Meal Plans on Alaska tours

We did a land/sea tour with Princess Cruise line two years ago. Little did we know that we were locked into staying at Princess' lodges that were basically nowhere near any place else. We were locked into eating in their restaurants. I spent well over $500 maybe close to $700 in 5 days for food. Same menu in all their restaurants so no variety. We ended up spending all of our time with the exception our side tours on a bus or in their lodges.

Yes, the salmon bake was great. I also ate my share of crab on the crab tour.

Your tour sounds exactly like the tour we took with the exception of the flight to Fairbanks.

We went last July. 3 meals a day is more than we want when we're on vacation. We took a lot of good snacks, protein bars etc, and did fine on two meals. Meals were higher than around home but nothing like Hawaii! Its outrageous there.

We were eating lunch in Destruction Bay last summer when a tour arrived for lunch. They were given a choice of a cold sandwich or a bowl of soup. The driver started herding them out in what seemed a very short time. I would not have been happy if I was with that group.

We did a Cruise/Land Excursion last summer with the land portion going to Denali, what a place. Denali was the most expensive area. I don't see how you can assume that paying in advance is cheaper. I feel it may limit your choices. Go to enjoy!

Bob

We did 22-day sea & land tour last year, Alaska & Yukon. Loved it. Did not sign up for a meal plan and very glad we didn't. Had OUR choice of restaurants and menus. Didn't add up the dollars & cents but guesstimate we spent about the same as a meal plan would have cost us.

Some people are very picky about their food and some are also very budget minded. If you are one of those, then you might not want to go with it.

But if it's the cost, then paying thousands of dollars to do a tour may not be the best option either. You could probably do the trip cheaper on your own as well and cut out things you don't really care for. But my thoughts are that part of the reason of the tour is to do it with others. And that includes mealtime with others.

The price of the meal plan is reasonable if you plan to eat as much, and as often, as what is included in the plan. Twenty full meals at a little under $20 a meal is pretty reasonable in an environment where the menu price might be $30-50 for those meals. I suspect nearly half of those meals are breakfast or breakfast buffet, and the price of that feature on a resort hotel room (or in a big city) will shock you. Meal plan is getting you a reduced price

You will have little opportunity to grab cheap fast-food or street-food meals, and if you would rather exist on snack foods you carry, you will find those quite dear at the places where you have an opportunity to shop.

The realistic alternative to the meal plan would be ordering from the menu at the same places, you will maybe have more choice, better presentation, but you will pay more for essentially the same thing and may not be able to get it served, and eat it, during the time slot allowed for the meal.

Only reason not to take the plan would be if it is your custom not to eat breakfast at all, and can live like that through the rigors of group touring.

wbwood wrote:

Bobbo wrote:

donn0128 wrote:
If that includes three meals a day then do the math,
Ten day three meals a day equals 30 meals, divided by 390 dollars equals what..... $3.90 a meal. Pretty cheap in my book. When i was on the road, the company allowed us 35 dollars a day. Even 15 years ago it was hard to eat decently for that amount. I say go for it if it comes out to less than five dollars a meal

Umm, $390 divided by $3.90 per meal equals 100 meals, not 30 meals.

A trip of 9 days is 27 meals, if that is for 2 people, that becomes 54 meals. Divide $390 by 54 meals and you get a little over $7 per meal. Still not bad. If that is for one person ($390 per person) it becomes a little over $14 per meal. That may take some thinking.

$14/meal is pretty good in my book.

That depends, if they're going to give me a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a ham sandwich for lunch I don't care what they feed me for dinner it's not a good deal. That's what is missing here. No one can judge whether it's a good deal or not cause no one knows what is being served. Until that question is answered, everything else is speculation.

We did a cruise/land tour with Holland America a couple of years ago. About 1 week on ship and one week on land. We found the meals were about double what we'd spend in the lower 48, even at chains like Subway.

One of the best things we did was take a GPS with us. I could use it to search for restaurants away from the tourist crowd and get there and back. (Don't have a smart phone, but I supposed it would work in same way.) Most of the towns are really small, though, so there's not often a huge choice.

I used to travel a fair amount for work. One of my prime rules was "never eat in the hotel restaurant." Never had a good meal at one so I made a rule to avoid.

Dance Chick wrote:
We did almost the same trip you're doing. We, and our friends, bought the meal plan and wished we hadn't. We felt as if we would've come out better to have purchased food on our own. We wouldn't do it again.

When we went to Disney World about 5 years ago, we went with their dining plan. We almost didn't and a supervisor of mine (who is real picky by the way) recommended us doing it. Well we did it and part of the deal was that we had to make reservations way in advance. Like months in advance. We basically had to try and get reservations at certain restaurants on certain days. When we found openings to restaurants we wanted to eat at, we had to go with a time they had available. I just knew I was going to hate it. But we loved it. We ate food that we would of never tried. Especially at the rates they charge. Just at at the Seafood restaruant we ate at, which was awesome, the bill came out to over $200 for 4 of us! But since we had the meal plan, all I had to do was show them the card. It was great. We knew when our dinner time and where it was. We didn't have to worry about trying to find something or somplace to eat. Yes we could of eaten outside the park or in our romm for a lot cheaper, but we were on vacation.

If I was doing the trip like that, I would opt for it, especially since the price is not too bad.