cruise. Might be something for you to think about.....

Just checked the Celebrity website but it was for a cruise in September. Which wouldn't work as the girl will be in school from mid-August on. They didn't have the 2012 cruises up which is probably when we would do this trip. But Princess would be the cruiseline anyway as we're a cruise away from getting to Platinum, number wise or day wise. So if that's the next cruise, the back of the back-to-back would get us Internet credits.

Originally Posted by Blizzard

Another option you can look into is Holland America's 14 night r/t cruises from Seattle.

If you are going to rent a minivan to drop off in Vancouver it can be expensive. The per day rate is very high when doing a foreign drop off. If you drop it off in Seattle and then re-rent another one for drop off in Vancouver, that way you only pay the high rate for one day. On the trip south do the same thing. We rented an SUV one way from Vancouver to Seattle a couple years back and it was $145 per day.

The UW has a very nice campus about 3 miles from my house.,

I'm guessing we would drop the rental off in Seattle and somehow get to Vancouver (if the Amtrak service allows for all of our baggage). But that would be a detail to work out if we decide to do this.

About 18 years ago I was in Seattle with my mother, who was there for bridge regionals. While she was playing at the Convention Center, I was exploring Seattle on my own and made it to the U of Washington. It looked very pretty with a light covering of snow.