Are Alaska cruise excursions worth the money? — featuring La Lido Loca

0:00 well i just spent the last 14 days cruising through alaska on two different cruise ships and wow it was so amazing alaska a bucket list cruise but a different cruise than what you may be used to if you only travel maybe to the caribbean or to the mexican riviera and the one big thing that's

0:21 different about an alaskan cruise to cruising to the caribbean well is the price of excursions i want to share with you today some of the excursions i went on during my alaska cruise and let's just ask the simple question for what i got was it worth it cruise excursions in alaska

0:40 let's talk about it hey hey what's up everybody welcome to la lito loca i'm your host tony here with another cruise review and today we're looking at excursions in alaska asking the question is it worth it the way we're going to do it is i'm actually going to describe

1:05 four excursions to you at the end i'll tell you how much each of those excursions cost and we will try to answer the question was it worth it i said four excursions and that is true uh but there's only going to be a cost for three of the excursions the first excursion i want to share with

1:21 you is the glacier viewing i'm sharing this one with you first because this isn't really an excursion that you pay separately for you really don't even get off the cruise ship for it but most alaskan itineraries have a glacier viewing day now it was interesting on my two cruises on the first cruise the ncl

1:39 encore the glacier viewing occurred in glacier bay national park and it was phenomenal we had the best weather ever we were able to make our way into glacier bay and had a wonderful wonderful viewing of the marjorie glacier it's hard to even take in the perspective of how big this glacier is

1:58 and it's unfortunate because this glacier is just a shadow of what it was over the last years it's receding and so it's interesting to get there and see this glacier as it's receding but still very amazing to see that was on the ncl encore and then fast forward one week our second glacier viewing was scheduled

2:18 to be of the dawes glacier still on the cruise ship still the same scenario you view it from the cruise ship but unfortunately that glacier visit got well it got fogged out so of the two weeks i only got to see the glacier in the glacier bay national park and what was great about the glacier bay viewing

2:35 day there were other glaciers that we got to see but the marjory glacier kind of the the big the big thing to see on glacier bay day but i wanted to share that in this excursion video because that's an important day on any alaskan itinerary you do it from the cruise ship but you should treat it like an excursion you

2:52 should make a plan you should get up early you should get your breakfast and you should get a spot to view the glacier let's talk about some excursions that i did pay for we'll decide whether or not those are worth it but before we get there let me quickly thank the sponsor of today's show babel

3:08 babel is the language learning software application developed by language teachers on award-winning technology so that you can learn a whole new language in three weeks crazy right three weeks but why would you want to learn a new language well it's summertime for goodness sakes and many people are

3:27 traveling uh abroad and uh me personally i just i came back from alaska but later on in the summer i'll be heading off to quebec and so to prepare myself for that i've started messing around with the french lessons and they give it to you in so many different ways they give it to you through interactive

3:43 you know lessons they also give it to you audibly through podcast there's visual learning there i'm using the podcast and what's cool is there's a french instructor caroline having a conversation with ted ted who's trying to learn french let me just give you a bit of a sample isn't it

4:01 but please don't break up in the middle of the podcast oh come on so you'll hear caroline say the french word and then ted say the french word it's cool it's easy to do while you're walking around getting some exercise in or just going about your day you can pump your brain with some language

4:18 learning and look if you want to try babble for yourself as always there is a great offer for the local fam you can use the link in the description for 65 percent off of babel and uh yeah learn a new language today change your whole summer around thank you babel for sponsoring today's episode now i want to

4:36 talk to you about an excursion that well it just didn't go the way it was supposed to i mentioned it recently that i was going on the most expensive possibly the most dangerous excursion i had ever booked and well uh it was both it was expensive and it was dangerous and it did not

4:54 happen this was scheduled on the discovery princess in the port of juno and unfortunately because of weather i did not get to go on this excursion but i'm going to describe the excursion to you nonetheless and wait till the end when i tell you how much this this cost you might be surprised this excursion is

5:14 the taku glacier helicopter landing and airboat tour a discovery exclusive now the way this excursion was set to work is i was going to leave the discovery princess i was going to board a shuttle and they were going to shuttle me to the airport in juneau where i was going to board a helicopter the helicopter was

5:31 going to do an aerial tour 15-minute aerial tour over the tongas national forest after the 15-minute aerial tour over the forest the helicopter was set to land at taku point where i would board an airboat and go explore the face the the water facing part of the taku glacier after the exploration on the

5:52 airboat we returned to taku point where we board the helicopter again and then they would fly us to the top of taku glacier where we would get out and explore the glacier this thing was going to be epic i was so excited all the way up to the time that this excursion was supposed to go they had

6:11 not canceled it i made my way to the check-in point i checked in i gave the people my weight and my shoe size of all things my ticket and five minutes after the shuttle was supposed to leave for the airport we were notified that the tour had been canceled because of weather certainly

6:28 safety is a premium don't want to be doing anything in the sky when it's all fogged over intellectually i get that but in my heart and in my excitement i was certainly bummed out that's the risk that you take when you book any of these excursions you may end up missing a glacier as we did on that second cruise

6:45 and you may end up with changes to your excursions possibly even your ports of call all of that happens especially when you're cruising in places like alaska but yeah it gives me a reason to go back next year as if i needed a different reason to go back next year but this is this is

7:00 one excursion that now will be something i really want to do let me tell you about excursion number two excursion number two is a pretty famous excursion in ketchikan alaska the day that we went to ketchikan on the norwegian encore it was like 60 degrees so i got sunburned when i went to

7:20 ketchikan i did the famous great alaskan lumberjack show so when you're on norwegian if you're going to do an excursions or exploration of ketchikan you either have to take a shuttle into town or you have to pick up your excursion shuttle at the cruise ship and for the great lumberjack show they had a

7:38 shuttle that took me directly to the lumberjack show essentially it is a good humored uh fake competition it's a competition between the usa and canada it's between lumberjacks on each side but if you've ever seen like a lumberjacking competition on espn or look it up on youtube it's really neat

7:56 it's really you get to see some interesting lumberjacking skills from chopping to sawing to climbing to log rolling it reminds me of other you know produced shows like in gatlinburg but uh yeah it was fun now i've got one more excursion to describe to you and then we will talk about the price talk about

8:13 whether or not i thought it was worth it but before i get there let me quickly invite you to subscribe if you like staying up to date with everything that's going on in cruising please consider subscribing with the notification bell on that way don't miss out on any of these episodes thank you

8:29 in advance well the last excursion i'd like to describe to you is a good old traditional glacier visit and well watching tour this one happened in juneau on the ncl encore you disembark the cruise ship there at the port in juneau you board a shuttle and then you take about a half an hour ride to the

8:47 mendenhall glacier where they drop you off for a one hour visit now there's a lot to do at the mendenhall glacier but with one hour you have to kind of pick and choose what you want to do very famously there is a location there called the nugget falls it's a wonderful waterfall that you can hike to

9:05 unfortunately that hike takes longer than an hour so for me i had a couple options i walked around the little observation areas as much as possible there's a good photo spot where you can see the waterfall you can see the glacier and so i spent my hour walking around the area right toward the entrance of the

9:23 mendenhall glacier took a lot of pictures i went on a little walkabout it was really interesting but i didn't want to miss the bus because i didn't want to miss the second half of this excursion so after an hour at the glacier we boarded the bus and we went to akbay and we boarded a vessel the

9:40 saint nicholas that is operated by the allen marine company now this is the same well watching company that took me out last year where i saw orca well this year we got to see a glam a glam of humpback whales doing the bubble net feeding it's hard it's hard to get good video of this i'm just

10:00 saying so i guess that's nature's way of saying if you really want to take in the majesty of these animals doing their thing well you have to watch national geographic where they have professional photographers and videographers or you have to come to alaska and experience it for itself it was quite

10:16 the show i tell you what this um it was amazing i i called this well watching my golf shot if uh if you heard me talk about it last year anybody out there that plays golf knows that golf is not an easy game many times you hit horrible shots not the best shot but it only takes hitting

10:32 one good shot or having one good hole to make you want to play golf again and uh to me seeing the orca last year seeing the bubble net feeding of the humpback whales well that's a golf shot that's enough to make me want to go back to alaska and see the next really cool thing so we got to do some well watching

10:50 for a couple of hours and then we returned to our shuttle bus and we returned back to our cruise ship for about a five hour excursion so i didn't really want the description of the excursions to be hampered by the cost because i didn't want you making judgments in your mind but now it's time to make judgments in

11:07 your mind i'm going to describe for you what these excursions cost and you tell me whether or not it was worth it and let me say this all of these excursions were purchased through the respective cruise line that i was on but let's start off with the tongass forest taku glacier airboat helicopter excursion

11:23 that did not happen are you ready for the price on this that uh that excursion that did not happen because of weather was 679.95 for people that weigh 250 pounds so yes there was a weight limit because of the helicopter and so when i saw this in the brochure i said well i'm over 250

11:45 pounds but let me go and talk to the excursion desk and see if they have some sort of process see if i can buy two tickets so they have a process there on princess where the if you're over the weight limit for the helicopter at least on this excursion they would sell you a surcharge ticket

12:01 where that you would take up a second spot on the helicopter but it wouldn't be the cost of the full excursion i gave them my weight they came back and said that my surcharge would be two hundred dollars and so i had that decision point did i want to spend 879 dollars and 95 cents to go on the excursion and i did i

12:18 wanted to show it to you guys i wanted to i wanted to blow my sponsorship money on some fantastical excursion that many of us wouldn't expect me to do i've never been in a helicopter and i'm so excited but as you're sitting at home thinking about almost 700 dollars for those three things

12:35 do you think that that would be worth it i would i'd love to hear your feedback on that number two was the great alaskan lumberjack show that was 39.95 per person and included the shuttle ride over the shuttle ride back make sure you tip your shuttle drivers take some cash with you so yeah 40 bucks for a really

12:52 well produced show right there in the heart of alaska right there in ketchikan i feel like that was worth the 40 bucks i felt like i got good value for the one hour uh the fact that the shuttle was included with it it was cool i enjoyed the great alaskan lumberjack show and i felt like it was worth the 40

13:08 excursion number three one hour at mendenhall glacier and the whale watching well that one came in at 199.95 and yeah again i went out in nature and saw something that i've never seen in my life i've never seen a glam of humpback whales i've never seen that bubble net feeding and it was fantastical it was

13:29 amazing what do you think were these excursions worth it which excursion would you have liked to have tried uh leave a comment below thank you so much for checking out today's show i sure hope you enjoyed it you can do me a solid if you enjoyed it you can hit the like button another huge thanks to babel

13:46 for sponsoring today's show make sure you check out their link in the description and if you want to see that moment when i saw it work check this video out next tony for lively to look until the next time we'll see you on the lido bye