Alaska-Yukon Cruise Tour

This trip is a Cruise-Tour with Holland America Cruise Lines to Alaska with a land trip through Yukon Territory, Canada. This was a short adventure of 11 days and 10 nights.   My brother and sister-in-law were also on the trip.  This was our first cruise on a "large ship" with just over 1,200 passengers.

Our itinerary started on July 12, 2008, leaving Reno, Nevada and flying via Alaska Airlines to Seattle with a connecting flight to Vancouver, British Columbia.  This initial start of the trip took 5½ hours.

The cities in the menu to the left are in order of the trip.

The cruise-line bus was at the airport and took us through the city of Vancouver to the port for boarding the Statendam.  The bus driver gave a running commentary about Vancouver during the approximately 45 minutes drive to the harbor.  We did not have to pick up our airline checked luggage – it went straight to the cruise ship.  We were on board and in our stateroom by 2:30 p.m..  Our stateroom was on level 6 which is the lower promenade deck. 

We immediately searched out the buffet for lunch.  By the time we got back to our cabin, my brother and sister-in-law were knocking on our door to welcome us aboard.  By this time our luggage was in our cabin.

One last chore before casting off was a mandatory lifeboat drill with life vests.  The crew actually did a roll call to make sure everyone was present.  They reinforced which life station to go to in case of an emergency.

Below is a map of our route highlighted in yellow starting in the lower right corner.  We cruised along the coast of British Columbia, through the Inside Passage with the first stop at Juneau,  We continued north to Skagway where we disembarked and took the White Pass RR train to Fraser, BC.  At Fraser we went though Canadian customs and boarded a tour bus to travel the Klondike Hwy to Whitehorse, Yukon.  After spending the night we continued to Dawson City for a two night stay.  We boarded a boat on the Yukon River to Eagle, Alaska.

At Eagle a tour bus took the Taylor Hwy to Chicken then Tok on the Alaska Hwy.  As we got to Delta Junction (the end of the Al-Can Hwy), we were now on the Richardson Hwy to Fairbanks.

From Fairbanks we boarded the McKinley Express train to Denali National Park.  After a two night stay we left again on the McKinley Express to Anchorage.

More detailed maps are on the main page of each stop.