Alaska....packing tips and advice

[disneylove619]

we are in full prep mode for our June sailing on the Wonder in Alaska; our 6th DCL Cruise. For those who have been on Alaska cruise before, what packing tips and other advice do you have?

Appreciative for your response!

 

[AussieNSW]

As they said to us on the cruise last year dress like an onion. So you can add layers or peel them off.

 

[ladyofthetramp]

We are going this year. Bringing layers, raincoat, fleece to go under, long sleeve shirts, short sleeves. Lots of layers.

 

[Geomom]

As far as temps--what you want to bring depends on where you're from. We're from Massachusetts and were fine with sweatshirts and raincoats. We did bring gloves, but I only wore them on the 'glacier' day when my hands got cold while taking pics outside.

• Rain shell or rain coat--we have 'packable' rain shells, so we can just pack them in our excursion bag in case it rains.
• A 'warm' layer--be it sweatshirt/fleece, etc.
• Waterproof shoes/hiking boots for excursions. It can be very rainy in Alaska!
• long pants/jeans
• Camera!

 

[TestingH2O]

As they said to us on the cruise last year dress like an onion. So you can add layers or peel them off.

And kids, dress like a cocktail onion!

It was actually pretty warm when we were there in July. We also had no rain which was shocking. Most days we wrote lightweight hiking pants, hiking sneakers, and a couple layers of shirts (T shirt or 3/4 sleeve shirt and a flannel or sweatshirt.) That was perfect for us. We needed a jacket on top of that one day.

Don't forget sunscreen!

I appreciated having gloves on glacier day.

 

[tigerchic89]

we also got binoculars as easter gifts for everyone on our family. It was nice to not have to share 1 or 2 pair. My husband ordered them from Amazon for $40 ish each.... the same binocualrs were for sale at a kiosk at the Vancouver port for $150 each

 

[TikiThunderPirates]

Toss in a pair of shorts. We had one day that ended up being very warm and we didn't have "warm" weather clothing so it got a bit hot by the end. If you have any port excursions that take you out into the wilderness be prepared with long layers. We went to Taku Glacier Lodge, which was awesome, but the mosquitoes were so big that when you hit them in the air you could feel them! They provided bug spray, but even with that having long sleeves, pants, and a hood on the jacket helped keep them at bay! Pack some sort of hat/ear muffs if you don't like cold ears on glacier day. It can get windy and cold (esp. if you take the tendered boat port adventure up to the glacier like we did) and even with just a few layers of sweatshirts the added hat was nice!