Passage Through the Rockies and Alaska Cruise Reviews

Myself and my travel buddy had the best time on our trip and even a couple of days bad weather couldn't put a dampener on the overall trip. So many highlights made all the better by Cheryl our land director and Bernie our coach driver. I highly recommend the Rocky Mountaineer (SliverLeaf) so many beautiful lakes, glaciers and wildlife just too many read more to list, every day was a highlight. Would happily revisit any of the hotels we stayed at but being able to fully unpack for a full 7 days was wonderful and after experiencing so many wonderful sights on the land leg was happily surprised that the cruise was full of just as many wonders.

When friends and family saw the photos from this trip most thought they'd been Photoshopped, the Inside Passage is mind blowing. Highly recommend the Wolf Dog sanctuary outside Calgary, would also suggest arriving a day or two early in Calgary as we didn't have enough time to take in the beautiful city. Also must do is the bear rescue in Ketchikan.

Everything was well planned and organized and the accommodation was perfect. My only criticism would be the timing of arrival at some destinations didn't allow sufficient time to explore ie arrived 4:30-5:00pm quick unpack, look around, tea, then had to be on bus next morning at 7:00. This was the case with most of the coach tour. Spoke to others who read more felt the same realising longer stays equals more expense, however, I doubt we would do another land tour as such if that was the case. Great experiences on the glaciers and small towns, recommend to go outside main tourist areas to eat where the locals eat and experience their lifestyles. Would recommend Travelmarvel to all.

It all started with Jemma at Global Journeys who was great to deal with and always prompt with responses. The trip using Travelmarvel was just amazing, so many places to see and things to do. We liked the optional extras because we had the choice of doing or not without the obligation of "We better do it we have already paid for it" plus we could get read more a feel from new found travel buddies whether they were going or not.

Our travel guide Natalie was an absolute gem of a person and extremely good at her job - it was truly sad to say goodbye, she felt like an old friend. It was my first guided coach tour, my wife had done an NZ Contiki a number of years back, I found the pace pretty good for the most part. There were a couple of long days of travelling but with the scenery of the Rockies you can't really complain.

We drove through some breathtaking vistas and the accommodation was very clean, comfortable and enjoyable. I have read many times that more 2 night stops would be good and I agree however there are so many places to see and compromises must be made. We did not do the Rocky Mountaineer train and maybe should have, those that did had a wonderful time.

The Alaskan cruise on the Volendam started with meeting our travel guide Glen, again we lucked out there as she was also just wonderful. The cruise was awesome the places we stopped were just spectacular and the on-board experience was a great opportunity to get to know our fellow travellers better. I have been asked "What was your highlight of the trip" and I still can't pick one above the others. We were blessed with great weather for the vast majority of our tour and made some special new friends. A trip we will never forget.

This was a fantastic vacation, it doesn't get the highest rating as it was very cold in Alaska and lot of activities still weren't running. We recommend Travelmarvel and global journeys as everything went of without a drama as was as beautiful as expected. We will use Michelle from Global Journeys and Travelmarvel again.