Grand Alaska July 5, 2016 Post tour review

I'm sitting in Seattle waiting on a flight back to Florida after a week on the land tour and a week on the ship. I'll try to keep this short and to the point.
1. The land tour is great and worth the time, effort, and money spent. Yes, the Princess Lodges are rustic, but nice and clean. No problems with the bus or tour content. If we had it to do over, we would have taken side trips with the lodge sponsored tours, rather than the more sedate Tauck trips. Tauck did a good job, but things are geared to a more low energy level, rather than things like rafting or back country hiking, much less high risk activities.

2. The boat part of the tour was not what most of us expected. A group of about eight of us hung together and the general consensus was that part of the tour left a lot to be desired. The ship was nice, but the food generally was poor. One wag commented it was like spending a week in Walmart and being hustled at every turn to buy Chinese junk or being upsold on some liquor offer. Not what we expected by a long shot from Tauck.

3. If we had it to do again, we would fly into Anchorage, book our own adventures, stay at one of the Lodges run by Princess near Anchorage, and then spend money on flight seeing with Rust's Flight Service or doing exiting day trips. We would not do the ship part of the trip again under any circumstances.

4. Great new friends who made the trip a lot of fun in spite of a couple of the afore mentioned challenges.

Michael
Ft. Myers, Florida

Comments

  • This is disappointing to learn. Really looking forward to both parts in August. Were the excursions from the boat not set up by Tauck? And ship meals usually get a better review. Granted we've been on smaller boats more recently, and never Princess. Now I am worried.
    Patty
    Colorado

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