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Anyone close to cruising knows that cruise lines are incredibly involved with trains and train travel. Some even own and operate them, including some of the most famous and iconic ones, as you will hear. That’s why they really want us to do three things: book train travel before cruises, during cruises as excursions, and after the cruise.
Welcome aboard. I'm Gary Bembridge, helping you to get cruising right, including those train trips and excursions your cruise line really wants us to do and why.
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I was really surprised how many commentators were totally confused about why a Royal Caribbean would launch an immersive train-based dining venue called Royal Railway Utopia Station on board Utopia of the Seas, where diners sit in rail carriages and screens of the windows take the guests on imagined rail journeys throughout the Wild West and Asia
0:21
Anyone close to cruising actually knows that cruise lines are incredibly involved with trains and train travel, some even own and operate their
0:29
including some of the most famous and iconic ones as you're about to hear
0:34
That's why they really want us to do three things. Book train travel before cruises, during cruises, book trains as excursions
0:43
and go on them after the cruise. Why do they do that? Well, you're about to find out
0:47
Welcome on board, I'm Gary Bembridge, helping you to get cruising right, including which train trips and excursions your cruise line really wants you to do and which you should do and why
0:56
Let me start with, based on my experience, the best pre- and pre-and-term
0:59
post cruise train trips that the cruise lines offer, many of which I've done and have really, really
1:05
added to my overall cruise experience. I'll start in Alaska as the lines are heavily linked to trains
1:11
here. First, one of the most amazing experiences I've had is taking the train from Anchorage to
1:17
join a princess cruise sailing out of Whittier. It's called the Glacier Discovery Route. It takes
1:22
about two and a half hours and pulls up right outside where the ship docks in Wittier. They whisked away
1:29
my luggage at check-in-an-anchorage and the next time I saw it was in my cabin. Absolutely brilliant
1:35
It was a beautiful experience weaving its way through the Alaskan landscape, giving me an
1:40
incredible insight into the country and it's absolutely stunning beauty because it's weaving
1:45
its way to the ship through just a remarkable scenery. It's also incredibly convenient because
1:49
Anchorage is 60 miles from Whittier. It's really, really hard to find a taxi or car transfer
1:55
and it's way more exciting and much more scenic than the coach ride
1:59
Next, you may be surprised to hear that both Holland America and Princess Cruises operate
2:05
the largest fleet of Dome Railway cars in Alaska, including what's known as the McKinley
2:11
Explorer. They use these trains as part of their land and cruise packages, and they transport
2:17
cruise passages from Whittier and Anchorage to the wildlife lodges that they own in Denali
2:22
National Park and in Fairbanks. Their cruises travel on these beautiful glass dome trains that
2:29
weave their way, travel through dramatic Alaskan landscapes. It has breakfast, they have lunch, they have cocktails, because the train trip takes between
2:36
nine and ten hours. They have guides on board, giving commentary, explaining the sites, the wildlife, and the
2:41
stories of the area. It is just quite an amazing trip. Thirdly although the Lions don own it many offer packages on one of the most iconic train rides in the world to cruisers joining or leaving Alaska cruises in Vancouver Canada It called the Rocky Mountaineer This
2:58
is also one of the most scenic and memorable trains that I've taken. The Rocky
3:03
Mountaineer, as the name suggests, travels through the Rocky Mountains on what feels like
3:09
an absolutely impossible to have built railway line due to the height and the terrain. The most popular
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route and the one that I did runs between Banff and Vancouver and it's called the first passage to the west. The trip is two days on the train
3:23
and one overnight off the train in a place called Cam Loops. The train has two classes
3:28
Silverleaf, a one-level glass dome carriage where meals are served at the seat and gold leaf
3:34
which I did, that has seating upstairs under a glass dome, so it's probably way better for sightseeing
3:39
And then you have a restaurant for meals on the lower level, along with a great open-air viewing section
3:44
The food served on the train was absolutely fantastic. I really do recommend if you're doing an Alaskan cruise that you consider adding one or more of these train trips to it
3:56
The cruise shows you a narrow slice of Alaska, beautiful as it is, but you really need to explore deep inland to see the scenery and importantly more of the wildlife
4:05
And that's why the cruise lines really want you to do a train trip, a lodge day and a cruise to truly see it and why many of them own them
4:12
But what about other parts of the world are cruise and train pre- and post trips as intertwined
4:18
as Alaska? Well, in South Africa, there's another memorable trip that I've experienced, and that is
4:23
Rovos Rail. And several cruise lines operating out of Cape Town during the season offer packages with
4:29
Rovos Rail. Rovis Rail is a private rail company. It's based in Bortoia
4:34
It was set up in 1989 by Rohan Vos, and it's still family owned
4:38
And he converted old Rhodesia Railway Pullman Carriages into loungers, restaurant cars and these beautiful sleeping compartments with on-sweet bathrooms
4:48
The classic route is the one that I did between Pretoria and Cape Town, but they also go up
4:52
to the Victoria Falls and even way up as far as Tanzania. It really is a magnificent experience
4:58
In Australia too, it's also possible to link a cruise to two iconic and famous Australian
5:04
trains, again, both of which I've done. The Indian Pacific train is the most link because it travels
5:10
between Perth, which is close to the cruise port of Fremantle and Sydney, of course, another key cruise
5:15
port. On their website, they list a wide range of cruise and rail combinations that you can do
5:21
with the train on multiple cruise lines, including Pino, Cunard, Ponod and way more. Indian Pacific
5:27
is considered one of the great rail journeys of the world. It takes four days and three nights
5:32
and even travels at one point along the world's longest straight stretch of track, 478 kilometers
5:39
297 miles across the N horridor plain I actually went from Sydney to Perth and had off excursions in the mining town of Broken Hill in Adelaide where I visited the market and had
5:50
a unique dinner at the ghost town in Cook and we had a dinner at the station in Raulina which serves
5:57
as a station for the sprawling ranchers all around it. The train has gold and platinum classes
6:03
In Platinum I had a large double cabin with on-sweet bathroom and then we have a dedicated platinum
6:08
dining car and lounge. And again, it shows Australia beyond the ports and really gives you an
6:13
appreciation of the scale of the country. Now for cruises doing the Kimberley expedition
6:18
cruises which start or end in Darwin usually, the GAN is the train best linked to those
6:23
Now the GAN also takes three nights and four days. It travels 2,917 kilometers, 1,815 miles between
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Darwin and Adelaide. It travels to the great outback or the so-called red center. I did this train
6:37
before joining Queen Mary 2. There were off-train excursions in Catherine and the famous Alice Springs where I got to visit
6:44
things like the home of the Flying Doctors. In Europe and UK, there are some links to cruising trains, while not as significant
6:51
as in the countries I've spoken about, but there are some fascinating options
6:57
Some river cruise lines use the Euristar to whisk cruises to him from the UK under the English
7:01
channel to Paris to join river cruises close to the Eiffel Tower that then sail down the River
7:06
sane, which I've done with Crossy Europe. Others use the Eurostar to take cruises to Amsterdam
7:13
to sell the Rhine or even go all the way down the Danube to the beautiful city of Budapest
7:19
In the UK, there are many day trips also that cruise lines and cruise travel agencies
7:24
book their guests on and even charter number of carriages on. So, for example
7:30
I recently went on the Northern Bell on a day trip out of London, Victoria, down to Bournemouth
7:34
where most of the train on that day was charted by Imagine Cruising, a really major cruising travel agency
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The Northern Bell, by the way, is rated by Condon House Traveller as Britain's most luxurious train
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It has refurbished Pullman carriages. You have lavish meals on board entertainers
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It really is quite a magical experience. A similarly famous train is the Belmont British Pullman, which I've also been on and does a very similar thing to the Northern Bell
8:02
Now, both of those are more like going on an excursion, which brings me to the surprisingly large
8:09
number of train excursions that cruise lines offer passengers in ports around the world
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There are, my view, four that you should look out for and absolutely consider
8:19
The first is in Skagway, Alaska, the White Pass and Yukon Train, which is actually owned
8:23
by Cardival Corporation. It's the single most popular attraction for cruise passengers across the state from what I hear
8:30
It started construction in 1898 when the Klondike gold rush began and the aim was to make it easier to get to the goldfields over this really huge dangerous treacherous white past
8:42
And then the idea was you could then shift materials and all backwards and forwards
8:46
Now the train itself stopped operating in 1982. It was revived as a heritage railway train years later and eventually Carnival Corporation bought it
8:55
The trains actually now run right to the side of cruise ships and they'll take you on a 20 kilometre 30 mile each way
9:01
trip winding its way up this enormous mountain you'll pass old deserted bridges you go through
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tunnels and the guide will explain the gold rush the history of the train and of course the sites i
9:11
absolutely love this train and i go on every single time i go to scale away i never tire of it
9:18
an equally impressive mountain train that i love to do if i'm going on a Norwegian fjords cruise
9:23
is the flam railway like the white pass in yukon train this goes way up behind the mountains
9:29
It's also a relatively short train trip of about the same amount, 20 kilometres, 30 miles
9:34
each way between Flam and Mirdal. And it basically weaves up the mountain, really steep
9:39
It's got 21 hair pin bends, it's got 20 tunnels, stunning views
9:43
And the train makes a stop at the incredible Kios Fjosen waterfall
9:48
where an actress dresses the legendary Haldra, a seductive forest creature in Scandinavian folklore
9:54
dances and sings for us and guests in front of the magnificent waterfall
9:59
On a different continent is another incredible train excursion with a lot of history
10:04
This is a new Shire, Argentina, which is where over 90% of all Antarctica cruises
10:09
depart from. And of course it's a key stop on many South American cruises too
10:14
And this is known as the end of the world train. It goes from a Shire through the Tierra del Fuego National Park
10:21
This is a rail line with an extremely narrow gauge and very narrow carriages, and it follows
10:26
the route of a convict train that ran from 1910. to 1947, which took them out daily to collect wood. It has an incredible history. And as I
10:35
chugged along, as well as the stunning scenery, waterfalls, forest and rivers, I saw the famous
10:41
wild horses. It also stops, by the way, partway at a station which have kind of local crafts
10:46
on sale. Another perhaps more accessible for most cruisers is a train excursion is in the
10:52
Caribbean. And this is the Sint Kitts scenic train. This is a three-hour train ride that
10:57
weaves its way for 30 miles 48 kilometers all the way around St Kitts in double-decker carriages
11:03
It was built in the 1910s to transport sugar cane from the island's sugar plantations
11:08
to the sugar factory in the capital of Bacetiaire. It's a fun and it's a really great
11:14
scenic experience. Now if you want to know what it's like to actually be on some of these
11:18
trains, why don't you draw me over in this playlist I put together where I'm going to
11:22
show you the experience of traveling on many of these incredible trains that I've spoken about
11:27
over there
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