Alaska Cruises in 2017

The Alaska '16 cruise season ended a couple of weeks ago and the report from the Alaska Travel Industry Association is that they had a very positive year, not necessarily “gang busters”, but at least the visitor count was more than the previous year. In fact, overall visitor numbers recorded more than 2 million travelers to the “Last Frontier” state. The millionth cruise passenger was recently counted as the Alaska cruise industry's season was nearing its end.

If you've ever been to Fairbanks and enjoyed the river cruise on the paddlewheeler, the family that started that popular excursion, the Binkley family, has a representative of that family who is the president of the Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, John Binkley. Mr Binkley predicted that the 2017 season is expected to bring up to 45,000 additional passengers from this year's tally. If that happens, it would break the old record set in 2008.

The increasing anticipated demand has prompted Holland America to replace two smaller vessels with larger capacity ships for Alaska sailings next year. Altogether, Holland American has seven vessels in the Alaska market. Princess is running a close second with six ships in that market.

One of the reasons that I think interest is growing is the concern over security in many of the European ports. That, coupled with the concern over the Zika virus in the Caribbean and Central and South American ports has spurred more interest in cruising in the United States.

So far, local interest in Alaska has increased over last year. For the past 22 years, we have been fortunate to introduce a lot of great folks to the 49th State, and already signed up to travel next July with The Travel Factory Gang are 28 people who are going to experience truly the vacation of a lifetime. As an indication of increased interest, last year at this time we had deposits for only 10 persons.

As a result of that current interest, it is even more important that guests who are interested in vacationing on a cruise to Alaska make that reservation as early as possible......for several reasons. One very important reason would be to get a reasonable airfare. Alaska Air has that market pretty well tied up, but we were able yesterday to get 3 couples on a convenient schedule for less than $750 a person round-trip from DFW. I am confident that rate will not be available more than two weeks from now.

The Travel Factory Alaska Gang spends 5 nights sightseeing the interior of Alaska, with a tour on the river in a paddle wheeler mentioned earlier, along with a gold mine visit and the opportunity to pan for gold, and see a segment of the 800 mile Alaska Pipeline. We also have a tour into the Denali National Park for about 35-40 miles looking for wildlife and wild flower, always with excellent National Park guides. We ride a train then to Anchorage and after leaving Anchorage, on our way to the ship in Whittier, we visit a Wildlife Preservation Center where they have taken orphaned or injured animals to rehab them and send them back to their natural habitat, and they have an Alaska animal breeding program that is also on display.

Then we board the beautiful Star Princess for a 7-night cruise, visiting Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay, stopping for a day in Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan, before disembarking at the port of Vancouver, Canada. Love to be able to introduce more of our Big Country population to the beauty and wilds of Alaska, so give the experienced agents at The Travel Factory a call at 325-698-1421 or come by for a personal visit at 4150 Southwest Drive. You can also see Alaska details under “Featured Tours” or “Featured Cruises” on our website:www.thetravelfactoryabilene.com.