Alaska Part 1 - The Tour

Each year Wes and I take turns surprising the other with an anniversary trip.  (This was number 7)  We know the trip is coming, but the surprise is the location.  It was Wes’ turn this year to surprise me.  We try to go places that neither of us have been before.  So this year it was Alaska.  Several Facebook friends wanted to know more about our trip so here are the logistical details on our short tour.  I’ll post more on some other observations later.

Wes used Delta Skymiles to fly us nonstop from Atlanta to Anchorage.  The total out of pocket cost was $10 for the taxes.  Then he booked us a stay at the Denali Cabins in Denali National Park.  Denali is about 4 hours drive from Anchorage and the Cabins offered a motorcoach service from Anchorage to Denali.  So instead of renting a car we could sit back and enjoy the ride.  When booking Wes somehow got them to throw in the whole round trip motorcoach service in for free.  So that saved us $79 per person each way.  Yeah!

Wes also booked with our Denali Cabin the Denali BackCountry Adventure.  It’s a tour all the way through the Denali National Park.  The Park Road is 92 miles and there are shuttles operated by the Park service, but they only go so far and then turn around.  This tour we took was the only one that goes the whole length of the Park Road.  At the end of the road is an old gold mining community called Kantishna.  Now it’s mostly just a few lodges located out there.  One was the Denali Backcountry Lodge.  That’s where we stopped and had lunch and a few hours of fun.  We got to pan for gold and walk a few trails.  You can stay at that lodge but it was quite a few more dollars than we could spend.  It had great mountain views and would have been a lovely place for a quiet retreat away from EVERYTHING!

Our tour guide was AWESOME!  His name was Peter and he’s been doing the tours for 15 years.  He had experienced a little of everything in Alaska and could explain it to tourist very well.  We saw lots of animals too.  The park is full of grizzly bears, moose, caribou, dall sheep etc…I’ll have more on the animals later.  I truly recommend this tour.  It was a long day on a school bus, but there were several stops to get out and stretch your legs or go to the restroom.  They also provided good snacks and drinks on the bus. 

So here’s how our few days in Alaska looked.

Wed night we arrived at Anchorage International Airport then had dinner at the Salmon Chowder House downtown.

We stayed the night at the Howard Johnson Hotel booked through Orbitz.com (Wes chose this hotel for it’s price, downtown location, and shuttle to and from airport.  It wasn’t the nicest of hotels, but good for sleeping. ;)

Thursday morning we walked about 3 blocks to the Eagan Center to get on the Denali Motorcoach.  Boarded about 7am and were on the bus about 4.5 hours to Denali.  It stopped a few times, but there was also a restroom on the bus. 

Got to Denali Cabins about noon then got on a shuttle van to go for lunch.  The Cabins were about 8 miles from all the other lodges and restaurants in the area known as “The Gulch.”  Think Gatlinburg only MUCH smaller scale.  The lodges there included the Princess Denali (part of the Princess cruise lines system)  There were some dinner shows and other places to eat, plus lots of little gift shops to see.

This is where we did the Alaska at 40 Below experience.  You can click on the link and read more about that.  It was really neat and I learned that I would not last 5 minutes in the winter in Alaska! 

We at lunch at a Pizza parlor that was packed but not the best pizza I ever had.  Things are very expensive in Alaska.  Eating out was always $20 or more for the two of us.  Most places in Denali also were sit down restaurants where tipping was required as well.  So think about that in your budget before going.

Thursday night we had dinner at  a place called 229 Parks.  The locals all raved about it.  It’s all organic, local foods.  However it was the most expensive we had!  It was good though and we did order dessert.  It was the only place within walking distance of the Denali Cabins.  About ¼ of a mile.  The cabins had a great shuttle service though to get you around to different places.

Friday we were on the tour bus from 6am until about 7:30pm.  Lunch was provided and was a good meal.  We had them drop a few of us off at the McKinley Village lodge on the return for dinner then we got the shuttle bus back.

Saturday we spent the morning at the Denali National Park visitor’s center.  There’s a nice museum of all things to do with that area, a book/gift shop, a restaurant and lots of trails to hike.  They also have a dog kennel where they do dog sled demonstrations.  Those are done 3 times daily.

We boarded the motorcoach back to Anchorage at 3pm and were back around 8pm. 

We stayed again at the Howard Johnson downtown and were able to walk all over.

That night we had dinner at the Snow Goose and it was very good.  I had a caribou burger.  J

Sunday we walked to Starbucks for our cheapest meal…coffee, milk, a donut and scone.  Plus we had gift cards to pay for it. J

We went all around downtown and stopped at the visitor’s center there then saw a movie about the 1964 earthquake.  We then met an old friend of Wes’ who now lives in Anchorage.  We had lunch with his family at a pizza place similar to Mellow Mushroom but it was the Moose’s Tooth.  He drove us as it was in midtown too far from downtown for us.  Then we went to a nature center where you can see salmon spawning,  We weren’t there at the right time of year, but it’s in a really neat valley and there are trails and wildlife there as well. 

We had to be back at the airport for a 7:30pm flight so that ended our time in Alaska.

We thought about doing a glacier cruise and I found one online called Portage Glacier tours.  They would have picked us up in a shuttle bus and taken us on a one hour boat ride around a glacier.  However we thought about all the buses we had been on the last few days and decided to skip that and not be on the road so much just before getting on a 7 hour flight.  This particular glacier cruise was the cheapest I found and they had an online coupon but once we got there we saw several others offering two for one deals that made them about the same price.  There didn’t seem to be an overflow of tourists this season as I’m sure the economy was affecting things so now is a good time for deals. 

Well I hope that helps some of you who were interested in planning trips to Alaska.