Lagniappe

You didn't ask for it but here's my (our) opinion of the trip:

Now, this is an abbreviated version of our trip.  I'm sure my observations haven't been totally recalled, but for the most part, it's pretty thorough.  And IMHO, I will tell you this, and I am sure Ronnie will agree with me, if we could do it over again, we'd get off the ship in Whittier and rent a car and drive to McKinley Lodge with our own four wheels.  There were so many instances that we wished for our independence.  But we were at the mercy of someone else's schedule.  And we absolutely HATE motorcoach tours.  The cruise was good...better than the first one.  But....nuh, uh....not the tour again!  But it may be perfect for some folks.  So remember, this is our opinion, only.  We didn't ask the rest of the herd.

THE END

Fairbanks

Before we were "delivered" to the hotel in Fairbanks, we were taken to the Riverboat Discovery , a sternwheeler paddle boat for a cruise along the Chena and Tanana rivers. 

 It stopped by an authentic Athabascan village which demonstrated authentic native lifestyles.  It also stopped by Iditarod winner Susan Butcher's home and saw her team of Iditarod dogs.

Caribou in the village

   After the river cruise, we loaded onto the motorcoach -with the rest of the herd-to the Fairbanks Riverside Lodge was very nice, not too crowded but ridiculously priced menus at the restaurant.  And the noise level was unacceptable to me.  Some people are just so loud!  We opted to walk next door to a more casual restaurant....Ronnie could watch the ballgame and I enjoyed eating my chicken.

Curtains kept flying out from the a/c

Monday, we spent sleeping in and then sitting down in the lobby waiting til time to go to airport.  We were able to check our bags right there in the  hotel and not worry about them again.  We read and just relaxed  for a few hours.  But.....had to get on another motorcoach to get to airport....one last time!!

We were able to get an upgrade at the gate for the first leg of our flight on Alaska Airlines

(had tried online, but couldn't get it to work).  I had already used points for the American Airlines flights for the next two legs.  It was worth every penny!   All night flying is hard on old people.  We left Fairbanks at 5:30 p.m. and arrived in LR at 9:00 a.m. the next day.

Denali National Park

Friday afternoon, we loaded back up on a motorcoach, with the rest of the herd, to return to Talkeetna again and then board the train again to head towards Denali National Park.  This was about a 5 hour train ride with beautiful scenery...much better than the first ride.  But we were ready to get off .  And when we got to the Denali train station, we got off the train and got back on a motorcoach again.  At least it was a short drive to the Lodge.

View from the train

Ummm...for me....a big disappointment.  The Lodge really needed upgrading, we heard our neighbors upstairs taking showers at all hours of the night and early morning.  Talking in the halls.  Uncomfortable bed.  Just not what I expected.  

One of the restaurants was reasonably priced with good

food and beautiful views. 

Train ride to Denali

But throughout, it was so crowded.  People everywhere.  And pushing to get on the friggin' buses and trains (where tables were assigned!).  We got sooooo tired of it.

The whole area around the Park is very commercialized.  And it lost a lot of its appeal, as far as we are concerned.  Anyway,...we had a tour scheduled for Saturday morning to take us into the Park...8 hours on a school bus.

No one is allowed to drive personal cars past, I think, about 16 miles.  The Park shuttles (school buses) are the only allowed transportation deep into the park.  The tour we chose went about 60 miles into the park.  It was packed and there were probably 10 other buses on the same one road. 

But we saw about 6 grizzly bears, moose, dahl sheep....no caribou.  It was beautiful inside the park.  But I really prefer Yellowstone where your time is your own and you can drive when and where you want.

Scenes from inside beautiful Denali National Park:

Dahl Sheep

At the end of a long day, we were glad to be off the bus, but alas, the next morning, we got on another motorcoach for the 4 hour drive to Fairbanks to another Princess Lodge where our extra suitcase  was waiting for us.

Talkeetna and Mt. McKinley Wilderness Lodge

Arrived in Talkeetna and got off train and loaded on motorcoach with the rest of the herd for an hour drive to McKinley Wilderness Lodge.  It was nice.  Rooms were pleasant, beds comfortable, lodge beautiful.  The outdoor deck overlooked the Talkeetna Mountains and , behind them, when the weather is clear, the Alaska Range of which Mt. McKinley is most notable.  We were told that only 31% of visitors ever get to see Mt. McKinley.    We were so lucky.

We left a wakeup call if the Northern Lights were visible and if Mt. McKinley became visible in the early morning.  At 1:40 a.m., the call came that the Northern Lights were visible, so we pulled on clothes and coats (it was cold!) and went down to the lodge deck.  The lights were there, but there was no color; they were just whitish cloud looking.  We were told later that sometimes around 3ish, they will start to get more colorful.  We didn't wait.  Went back to bed and at 6:30 another call came that the mountain was visible. 

Now, I have to tell this first.  The night before, we went out on the deck and viewed the darkish Talkeetna Mountains with the clouds behind them.  As we ate dinner, we kept thinking that the clouds were lifting and that we could see just a bit of a snowcovered mountain behind them.  We just knew it was Mt. McKinley making an appearance.  We asked our waitress if we would know for sure that it was "the" mountain when it came out.  She said simply, "yes."  So, taking that into account, when we walked out of our cabin towards the lodge early that morning, our breath was totally taken away by the sight of that huge mountain appearing over the lodge.  Oh, my gosh.  Hurrying into the lodge and out on the deck...it was amazing.  Clear as a bell and big as a 20,230 foot mountain could be.  The base is so big....it stayed out until noonish.

Front of Lodge/mountain visible

Front of Lodge/no mountain visible

We feel so fortunate to have seen such a wonder of nature.

Mt. McKinley

A little info:  At 20,230 feet, it is the tallest peak in North America and rises above the Alaska Range.  And the name?  Denali ("The Great One" or "The High One") is the Athabascan name for peak.  However, in 1896 Princeton graduate and gold prospector William Dickey wrote an article for the New York Sun in which he renamed the peak Mt. McKinley for then presidential nominee William McKinley.  The US Geological Survey recognizes the name as Mt. McKinley, but the State of Alaska Board of Geographic Names has officially changed the mountain's name back to Denali.  Locals simply call it "The Mountain".

The blackish mountains were all that were visible to us when we arrived.  THE mountain appeared by 6:30 a.m. the next morning.

Some McKinley Stats

We went back into Talkeetna later in the day (another hour by motorcoach) and it was visible from there, also.  Walked around, shopped a bit.  It didn't take long!!!  Cute little Alaskan town where a bag of Frito Scoops cost $7.  Talkeetna is the little town that the TV show "Northern Lights" was based on.  Not filmed there, but the characters and town inspired the storyline.  It also is the staging area for all climbers to Mt. McKinley (Denali).

After a short while we got back on the motorcoach for another hour trip back to the Lodge.


We ate dinner at the restaurant aptly named 20320.  Good food and not too terribly expensive.  And called it a day.

Whittier

OK...so we were given lots of papers, luggage tags, tickets...and a time of 6:15 to get off the ship and get on the train.  What????   This is supposed to be a relaxing vacation.  But we did it....

Got all luggage/clothes/backpacks ready before we went to bed..clothes laid out for morning.  Set both phones for  5 a.m.  And went to bed....probably around 10:00 or 10:30.  Sound asleep and  loud music booms in the room at 12:30 a.m.  We both were scrambling around trying to find how to shut it OFF.  After banging on the phones, we then went to all switches in the room, then to the TV.  I went to telephone and hit every button on it and NOBODY answered.  Ronnie threw on clothes and went down the hall to find somebody....nobody around.  Three times it happened and then quit.  Went back to sleep.(found out later that it happened in ALL rooms--not happy cruisers)  At 5 a.m. ????? Ronnie's phone alarm went off.  I reached for mine to shut it off and it was 4 a.m.!!  For some reason, his phone didn't change time zones.  Went back to sleep ---well, sorta--- and my phone went off at 5.  Dressed, had breakfast and went to the lounge by 6:10....Off the ship promptly at 6:15 in the dark and loaded on the train....something like the old western cattle train cars.  The cars were very nice...great views from the all glass roofs.  But still...we felt like we were herded.

Leaving the ship for the train

A longgggg  day of riding on the train.  The novelty wore off after a bit.  You couldn't see anything but trees.



 Did catch a glimpse of Sarah Palin's house in Wasilla, but that was about it.

Sarah Palin's fence

College Fjord

Today was a day with nothing to do.  We got our clothes packed for our tour part of the trip.  We put just the clothes we needed to take with us in one suitcase and all else in another one that Princess took care of until we finished the tour.  The "take me with you" suitcase was put in our hotel rooms at each of our stops on the tour.  Very efficient. 

 

Late in the afternoon (missed the dining room again), we entered the fjord.  There are several glaciers there all named for different colleges.  It was very cold and damp near all the glaciers...again, the captain did 360 degree turns at the end of the fjord for everyone to have a good view. 

This was our first visit to College Fjord and some said that they had noticed the shrinking of the glaciers.  But yet, the rangers onboard said that as some are retreating, others are advancing.  Mother Nature and her balancing act.

Glacier Bay

The ship entered Glacier Bay National Park very early in the morning and spent the entire

day cruising up, down and around the channel.  The glaciers are beautiful.  They looked so small compared to the Hubbard Glacier that we visited on our first cruise.  Then we realized we were on a much bigger ship and were much higher up and were almost looking down at them rather than up. 

The calving of the glaciers is an awesome thing.   They make a loud crack like thunder which echoes throughout the mountains and then a chunk of the glacier falls into the water.  At Hubbard, we saw it calve a huge, huge chunk of ice which went down into the water and then popped back up and was an iceberg.  One third the size of the ship. 

The calving we saw this time was smaller and sometimes we just heard the crack of the ice and never saw the ice fall.  It could have been way back up into the glacier.  The ship did a 360 degree turn or two so everyone could view it.

 We stayed on our balcony for a long time and could see it from there.  Yes, it was cold...brrr.