Excursion vs. Cruisetour?

[Moby Dick]

Does anybody know what the difference between an Excursion and a Cruisetour?  Inquiring minds want to know!

[AshleyDillo]

In Alaska they refer to the land tour you can take immediately before or after an Alaskan cruise as a cruisetour. It's usually a multiple day tour that includes transportation and lodging and also has optional extra excursions you can book.

[Moby Dick]

7 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

In Alaska they refer to the land tour you can take immediately before or after an Alaskan cruise as a cruisetour. It's usually a multiple day tour that includes transportation and lodging and also has optional extra excursions you can book.

Thanks, I do appreciate the clarification.  I was just about to ask that this be deleted as I did a little more searching and found exactly what you just explained.  

As a Moderator, please delete this unless you think it will help others.

Thanks again.

[AshleyDillo]

I will keep it in case it helps others.

We actually did a cruisetour in 2014 when we did Alaska so if you have any questions feel free to ask. I know before we sailed information was so limited out there as not as many people do the cruisetours.

[Moby Dick]

7 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

I will keep it in case it helps others.

We actually did a cruisetour in 2014 when we did Alaska so if you have any questions feel free to ask. I know before we sailed information was so limited out there as not as many people do the cruisetours.

Sounds good.  I was just reading Matt's Blog post and this was mentioned and there were two different requirements.  Actually none for an "Excursion" into Alaska, but a  cumbersome requirement for a "cruisetour".  I don't have any cruisetours booked or scheduled, so I'm now a happy camper now that I know what it is.  Matt is great at keeping us informed.  This one just hit me by surprise and I've never heard of a cruisetour before.  

 

[steverk]

This is kinda related. I  was considering a cruisetour this year, but my TA suggested using a company called railbookers for the land portion. Pricing was slightly more but was done entirely by rail.

Ultimately, I decided to forego the land portion,  but still considering it for future travel. 

Has anyone had any experience that might help make the decision? 

[AshleyDillo]

47 minutes ago, steverk said:

Has anyone had any experience that might help make the decision? 

I have never looked into railbookers before, but I will say we went with the 8B cruisetour. This is the one with the most travel segments by rail of the ones offered by Royal Caribbean. I absolutely loved the train portion and we even diverted at the end and self-booked the train from Anchorage to Seward over the motorcoach that was with the cruisetour.

The cruisetour through Royal was convenient because they set up all the logistics. We were picked up from the airport, put up in hotels that had shuttles and/or were walking distance to shopping and dining. We had transportation between the cities. Our bus followed the train with our luggage so we met up with it every night. There were some included excursions and then optional ($$) ones for the free time we had. Meals were NOT covered which is the one thing hard to get used to when combining with a cruise. You're also packing up suitcases every night so I'm glad we did the land part first so we could unpack and relax on the cruise.

I would definitely go back and do a land trip again. I would do another Alaskan cruise as well. They are two entirely different and enjoyable experiences.