Alaska in August: Any tips on cheap 2-4 day cruises?
I’m going to Alaska in August (I know, I know, the height of tourist season). We are there for 2 weeks, I would LOVE to take a boat trip for a couple days but it is SO expensive! Any tips or tricks for a scrappy young couple? (well, sort of young) Or is it just as wonderful to do a single day boat trip? Any advice would be great! Also, any ‘must sees’ in the Inside Passage would be great, we will have a rental car.
I think I have the perfect answer for you:
The Alaska State Ferry.
Princess/Carribean, etc have their 5 swimming pools, dress code at the captain’s table and 7 square meals a day.
The Ferry is just a big boat, with cars below deck, inside or soutside seating (more on that later) and a snack. A few movies and rangers are offered. It stops a half dozen places long enough to load/unload (2-3 hours).
But you get the same gorgeous views as people paying 10 times as much. You see the same whales, eagles, porpoises, etc.
You can rent a cabin (in advance), but the cheap way to go is bring a sleeping bag and sleep in the “solarium” which is a covered on top deck with open sides and infrared heaters with dozens of 6-foot lounge chairs. You stake one out with your sleeping back and see most of the trip go by from there. Make friends with other passangers, go in together to take a cab to town for pizza, etc.
If you want to step off, go ahead, catch the next ferry going in your direction 2-3 days later. You could spend 2 days or 2 months in some town along the way.
The State Ferry has lots of trips up the Inside Passage, a moderate number in Prince WIlliam Sound, and a few across the Gulf of Alaska and out to the Aleutians.
Not sure what you mean about “having a rental car” in the Inside Passage. None of those towns are connected to each other nor the rest of North America by road (hence the State Ferry system).
DON’T bother with a rental car in SE AK. Just walk or catch a cab in each town. And you’d have to book in onto the Ferry and pay a lot to get it from town to town.
You can potentially take the Ferry from Bellingham, WA all the way to Haines, Alaska over three days. Connections north and west of Haines or less frequent.
Or do you mean you’ll have a rental car out of Anchorage? Then consider driving to Seward for the scenery, the SeaLife Center (a great aquarium) and take a day trip in Resurrection Bay (which has more glacier, birds, and sea mammals per hour than SE Alaska).
Or take the shorter drive from ANC to Whittier and catch a State Ferry to Valdez and back. That is fairly protected water in PWS and also very gorgeous.
Check their schedules at: http://www.dot.state.ak.us/amhs/
Hope that helps.
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