Looking to see a wide range of Alaska’s most famous wilderness areas in a single trip? A “cruisetour” organized by Princess Cruises® could be the answer.
The California-based cruise company has long been the leader in Alaska cruisetours, which pair a cruise along the state’s southeastern coast with overland touring into its rugged interior. Princess is also known for longer cruisetour itineraries that cover many of Alaska’s most celebrated destinations in a single, easy-to-arrange trip.
Among the 28 Alaska cruisetour itineraries that Princess offers, more than any other company, for instance, are several epic options up to 17 nights in length covering not only Denali National Park and Glacier Bay National Park*, but also at least one and sometimes two additional major national parks.
These extra parks include Kenai Fjords National Park, home to one of North America’s most spectacular ice fields and glacier-carved fjords, and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest national park in the United States.
Princess notably owns its own lodges and infrastructure at all these national park destinations — something no other tour company can say. Princess also owns its own fleet of glass-domed rail cars and motorcoaches for transportation between destinations.
Here, a look at three of Princess’s most ambitious cruisetours, each covering multiple national park visits. For a deeper dive into all 28 cruisetour itineraries, which range from 10 to 17 nights, see our related guide to Princess cruisetours in Alaska.
3 major national parks, including Kenai Fjords
Tour name: 15-day Denali Escorted (tour code UB8)
Denali National Park and Preserve is probably Alaska’s most well-known national park, but don’t overlook the lesser-visited Kenai Fjords National Park.
South of Anchorage on Alaska’s stunning Kenai Peninsula, the giant park (nearly as big as Rhode Island) is a major hub for outdoor pursuits and plays a big role in this Princess tour.
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Travelers will spend three nights at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge®, allowing plenty of time to explore Kenai Fjords National Park and the surrounding area.
Home to the massive Harding Icefield, one of the largest ice fields in the U.S. and numerous glacier-carved fjords, the park itself offers visitors the chance to see a glacier up close on foot, by boat, by kayak or by flightseeing tour. Visitors can spot wildlife like Steller sea lions, puffins, Dall’s porpoises, American black bears, snowshoe hares, mountain goats and humpback whales.
Other popular activities include world-famous salmon fishing and scenic float trips on the Kenai River, which flows 75 miles from Cooper Landing (where the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge is) to Cook Inlet. There are also hiking trails just outside the lodge.
This tour pairs a three-night stay at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge with a three-night stay at Princess-owned lodging in the Denali National Park area and a two-night stay in Fairbanks, Alaska. Princess combines this eight-day overland tour with a seven-night cruise along the Southeast Alaska coast for a total of 15 days.
On the cruise portion of the trip, you will experience Glacier Bay National Park* and Preserve*, a third major national park.
3 major national parks, including Wrangell-St. Elias
Tour name: 13-day Denali Escorted (tour code SB6)
Quick, can you name the largest national park in the United States? If you said Yellowstone National Park or Grand Canyon National Park, you’d be off by a margin.
The biggest national park in the United States by far is one you may not even know: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. It measures more than 20,000 square miles — about six and 10 times the size of Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, respectively.
In south-central Alaska, the park is relatively unknown due to its remoteness. It draws fewer than 100,000 visitors a year. But seeing it, albeit briefly, is a key part of this unusual Princess tour.
The 13-day trip includes an overnight stay at the Princess-owned Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge, just down the road from the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park visitor center.
The 85-room lodge offers spectacular views of the Wrangell Mountains, which are at the core of the park. It also overlooks one of Alaska’s most famous human-made features: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
For visitors, it serves as a base for hiking, salmon fishing, all-terrain-vehicle touring, rafting trips, jet boat tours, coastal kayaking, glacier-viewing boat tours and even a visit to the ghost town of Kennicott (a former mining camp).
In addition to the overnight at Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge, the land portion of this tour includes a four-night stay at Princess-owned lodging in the Denali National Park area and an overnight visit to Fairbanks, Alaska. This six-night overland tour is also paired with a seven-night cruise along the Southeast Alaska coast.
As with the 15-day tour, the cruise will allow you to experience a third major national park, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.*
4 major national parks
Tour name: 17-day Denali Escorted (tour codes VB1 and VA1)
If you want to go to both Kenai Fjords National Park and Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park on a single tour, this 17-day Princess journey is the one for you.
This Alaska cruisetour — the longest Princess offers — includes two nights at Princess lodges at each of those parks, two nights each at its two Denali-area lodges (the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and Mount McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge), and two nights at the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge.
For those counting, that’s two full nights in each of Princess’s five lodges in Alaska.
As with all Princess cruisetours in Alaska, the 17-day trip also includes a seven-night cruise along the Southeast Alaska coast, with a visit to Glacier Bay National Park.*
That means that you’ll be able to see four of Alaska’s eight national parks (Denali, Kenai Fjords, Wrangell-Saint Elias and Glacier Bay) in a single epic trip.
The cruise also stops at Skagway, Alaska, a historic gold rush town, a significant portion of which falls within Klondike gold rush National Historical Park. That brings the total to five national park sites on the voyage.
You can take this vacation two ways: either go on the overland tour first or the cruise portion.
If you choose the cruise portion first, you will experience one slight variation. Your ship will visit the College Fjord glacier area instead of Hubbard Glacier (both are great for glacier viewing).
Bottom line
Princess Cruises is known for long Alaska tours that combine cruise and overland travel to reach some of the state’s most celebrated wilderness destinations. If you’re looking for a single trip that can get you to iconic Alaska destinations like Denali National Park, Glacier Bay National Park*, Kenai Fjords National Park and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, a Princess cruisetour is one of the strongest options available.
*Princess Cruises is an authorized concessioner of Glacier Bay National Park.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thepointsguy.com
