We have never been to Alaska before and have never sailed with Holland America. We chose this itinerary because it had more time on land than at sea. We flew to Anchorage on Monday for a tour beginning on Thursday. HA picked us up at the airport. They took our luggage and loaded it on a bus. The driver took us to theCaptain Cook Hotel while telling us about the area. We were greeted at the hotel and brought to the tour desk. They gave us our keys and some written directions for luggage handling. We went to our room and found our luggage had already been delivered. The hotel was nice and we could walk to almost everyplace in the city. On Thursday morning we met our tour guide Ashley. A bus took us to the train station and we were given our tickets with assigned seating for the trip to Denali. There is a dining room downstairs and they also will sell you snacks at your seat. We had a nice breakfast and lunch while viewing the scenery. A bus took us from the train station to the McKinley Chalet hotel. We were disappointed that we did not get to stay at the main lodge. We were in the Canyon Lodge which was new-looking and clean but not what we had expected. Try Karstens restaurant in Denali Village - it is excellent, If you are wondering how to decide how many days to spend in Denali, it depends on how many activities/excursions you want. The all day bus tour comes with your package. A resort bus can take you to the visitor center. There’s another bus that can take you to the Princess lodge though it is walkable. If that is all you want to do, then 2 days is enough. If you want to do rafting, a helicopter tour, an atv tour, etc. you will want more time. We did not see much wildlife at Denali, but the scenery was beautiful.

After two days we took a long bus ride to Fairbanks. We arrived at the Westmark late in the day. We went out to eat and that was it for Fairbanks. The same thing in Dawson city and Whitehorse: arriving too late in the day to visit attractions or museums, just enough time for some souvenir shopping and dinner. But still glad I got to see Fairbanks and the Yukon.

Then we took the bus to Skagway to get our ship. We said good bye to Ashley and our driver, Tim, both of whom were fantastic, and boarded the ship. We had a suite which was beautiful. Then we went back into Skagway to take our helicopter tour which we had arranged through HA. We flew to a glacier and it was such an amazing experience. Afterwards, we did some shopping in town then went back to the ship for dinner. We loved our suite on the back of deck 8. I would recommend the 7th deck as we were right under the pool deck and we could hear them moving chairs in the morning. The next day we sailed through Glacier Bay, which we noticed is not on the itinerary of the north going, sea first tour. It was beautiful. The next day was Ketchikan which is a fun city. There are people selling tours when you dock. The Duck tour seemed very popular. We took the prearranged tour to the Rainforrest Raptor Center. We enjoyed it. When we returned to town, we had lunch and shopped. The next day was at sea with more beautiful scenery and some dolphin sightings. The last day we docked in Vancouver in the morning. Read more