Lisa - Looks like you are doing the same itinerary we did. Renting a car can be cheaper for two or more people. We rented a car in Skagway and it cost $67 for the car and $15 for the gas. It gave us the flexibility to see what we wanted, at the pace we wanted to go (and to stop, shop and eat where we wanted). The drawback is that we did not get the history and other information a tour guide would provide. I'm not sure if it would be worth renting a car in Juneau or Ketchikan since the roads there are fairly limited. We got most of our port sightseeing info and ideas from cruise boards like this one. How you arrange port sightseeing depends mainly on what you want to see. For example, in Juneau we just wanted to see Mendenhall Glacier so we just paid $10 for a roundtrip on a shuttle bus that we knew (from these boards) were available right at the dock. If we wanted to do other things like whale watching or seeing the salmon hatchery we probably would have booked tours. In Skagway, our main goal was to drive the Klondike Highway to Emerald Lake. Since we got a detailed description of the drive from this website:
http://www.bellsalaska.com/myalaska/klondikehwy2.html we decided to do it ourselves. There are tours that pretty much do the same thing we did but we wanted to be more flexible. Because I (not we) wanted to see the remains of the goldrush town of Dyea, we thought a car would give us the flexibility to do that drive (insert "wild goose chase") too. But that is another story (we didn't find anything). In Ketchikan, we just walked among the dockside shops for about an hour since my sweetie took advantage of the "in port spa specials" which limited our sightseeing time. (Not that it mattered to me since I had been to Ketchikan before on another cruise).
The docks for each port are right near each town. One of the piers in Juneau is right infront of the downtown shops and the others piers are several hundred yards away. In Skagway, the piers are anywhere from a hundred yards to maybe a quarter mile from downtown. I think only two ships can dock in Ketchikan (right infront of the shops). When we were in port, the Coral Princess had to tender their passengers to the docks. As for Victoria, it looked to me that the pier was about a quarter to half mile from the inner harbor. However, we weren't able to get off the ship since we were on the cruise that hit the pier, damaged the propeller and wasn't able to get properly docked.
As for dining, we had the first seating in the International (traditional) dining room at an assigned table. The International guest are offered their menu and the menu from one of the alternative restaurants on four of the non-formal nights. For us it was something like - Sterlings on Saturday; Vivaldi on Monday; Pacific Moon on Tuesday; Santa Fe on Wednesday. Formal nights were Sunday and Thursday. A review on how the dining on the Diamond works can be read at this website:
http://www.cruisenewsdaily.com/nf40330.html
We found that the traditional diners could eat at the alternative restaurants. I can't say it was encouraged because it may leave your regular dinner tablemates feeling abandoned - not to mention the waiters. The waiters were so happy when they had a full table. Thus, we tried to keep to our assigned table and we didn't find the alternative restaurant menues too interesting anyway. However, on our day in Skagway we didn't reboard until our dining time. We didn't want to rush back to our room to change so we decided to eat at the Santa Fe that night. We were going to go to the International just to let our tablemates know that we weren't going to show that night, however, we ran into our waiter on the gangway and let him know instead. We did enjoy eating in the Santa Fe as we had a table for two that was set in a bank of three tables (which almost made it a table for six). We were able to have nice conversations with the other two couples and our waiter was just hilarious. Our choice to ask for traditional dining and trying to stick with it was mainly because we wanted to eat with the same group of people more than once. Since we were on this cruise as a couple, we were hoping to meet some people that we could have on-going conversations during the cruise and not have the same types of conversation each night - you know - where are you from; have you cruised before; etc. So, it was nice to talk to the same people each night. On the other hand, we still loved meeting other people (and yes, having those initial conversations) at breakfast and lunch (which is available in the International for all passengers). We also paid for brunch (sea days only) in Sabatinis ($20/person) and had a great leisurly meal conversing with the table next to us and the very attentive waiters. The afternoon tea is very nice but can become very funny as the waiters try to give you food every minute.
Wow, this is much more than I expected to write. Hope my ramblings made sense. Have a great cruise.
Post Edited (06-10-04 10:51)
