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The Yukon & Denali – An Alaskan Cruise Tour
The Yukon & Denali – An Alaskan Cruise Tour. Fly to Vancouver before joining Holland America’s Noordam for an awe-inspiring, 7 night Alaska Cruise from Vancouver to Seward. After our Alaska Cruise experience, we head to Anchorage for 2 nights before taking the McKinley Explorer to Denali National Park for a wonderful 2-night stay which includes a Tundra wilderness tour. Then it’s on to Dawson, via Fairbanks, before returning to Vancouver.
The Yukon & Denali – An Alaskan Cruise Tour
7 night Alaska Cruise
7 night Denali & Yukon Land Tour
from £4599pp
The Yukon & Denali – An Alaska Cruise Tour – Itinerary Map
Glacier Bay
The Yukon & Denali – An Alaskan Cruise Tour
With eight ships in Alaska, Holland America Line offers convenient Alaska cruise options from multiple embarkation ports, including Seattle, Vancouver, Seward and San Francisco, many with weekend departures. It’s never been easier to see Alaska.
More Options for Viewing Glaciers
Holland America Line offer more visits to Glacier Bay National Park than any other cruise line. Every Alaska cruise includes one or more glaciers: Hubbard Glacier, the twin Sawyer Glaciers of Tracy Arm, College Fjord glaciers or Glacier Bay National Park.
Up-Close Encounters
Holland America Line ships’ wraparound decks offer a front-row seat to Alaska’s splendour. Explore Glacier Bay with a National Park Service ranger and a Huna Totem member. Enhance your Alaska experience in port with EXC Tours™, our award-winning shore excursions.
Denali National Park
Denali is the iconic centrepiece of Alaska’s Interior and the #1 reason to combine a Holland America cruise to Alaska with an overland adventure. Only Holland America Line offers up to three nights in Denali to really settle in and explore, and is the only cruise line to include the deeper Tundra Wilderness Tour into Denali National Park on all of our two- and three-night Denali Land+Sea Journey itineraries. Immersing visitors in all that Denali has to offer is so important that we’ve created each of our Land+Sea Journeys to include up to three nights at Denali, at our beautiful 60-acre riverside McKinley Chalet Resort.
The new Denali Square at the McKinley Chalet Resort is the ultimate base camp for adventures to Denali, followed by relaxing evenings. Enjoy soaring views across the Nenana River into Denali National Park from virtually anywhere on this amazing property, as well as great dining, quality entertainment, and unique local shopping opportunities.
The exclusive longer stays, which include the Tundra Wilderness Tour, give our guests an up-close view of the mountain and the best wildlife viewing. It is rare not to see some combination of Alaska’s Big Five: grizzly bears, caribou, moose, Dall Sheep and wolves, along with other animals on this expertly guided six- to eight-hour tour. In addition, there are myriad once-in-a-lifetime adventures to choose from—such as river rafting, flightseeing (including the chance to land with a ski plane on Denali itself), or visiting the home of an Iditarod dog musher.
With more than six million acres of pristine Alaska wilderness, Denali National Park with its abundant and easily viewable wildlife and North America’s tallest and most impressive peak will be sure to make your Land+Sea Journey experience one you’ve dreamed of.
Price Includes
- Return flights from the UK
- 7-night Alaska Cruise
- 7-night land tour with journey host
- Accommodation & transfers throughout*
Price based on 2 share, inside stateroom
Flights departing the UK May to September 2024
Other Departure Dates may available 2025 on request
Price Excludes
*Transfer from Vancouver hotel to cruise terminal is not included
Itinerary
Private transfer included.
Once a trading post and a rough-and-tumble sawmilling settlement, today modern Vancouver, Canada is many things. It’s a bustling seaport, a hub for outdoor enthusiasts looking for active things to do in Vancouver, an ethnically diverse metropolis and Hollywood of the North. Hemmed in by mountains and sea, Vancouver seduces visitors with its combination of urban sophistication and laid-back attitude against a backdrop of glass towers and modern sights and plentiful green spaces.
Vancouver's culinary and cocktail scene is on the rise—and its excellent restaurants and hopping bars have a distinctively local stamp on them. If you are looking for where to go in Vancouver for music, theater and the arts, they are thriving in the city’s many museums, galleries and performance venues. Beyond the downtown attractions in Vancouver, days of exploration and sightseeing await among the colorful suburbs, unspoiled islands and the vast, rugged wilderness.
Sailing the Inside Passage offers opportunities to spot some of Alaska’s most iconic wildlife, with humpback whales and orca plying the bountiful waters alongside the ships, bald eagles soaring overhead and brown bears lumbering on the shoreline.
Numerous ports along the way recount Alaska’s colorful history. In Sitka, an onion-domed church marks Russia’s onetime foothold in the Americas; Ketchikan provides a glimpse of the Native Alaskan experience, with historic totem poles and native-arts galleries; and the legendary town center of Skagway bustles as it did at the turn of the 19th century, when it served as the rowdy Wild West gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush.
Ketchikan has long been an important hub of the salmon-fishing and -packing industries—visitors can try their luck on a sportfishing excursion or simply savor the fresh seafood at one of the local restaurants. It is also one of the best spots along the Inside Passage to explore the rich cultural sights of Native Alaskan nations like the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian. You can see intricately carved totem poles at the Totem Heritage Center and Totem Bight State Park, while the attractions of Saxman Village just outside of Ketchikan offers the chance to see Tlingit culture in action, with working carvers and a dance show in the clan house. And leave time to explore the sights in the town itself, including historic Creek Street, a boardwalk built over the Ketchikan Creek, where you can shop for souvenirs, smoked salmon and local art, while exploring gold rush–era tourist attractions like Dolly’s House Museum.
The city itself is pleasant, but the real highlight of a visit to Juneau is tracking down some wildlife. You can hike up Mount Roberts to chance upon wild deer and bald eagles. Most sightseeing and whale-watching tours head north to Auke Bay—bring a good pair of binoculars to get the best view of these majestic and surprisingly graceful creatures. If you prefer land mammals, catch a floatplane to a nearby wildlife reserve such as Chichagof or Admiralty Island to spy some bears lolling around.
The sleepy, misty city of around 32,000—mostly fishermen and small-business owners—has a frontier town vibe, but welcomes more than a million visitors each summer to its natural attractions, cementing Juneau as Alaska’s number-one tourist destination
At every turn, you’ll find yourself immersed in gold rush lore, from the infamous Red Onion Saloon that still keeps a pistol that Wyatt Earp left behind en route to the Klondike, to the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad, a classic narrow-gauge railway that traverses rugged mountains and passes cascading waterfalls and towering glaciers as it connects Skagway to Whitehorse deep in the Yukon. Much of the town has been preserved as part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, where rangers offer free walking tours around the historic district. Here you’ll also find a vibrant local community, home to a rich collection of local galleries, curio shops and restaurants serving seafood plucked fresh from nearby waters.
The area’s first European explorer missed it all—but with good reason. When Captain George Vancouver sailed here in 1794, a vast shield of ice, more than 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) thick, dominated the area. In one of the fastest retreats on record, the glaciers shrank back 105 kilometers (65 miles) by 1916. The formerly glacier-squashed land is rebounding now, rising 30 millimeters (1.18 inches) each year. Visitors can observe this rebirth: A spruce-hemlock rain forest has sprouted near the mouth of Glacier Bay. Farther north, the more recently exposed land shows sharper edges and thinner vegetation. Still, it’s enough to encourage the return of wildlife, from bald eagles to bears, moose and humpback whales.
While the national park is open year-round, most travellers prefer the warmth of late May to early September. Even in summer, be prepared for any weather—especially rain! Pack a hat, gloves, wool or fleece layers, a warm coat and waterproof gear if you want to admire the landscape from the open deck of your ship.
In Partnership With
After long and dark winters, Alaskans love their summers and the residents of Anchorage, Alaska are no exception. The city plants thousands of flowers to celebrate the arrival of warmer months and days that last as long as 19 hours from dawn to dusk.
Approximately 40 percent of Alaska’s population lives in Anchorage. This diverse city of 300,000 includes a large military population, Native Alaskans, individuals who work for the oil industry and adventure-seeking types who want to get away from “the Lower 48.” Much like Seattle, Anchorage is a place where you can find a coffee shop (or espresso shack) anywhere. Locals enjoy skijoring, a winter sport where a person is pulled on skis by one or more dogs or sometimes a horse. While some cities have deer, Anchorage has lots of moose, known for being a bit rambunctious (and should be steered clear of if seen wandering down a street).
Anchorage is a city where you can see the northern lights—the aurora borealis—on a clear dark night, typically during colder months. There are also plenty of active things to do and attractions to hike, bike and see wildlife such as the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail or Flattop Mountain Trail inside Chugach State Park.
Our new Denali Square at the McKinley Chalet Resort is the ultimate base camp for adventures to Denali, followed by relaxing evenings. Enjoy soaring views across the Nenana River into Denali National Park from virtually anywhere on this amazing property, as well as great dining, quality entertainment, and unique local shopping opportunities.
Our exclusive longer stays, which include the Tundra Wilderness Tour, give our guests an up-close view of the mountain and the best wildlife viewing. It is rare not to see some combination of Alaska’s Big Five: grizzly bears, caribou, moose, Dall Sheep and wolves, along with other animals on this expertly guided six- to eight-hour tour. In addition, there are myriad once-in-a-lifetime adventures to choose from—such as river rafting, flightseeing (including the chance to land with a ski plane on Denali itself), or visiting the home of an Iditarod dog musher.
With more than six million acres of pristine Alaska wilderness, Denali National Park with its abundant and easily viewable wildlife and North America’s tallest and most impressive peak will be sure to make your Land+Sea Journey experience one you’ve dreamed of.
Photos
