Great Canadian Rail Journey with Alaska Cruise

At 6 pm, meet your Tour Director and traveling companions for a welcome drink.

Drive along the shores of Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls. Take a Niagara Falls sightseeing cruise for a thrilling boat ride to view the thundering falls from river level. Return to Toronto for an orientation drive before a special dinner atop the 1,815-foot-tall CN Tower.

After breakfast, head to Union Station for departure on the Canadian, VIA Rail’s premier transcontinental train.

On VIA Rail, during the day your cabin for two offers armchairs, toilet, and a picture window. By night it transforms into upper and lower beds where guests must be able to climb a ladder to reach the upper bed. If you are a single passenger, your cabin by day features small couch-style seating, toilet and sink, and a large picture window. By night, an economy of space requires the pull-down bed to fill the space (obstructing the furniture and bathroom facilities). Public restrooms are available on each coach. Train travel is subject to unforeseen delays.

Your exciting travel on the VIA Rail train continues through Ontario and Manitoba.

Continue through the picturesque prairies and winding rivers of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Travel from Saskatchewan to Jasper. Admire the scenery as your train roughly parallels the famed Yellowhead Route, Canada’s historic trail of westward expansion. Arrive in Jasper for an orientation drive and free time this evening.

Travel through Jasper’s unspoiled beauty to glacial Maligne Canyon to stunning Maligne Lake for lunch and a narrated scenic cruise to Spirit Island. Return to Jasper where the balance of the day is at leisure to explore Jasper on your own.

Head south through Jasper National Park on Icefields Parkway to the Columbia Icefield for a thrilling Ice Explorer ride on Athabasca Glacier with a Glaciologist guide. Climb Sunwapta Pass to savor stunning vistas of alpine meadows, waterfalls, and massive glaciers. Next, stop at Lake Louise, whose green-blue waters form a perfect mirror reflection of Mount Victoria. Continue into Banff.

Guided sightseeing includes Bow River and Falls. The balance of the day is at leisure. Consider an optional flightseeing trip for a bird’s-eye view of the Rockies.

This morning, travel through the spectacular beauty of Yoho National Park, one of Canada’s most popular recreational areas and site of pre-Cambrian fossil finds. On to Canada’s Glacier National Park, where the motorcoach climbs 4,379-foot-high Rogers Pass, a perfect spot for photos of the surrounding mountain cliffs and glaciers. Continue to your riverside resort. Tonight, enjoy a riverside BBQ with S’mores.

Continue west and catch a BC Ferry to Vancouver Island. An orientation tour of Victoria includes the gardens of Beacon Hill Park, the Fairmont Empress Hotel, Bastion Square, and Thunderbird Park. Free time this evening—enjoy dinner on your own at one of the many restaurants in this harbor city.

The morning and afternoon is at leisure for independent sightseeing and shopping. For shoppers, Government Street’s elegant shops and Market Square’s collection of specialty stores are good places to start. History buffs should be sure to visit the Royal British Columbia Museum. Later, visit Butchart Gardens, followed by a special farewell dinner in the original, now restored, greenhouse.

Travel on a scenic BC Ferry crossing through the Gulf Islands to Vancouver where you will begin your 7-Night Alaska’s Inside Passage cruise.

Alaska’s Inside Passage is a protected network of waterways that wind through glacier-cut fjords and lush temperate rain forests along the rugged coast of Southeast Alaska. Arguably one of the greatest cruising routes in the world, the Inside Passage stretches through stunning landscapes, from Misty Fjords National Monument to famed Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve.

Steep cliffs and glacier-covered mountains flank the Tracy Arm fjord, fringed by the largest intact coastal temperate rain forest in the United States. Old-growth trees colonized Tracy Arm's mouth long ago as the Ice Age retreated. Continue cruising to Juneau, Alaska and visit the most remote, most beautiful and strangest state capital in the United States. Surrounded by water, forest and mountain sights, visitors seeking things to do in Juneau indoors and outdoors can hike a glacier, eat fresh-caught fish on a seaside patio and tour a grand capitol building all in one day.

At the height of the Klondike Gold Rush, the port town of Skagway served as the primary gateway to the legendary gold fields, and quickly grew into Alaska’s largest settlement. It was then a raucous frontier hub packed with trading posts, saloons, and guesthouses. As the gold rush faded into the 1900s, so did Skagway—but today it has been reinvigorated as a gateway for a new kind of visitor: those looking to explore Alaska’s colorful history, pristine wildlife, and unrivaled natural beauty.

On your cruise to Glacier Bay (A UNESCO World Heritage Site), close your eyes and take in the sounds—the creaks and groans of “living” ice, the shrill cries of gulls and soaring eagles, the splash of a breaching humpback whale. Frosted peaks towering over mossy forests, wide tidewater glaciers (there are seven in the park), and marine wildlife are givens on Glacier Bay cruises, but every experience in this changing biosphere is unique.

Take an adventure and cruise to Ketchikan, Alaska. Alaska's "First City" of Ketchikan is so named because it’s the first major landfall for most cruisers as they enter the picturesque fjords of the Inside Passage, where the town clings to the banks of the Tongass Narrows, flanked by green forests nurtured by abundant rain.

Scenic cruising through the Inside Passage offers outstanding opportunities to spot some of Alaska’s most iconic wildlife.

Disembark your ship for a guided sightseeing tour of Vancouver. See the waterfront, Chinatown, and Stanley Park with its old-growth evergreen forests and totem poles. Free time this evening to explore this vibrant city on your own.

Your vacation ends with breakfast this morning.