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I share 6 key Alaska Cruise tips on how to make a cruise to Alaska amazing. I explore in my Alaska cruise tips some key watch outs and mistakes cruisers to Alaska often make, and what to focus on in planning and when there. My Alaska cruise tips includes: best time to go tips, best Alaska cruise itinerary tips, best Alaska cruise excursion and things to do tips, best cruise line to go to Alaska with, type of cabin to choose tips and some big Alaska cruising fare and budgeting tips.
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Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 77 cruises at time of making this video.
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i'm gary bembridge this is another my
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tips for travellers
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i'm going to give you six simple but
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sure ways
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that you can ensure that an alaska
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cruise
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is absolutely phenomenal first of all
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pick the absolute best time to go this
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alaska season runs
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between may and september my personal
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favorite month to go
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is may and the reason for that is it's
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the beginning of the season
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things are starting up quite slowly the
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the towns aren't overrun
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prices are generally cheaper than the
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peak season which is really
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june july and also you're less likely to
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have lots of rain
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the peak season when most people like to
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go is june and july this is
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when you're going to see more wildlife
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because the salmon run has started the
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bears start coming out however
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you are likely to have much more rain as
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you head into august and september the
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days start to get a little bit shorter
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gets a little bit cooler and again you
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have a chance of lots of rain
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the highest prices are in june and july
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so
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bear that in mind when you plan my
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absolute key watch out though
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as you do pick the best time is in
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alaska the weather is very
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changeable you can't guarantee you're
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going to have great weather however
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once you're in alaska it is absolutely
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phenomenal and don't let the weather
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get in your way of an incredible cruise
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my second tip as you plan your cruise in
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2021 or 2022
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is decide what is the best itinerary for
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you there are two
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key alaska cruise itineraries one of the
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most popular ones
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is the inside passage and this is
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actually the one i would recommend if
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you're heading to alaska for the very
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first time
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the inside passage is basically a narrow
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strip of water
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which is very well protected by islands
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on the one side mainland on the other
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side also
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tends to be great smooth sailing these
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tend to be
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seven night itineraries you can head out
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of places like vancouver or even seattle
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you normally have one sea day at the
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beginning at the end and then you'll
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visit some of the key
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places you will normally go to juno
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which is the capital of
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alaska this town really exploded during
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the whole
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gold rush one of the interesting things
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about juno is there's no actual
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road access into juno it has a
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population of around 30 000
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which makes us the third biggest city in
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alaska
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the second place you'd like to go to is
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skagway which is actually one of my
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favorite places to go skagway is also
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the turnaround point
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if you are on an inside passage cruise
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skagway
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developed when the gold was found in the
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klondike and 35 000 prospectors headed
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through skagway heading up to the
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klondike gold fields
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most of them didn't actually find famous
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fortunes and skagway became renowned
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for its pubs its craziness its scams
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and its slightly sleazy side one of the
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best parts about skagway is the
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white pass and yukon railway was built
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in this is one of the best excursions of
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things you can do
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when you're in alaska the third key
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place
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on an inside passage cruise is ketchikan
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ketchikan is built on an
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old native fishing village area and it
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used to be the salmon canning
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center of alaska and it also used to be
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a key
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logging town the other thing you'll do
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is you'll spend time
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looking at the scenery and visiting
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glaciers so some of the cruisers will go
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into glacier bay
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however not all cruise ships go in there
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it's a national
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park and they control how many cruise
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ships go in there glacier bay
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is phenomenal i would actually recommend
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if you're looking for a cruise
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to alaska into the inside passage make
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sure that you're going on one that
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includes glacier bay if not you'd like
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to go to other
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places such as tracy arm for example
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the other alaska itinerary which you may
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want to consider particularly if you're
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going back to alaska for
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a second time is the gulf of alaska
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cruises
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these tend to be seven eye cruises but
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they're heading one way so you might
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start in seattle you might start in
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vancouver
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and it normally heads up to anchorage or
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you could do it the other way
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round they'll tend to spend time in
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the inside passage but will also take
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you to see some of the most phenomenal
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and impressive glaciers of all which is
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why
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a lot of people choose this cruise the
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glaciers that you get to see on the
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saturn could include the valdez the
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hubba glacier
4:10
and college fjord so what are the watch
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outs or things as you plan these well
4:14
first of all alaska is phenomenally
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phenomenally popular so
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whenever you go it's going to be busy so
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expect to have lots of ships in all of
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these places
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and it's going to be really really
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crowded
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if you're going on the gulf of alaska
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cruise
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you do spend much more time out at sea
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and
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it can be relatively rough so
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seasickness is
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more of a challenge if you go on that
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particular itinerary the third key
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tip that i have is first of all budget
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for excursions there's some phenomenal
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things to do
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but they can be fairly pricey plan ahead
4:48
and really think about what you can do
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as you've seen from the itineraries you
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don't have a lot of time on land so you
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maybe only have three places that you're
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gonna be on land so really really think
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really carefully about what you want to
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do there are probably four key
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activities that i would recommend you
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think about
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for your alaska cruise first of all
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which a lot of people do
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is visit glaciers so at various ports
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you can actually get the chance to go
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either on land to go and stand on walk
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on or just view glaciers
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or you can even do some helicopter trips
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where you can fly up onto
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a glacier and do things like dog husking
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excursions which are really phenomenal
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write up on the glacier
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the second key activity which is also
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very popular and you probably want to
5:28
include one of these
5:29
particularly depending on the time of
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the year is whale watching
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heading out on boats to go and look at
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wales is one of the most popular
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things to do on an alaska cruise the
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third thing to do
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is cultural emotions so this tends not
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to be in all the places you go to
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but there will be some cultural emotion
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options particularly looking at some of
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the
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native inhabitants of the region where
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you can go and
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understand much more of the culture and
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their history
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then you'll find a whole bunch of
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activity type excursions so things like
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zip lining
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kayaking those kinds of activities then
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of course
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which i haven't actually included but
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you do find some excursions around this
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area is eating and drinking you'll find
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lots of those options as well
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particularly related to salmon let me
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give you
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my specific tips for the must-do things
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in some of those
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places so let's start first of all with
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juno
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in juno there are three fantastic things
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to do and you probably
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in your time in juneau can do at least
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two of them
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first of all glaciers the nearest and
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biggest glacier to juno
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is the mend hall glacier there's various
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different excursions you can do here
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at various different prices but i would
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strongly recommend building some sort of
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glacier experience when you're in juneau
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the second great thing to do is head up
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on the mount roberts tramway so you can
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do this either before or after your
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excursion
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it's right takes you right up to the top
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of the mountain you get phenomenal views
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right down through these sort of fjords
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over across the ships it's really quite
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remarkable
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the other thing which is a bit of an
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institution to include on your time in
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juneau
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is to go to the red dog saloon it's
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actually been rebuilt from its originals
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but it's kind of a thing that people do
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when you're in ketchikan there are again
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three great things that you can do and
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you can probably do all of these
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in one of the particular days a lot of
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people will still head off and do their
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glaciers
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or whale watching but things i recommend
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which again is one of the institutions
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is the great alaskan lumberjack show
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this is really good fun
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they have multiple activities during the
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day and you get to see
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lumberjacks doing all sorts of
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competitions and challenges
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and it's really really good fun
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absolutely strongly recommended
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the other thing you can do is you can
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get a trolley bus out to
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the totem bright state park which is
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packed full of the most remarkable totem
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poles and a really great gift
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shop another thing that i really like to
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do when i'm catching again
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is go and explore the old part of town
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so this is known as creek street and
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creek street
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is built over the water and it's where
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they used to be the very
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dodgy pubs brothels ladies of the night
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and all sorts of shenanigans used to go
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on here there's really great stories
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and it really is good fun ketchikan
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vibrant lots going on lots of shopping
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as well when you're in skagway for me
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there is
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one absolute must-do and this is to head
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up
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on the white pass and yukon route
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railroad
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it was built in 1898 during the gold
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rush era
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it climbs from sea level to almost three
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thousand feet high it can go past
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waterfalls
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mountains glaciers it really is just
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quite remarkable
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the key watch that i have about
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excursions is rebera mind as i said
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lastly it's really busy so i would
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plan excursions ahead i would book those
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excursions ahead and you do need to
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budget for them because these can be
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quite
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hefty in price so for example if you go
8:48
on one of the dog sledding
8:50
activities this could cost you up to 600
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or more dollars
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per person if it includes a helicopter
8:56
seaplane rides over glaciers could be
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over two hundred dollars
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whale watching could cost you over a
9:02
hundred and fifty dollars
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the yukon railway can cost from 150
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dollars
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up to three 300 per person so as you can
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see some of these
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excursions can be quite hefty but if
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you're heading to alaska it's a
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phenomenal experience and i would
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strongly recommend you build into your
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budget doing some of these
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big fantastic excursions the next tip i
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have
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is around who you should actually go
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with there are two cruise lines that
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have
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enormous experience in alaska the first
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of those is holland america they've
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actually been
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operating in alaska for the longest and
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that's because they
9:34
bought a company which was formed in
9:35
1947 west tours which
9:37
was sold on america so they've been in
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alaska for over 70 years and have huge
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amounts of experience
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and they also do own some actual lodges
9:45
on land as well so they can do
9:46
a land and cruise package princess
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cruises
9:51
really is probably one of the biggest
9:52
players in alaska
9:54
and princess cruises have been there for
9:56
almost 50 years
9:57
operating in the area and they own buses
10:01
they own railway lines they own lodges
10:05
and they really do build together really
10:07
big land
10:08
and cruise packages so those are
10:10
definitely two to look at
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many of their ships will also get the
10:13
right to go to glacier bay because
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they've been there for so long and
10:15
that's what i like about
10:16
the whole itinerary as well you can go
10:19
on pretty much
10:20
every single cruise line so you'll find
10:21
lots of sort of mid-sized cruise lines
10:23
go from royal caribbean norwegian
10:26
you'll find it even occasionally cunard
10:27
will do an alaska season
10:29
and then go right down to very small
10:30
cruise lines like uncruise for example
10:32
which has fewer than 250 passengers
10:35
there's a really big wide range so make
10:37
sure you choose
10:38
a cruise line where you're gonna have
10:39
the type of passengers and also
10:41
the experience that you like or don't
10:44
like so if you like the big dressing up
10:45
experience you've got cunard if you like
10:46
more informal
10:48
you've got something like norwegian
10:49
cruise lines my fifth tip is again
10:52
around budgeting one of the things i
10:54
would strongly recommend
10:55
if you possibly can stretch to it is
10:57
look at getting a balcony cabin
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when you go on an alaska cruise the
11:02
scenery is really phenomenal
11:04
particularly when you have that day of
11:05
scenic cruising around the various
11:06
glaciers et cetera
11:08
having a balcony cabin is really really
11:10
special a lot of people asking me with
11:12
which side of the ship they should be on
11:13
i think it only really makes a huge big
11:15
difference
11:16
if you're actually heading on the gulf
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of alaska cruises
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so if you're heading northwards i would
11:22
actually have
11:22
a balcony on the starboard side over the
11:25
right-hand side because
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the land is on that side as you head up
11:28
if you're heading southwards
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down i would actually have it on the
11:31
port side on the left-hand side because
11:33
that's where
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the land is the next thing to consider
11:36
is
11:36
budgeting as i've mentioned there are a
11:38
couple of things you might want to do
11:39
which you wouldn't normally do on a
11:40
cruise
11:41
like a balcony cabin spending a lot of
11:43
money on excursions
11:44
so budgeting is really important so what
11:46
you want to do is make sure that you get
11:48
a really good fare
11:49
there's a lot of choice of cruise lines
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so certainly take a look at a lot of
11:53
cruise lines i'd recommend
11:54
you perhaps even use aggregated sites
11:56
where you can compare
11:58
for the time you want to go the range of
12:00
cruises also very importantly
12:02
once you've booked your fare do track
12:04
pricing i think particularly
12:05
in 2021 and 2022 i think we're going to
12:08
see lots of volatility in prices so
12:10
once you've even booked keep an eye on
12:12
prices see if the prices are going down
12:13
you can either get your fare reduced or
12:16
you can get extra benefits on board
12:17
credit or
12:18
upgrades simple ways of doing that the
12:20
sites like cruisewatch.com or even on
12:23
cruise critic they have a price watch
12:26
option where you can put in your cruise
12:27
and they will send you alerts if prices
12:29
change these simple
12:31
but absolutely sure tips should make
12:33
your alaska cruise in 2021
12:35
2022 absolutely phenomenal i have many
12:38
other videos actually about alaska about
12:40
cruising
12:40
so why don't you watch another one of
12:42
those right now
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