Rain Forest Garden and Mendenhall Glacier--combine tours or not?

We are looking at Princess tours for both the Rain Forest Garden and
Mendenhall Glacier, or a tour to combine both.

The combined tour is $10 less and an hour less in time than the two
combined. Is the hour less because of saving on travel time, or is it
less because there is less time spent at one or the other? If it's the
first, we might as well take the combined tour. If it's the second,
saving $10 each is not worth having less time at the attractions.

Anyone have any experience to know why it's an hour less?

"Jeff Gersten" wrote in message
...

We are looking at Princess tours for both the Rain Forest Garden and
Mendenhall Glacier, or a tour to combine both.

The combined tour is $10 less and an hour less in time than the two
combined. Is the hour less because of saving on travel time, or is it
less because there is less time spent at one or the other? If it's the
first, we might as well take the combined tour. If it's the second,
saving $10 each is not worth having less time at the attractions.

Anyone have any experience to know why it's an hour less?

Dunno what you have in mind, but the Mendenhall Glacier is a $12 rt, 15
minute, ride on a public bus from a parking lot within 1 block of the
Princess berth. It is available all day.

We went whale watching in the morning (Princess), back to the ship for lunch
and then plenty of time to see the Glacier on our own afterwards. There is
a NPS visitor center at the Glacier....$3. admission. (pricing was from
'07)



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On May 1, 10:22*am, (Jeff Gersten) wrote:
We are looking at Princess tours for both the Rain Forest Garden and
Mendenhall Glacier, or a tour to combine both.

The combined tour is $10 less and an hour less in time than the two
combined. Is the hour less because of saving on travel time, or is it
less because there is less time spent at one or the other? If it's the
first, we might as well take the combined tour. If it's the second,
saving $10 each is not worth having less time at the attractions.

Anyone have any experience to know why it's an hour less?

The glacier tour doesn't take much time unless you want to hike out to
the face of the glacier and some of the tours don't allow for that
much time. It's, basically, get out of the bus, go through the
visitor's center, look through the telescope at the glacier, read the
displays, spend some money in the gift shop then back to the bus. I
don't remember being there over an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

You should be able to find a description from the cruise line or tour
operator.

Enjoy, it's beautiful up there.

PDDeen

On Sat, 1 May 2010 14:36:48 -0700 (PDT), PDDeen
wrote:

The glacier tour doesn't take much time unless you want to hike out to
the face of the glacier and some of the tours don't allow for that
much time. It's, basically, get out of the bus, go through the
visitor's center, look through the telescope at the glacier, read the
displays, spend some money in the gift shop then back to the bus. I
don't remember being there over an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

You can also go swimming in the lake. I hear it's brisk.

I hiked out to the glacier. It doesn't take too long and you get a great
view of the icebergs from there. Worth the hike. We took a whale watching
excursion (not a ships tour) and had them drop us off at Mendenhall. Took
the shuttle back. Didn't swim but did stick my hand in. Yup, brisk.

"Jack Hamilton" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 1 May 2010 14:36:48 -0700 (PDT), PDDeen
wrote:

The glacier tour doesn't take much time unless you want to hike out to
the face of the glacier and some of the tours don't allow for that
much time. It's, basically, get out of the bus, go through theeven if yo
visitor's center, look through the telescope at the glacier, read the
displays, spend some money in the gift shop then back to the bus. I
don't remember being there over an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

You can also go swimming in the lake. I hear it's brisk.

(PDDeen) wrote:

On May 1, 10:22*am, (Jeff Gersten) wrote:

We are looking at Princess tours for both the
Rain Forest Garden and Mendenhall Glacier,
or a tour to combine both.

The combined tour is $10 less and an hour
less in time than the two combined. Is the
hour less because of saving on travel time,
or is it less because there is less time spent
at one or the other? If it's the first, we might
as well take the combined tour. If it's the
second, saving $10 each is not worth having
less time at the attractions.

Anyone have any experience to know why
it's an hour less?

The glacier tour doesn't take much time unless
you want to hike out to the face of the glacier
and some of the tours don't allow for that
much time. It's, basically, get out of the bus,
go through the visitor's center, look through
the telescope at the glacier, read the displays,
spend some money in the gift shop then back
to the bus. I don't remember being there over
an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

You should be able to find a description from
the cruise line or tour operator.

Thanks for the description. We did not think it was a long tour and
wondered how much we'd see. Looking through the tours, there is a hike
at Mendenhall that takes much longer timewise. I think we'll do that.
And we'll see about also doing the rainforest tour as we have a lot of
time in Juneau/

Enjoy, it's beautiful up there.

Thanks, I'm sure we will.