alaskawdw12

Soon enough, it was time for our 3 PM mammal encounter.

We were both super excited about this encounter!

The wording online for this encounter was that you get to interact and play with the mammals, so we were sure we were going to...well..interact with the mammals! And so was the sweet woman who joined us, making our group a party of 3. The reason we signed up for the encounter was to have the once in a lifetime experience of interacting with a sea lion! And we were really really really looking forward to it. However, it turned out that sea lions and harbor seals don't like being touched by humans...so no touching or interacting. Until we found this out, all three of us were waiting for the magical moment when we get to touch a sea lion, and when we got up to where they live, the trainers told us we wouldn't be touching them, so we were very disapointed, and even a little annoyed that they had advertised one thing and then supplied another.

Now, I just checked out the current wording for this encounter on the Sealife Center's website. Interestingly enough, it has changed, and is now MUCH more accurate, so I guess they saw that the wording was misleading. If you like what it says now, and the tour sounds good to you - go for it! Because now the wording is pretty correct.

Anyways, except for the dissapointment of no interaction, the tour was great and very educational. First they told us all about the Sealife Center and the amazing work they do. All the animals in the center have been rescued and they put the animals that are capable back into nature. They have wonderful rescue stories. It's really a very special place, that deserves our praise and support for all of the amazing work they do.Then we went over to an area where 2 new big steller sea lions live, and got to observe them up close (from behind a glass partition), while our guides told us everything there is to know about steller sea lions. Then we went over to an outdoor area, where we saw a HUGE male steller sea lion. It turns out, he's so huge that even the staff members don't go into his area, because he slides back and forth, and if he slides on someone, that person will be crushed! It was cool to be standing so close to such a huge animal.

Then they opened up an area where 2 young steller sea lions were swimming around, and called one of them over for a short training session. This is when our guide explained that all of the training is so that the animals allow the trainers to touch them and check if they're ok. Otherwise, they are not interested in being touched or hanging out with humans.

Here's a video of the training session. You can see how close we were to him and he's with us for a nice amount of time.

The walrus she's talking about in the video is a baby walrus that was left behind and rescued by the Sealife Center. Unlike steller sea lions and harbor seals, walruses do like to be touched. We were fortunate enough to be there shortly after he was rescued, and we got to see the staff hugging him. It was so precious.

Here's a link to an article about them (this baby was one of 3 that were rescued). There's a video at the end of the article, and you can also search on youtube, there are lots of videos of them.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/10/10/171117/orphaned-walruses-cared-for-at.html

From there we walked over to the back of the harbor seals exhibit. They told us that harbor seals are esspecially shy, so they don't know how long the one they try to work with will be willing to stay next to us, out of the water, and we had to be quiet.

Here's a very short video. It lasted longer than that, this was just all we got on tape.

It was a great tour, we learned a lot about these animals and we got to be very close to them. Like I said, we were disapointed because it wasn't as advertised and I'm not sure we would have spent the extra money on it had we known we wouldn't be interacting with the animals. They have a sea lion training show during the day for free, so I don't know...maybe we would maybe we wouldn't. Now you know exactly what happens on the tour, so you can make an educated desicion.

When the tour was over, it was time for us to finally check out the Sealife Center itself. This place is fantastic!!!!! The exhibits are phenomenal. You can easily spend a couple of hours in there. They have one exhibit where you can touch different types of starfish and other sea creatures only divers get to touch. My favorite exhibit was the big display about the big oil spil. You can pick which animal you want to hear about, and then you learn how the oil spill affected its population and how (if...) they've recovered since. It's so interesting, heartbreaking and uplifting, all at the same time.

After walking around for about an hour, we were tired and ready to call it a day. We decided to walk back to the hotel, and this time actually get to enjoy the walk! lol. We stopped at a local ice cream shop and got delicious ice cream and fudge. Seward is made up of charming little buildings, it's like something out of a movie. We loved our stroll through the city! I love Seward...lol.

Since Seward is right on the water, it was hurt in the big earthquake of 1964 by a tzunami and is in an area that can be hit by one again, obviously. On every street corner, there's a sign showing which way to go in case of a tzunami warning (run up the mountain! There's nowhere else to go...).

We got back to the hotel, got the card key for our room (and a freshly baked chocholate chip cookie! yummy!! They have complimentry baked goods, coffee, tea and yogurts out all day) and went to get our stuff from storage. All of our luggage was already waiting for us in there, so it was perfect.

Our room was HUGE!! We were blown away by how big it was (not as big as our room in Anchorage, which was enormous, but still much bigger than your standard hotel room). Just like in our hotels in Fairbanks and in Anchorage, this hotel includes free wifi in the room and a complimentry breakfast. There's a microwave and a fridge in the room. We had a view of the mountain from our window, the other side of the hotel has a view of the harbor.

What you don't see in this picture is a desk, couch and coffee table.

We were hungry, but exhausted, so we didn't feel like going out to eat. I had planned for us to have dinner at Ray's Waterfront, which gets good reviews on TripAdvisor, and is also right next to the hotel, but that would have to wait for another time...

We decided to go over to Safeway to get some bottels of water and microwave meals. It was only thanks to Cruis Critic that I knew what Safeway was, so thanks!!

Like I said, it's located right at the entrance of town, across from the train station. You can't miss it. To get to it, though, was somewhat of a challenge for us...lol. You have to cross the highway, with no cross walk! Now, I know, it's not much of a highway with only one lane in each direction and not-very- heavy traffic. But there was a constant car presence, and it really freaked me out! Everytime we attempted to cross, I chickened out...other people kept running across, but I was just freaked out about it! I could see the headline - "young Israeli couple gets run over the day before their honeymoon cruise. Police say 'they never saw it coming'". We started making fun of ourselevs, saying we're like little kids who need to wait for grown ups to come and help them cross the street...then we decided that that's exactly what we'll do! We waited until the next group of adults came and ran across with them!! It was just not safe!!! Running across a street? crazy...Anyways, it turned into our little joke. Whenever we saw a Safeway the rest of the trip, we said "Safeway? Safe my a$$!". I guess you had to have been there for it to be funny...lol.

So we picked up some water and microwave meals (BTW, obviously, there are lots of vegeterian options in there...), and we also bought some raspberries and blueberries!

We got back to our room after a LONG day, that began at 4:30 AM, and had a wonderful night in, veging out with The Office and Project Runway. It was the perfect ending to the perfect day.

If you remember, we had bought Bonine at the Walmart in Fairbanks. I learned from the Cruise Critic boards that you should take one the night before you get on the cruise, so that you have it in your system. Because of my bad ear, I sometimes have vertigo, which usually gets worse when I'm tired. I have medicine I take against it when it hits me, and it can't be taken together with Bonine. I had taken my vertigo medicine that day, so I couldn't take the Bonine as well. So Lior took the Bonine, and I planned to take it the next day.

Years ago, when I was on a Disney cruise with my family, I took a non drowsy Dramamine and it totally knocked me out! I was completely out of it and falling asleep all over the place. So I stopped taking it, because I couldn't enjoy the cruise. I decided this time I'd give Bonine a try. I didn't tell Lior that the non drowsy Dramamine had made me...well...drowsy, since I didn't want it to have a psychosomatic effect on him.

The next morning, he woke up all weird. He was totally out of it, tired and he felt like he had OD'd on codine. He was very unhappy about how weird he felt, so I quickly told him that that's exactly how I felt on the Dramamine, and not to worry, it's just because of the medicine and it will wear off. I felt bad for him! So after he reacted that way to the Bonine, we both decided we weren't going to take it, and hoped that the ginger pills would be enough. If not, my mom had told me we could buy the wrist bands at the general store onboard the ship. Let me tell you, I ended up buying a pair, and I now swear by them!!! They're amazing!!!! More on that later.

In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Coming up next: Exit glacier and the beautiful Radiance of the Seas!

She's trying to steal my engagement ring!!!! lol...just kidding

A dream come true!!!

Her skin even changed textures and colors while we were with her!

It was more than I could have asked for...just the most fantastic experience, worth every penny! I would do it again in a heart beat!

At 2:30 PM, half an hour later than it was supposed to end (that's real value!), I skipped out to Lior. I was glowing! I was so happy. I showed Lior my pictures (which grossed him out...lol) and told him all about the tour.

That's it for today. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to finally finish our first day in Seward...coming up: mammal encounter, Sealife Center exhibits, stroll through Seward and trying to make it to Safeway in a safe way!! :)

So we walked down the street, past our hotel, and pretty much right across the street was a fish restuarant that was pretty full, so we decided to give it a try. Vegetarians - like I said, you have to plan ahead...there are places that serve things that aren't fish, but you have to come prepaired.

Anyways, the place is called Terry's Fish and Chips.

The food there was AMAZING!!! Really great, but I do agree with the remarks on TripAdvisor that it's a little on the pricey side. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our meal so much, we considered returning to the same place for dinner.

The view from our table

Like I said, the clouds kept on moving, so the scenery was changing every minute!

And for some food porn

Sorry, I was so hungry I ate a little before remembering to take a picture...this was the salmon fillet. It was mouth-watering good!! I finished everything on the plate.

After a fantastic lunch, we started heading over to the Sealife Center on the otherside of town.

Now, here's where we made a HUGE mistake.

Yes, it's a very nice walk, and definitly worth it, but if you have a tour set up that you need to be at by a certain time, you will not enjoy the walk, because you have to make it on time!

There's a free shuttle in Seward during the summer, that crosses the whole town. My suggestion is to take the free shuttle to the Sealife center and then walk back at a nice leisurely pace, so that you can enjoy the sights, maybe stop in different local shops, sit by the harbor...

Anyways, back to us...we even saw the shuttle pass by, but decided to walk it. We were enjoying ourselves and meeting locals along the way, but the more we walked the more we realized how far away we were and how little time we had to get there! At a certain point, we decided the only way I was going to make it on time was if I ran ahead and he'd catch up with me. So I ran like a crazy person!! The whole time thinking "you idiot!!! This was the one thing you were waiting for! the ONE THING! and now you've done it...you're going to miss it and it's just because you just HAD to walk, didn't you?!?!?"

I finally made it and I was on time (meaning, ten minutes b4 the time the tour was supposed to start). Yay!! I walked up to the counter and signed in for both of the encounters and was told to go wait at the benches. When you sign in they give you something to attach to your shirt that says which encounter you're there for. I was sweating like crazy, so again, for the second time in one day, I was a local in a tank top. Lior made it, signed in for the mammal encounter and sat down next to me.

I had cooled down and even had time to go to the bathroom, and then it hit me - what if this tour will let me down? I'm ussually pretty good at keeping my expectations down, it's a necessity for working in the music business and staying sane. But this octipus encounter was the one thing I had been looking forward to for half a year. Everytime someone asked me "what are you going to do in Alaska?" my imidiate response was "I'm going to touch an octipus!" Suddenly I was terrified of being disapointed and how heartbreaking that would be...

Luckily, this was a non-issue, since the tour lived up to my very very very high expectations!!!!!

I went on this tour alone, because Lior is totally creeped out by octipuses. So $75 for someone who is grossed out is a lot of money to spend. Instead, he sat at the cafateria and drank a cup of coffee, while I had the experience of a lifetime!

Our tour guide ended up being the head aquarist of the whole sealife center (there's a name for it, but I don't remember) since the people who normally give the tour were all busy. So we were already off to a great start! This guy knew everything about everything! We were a full group - max. 4 people per group, which is great! So it was 2 grandparents with their little grand daughter and me.

Please note, if you want to take one of the tours, you should sign up in advance, since last year they only had the mammal and octipus ones twice a day.

First, our guide explained everything about octipuses, while we watched the huge octipus in the exhibit. It was fantastic! He really wanted us to ask questions and made sure we had all the info we wanted.

Then it was time to go behind the scenes!!

IMPORTANT - it's VERY cold back there! If you're going on any of the tours that take you behind the scenes make sure you bring something warm with you or you'll suffer. I had my fleece jacket and I was very cold.

We were taken over to a tank with a young octipus in it and given something to feed her! (I don't know if it was shrimp or prawns or something like that...something I've seen on Top Chef but never in real life). It was so cool!! He also had explained to us that the brain is a hard box between the octipus's eyes, and he had us touch it! Then we went over to the huge tank, which is actually the top of octipus exhibit, where the biggest oldest octipus was sleeping. At this point I understood that the Sealife center has a regiment for feeding the octipuses. They don't get fed everyday. So since the group the day before had fed the huge one, we couldn't feed her. Bummer!! I mean, the younger octipus was cool, but obviously it's a different experience with a bigger one. We continued walking around, and our guide showed us an octipus beek, which we also got to touch, and he showed us how they reproduce. Then we walked over to see the baby octipuses and all of the rest of the clan. Like I said, the guy was a fountain of knowledge and we were so lucky to have him as our guide.

It was almost the end of the tour, and we were talking over a tank of an almost mature female octipus, who was hiding in her den (half of a trash can). All of the sudden - BAM!! She was "staring" right at us!! (Scientists aren't sure how much they see or hear. She probably was following the sound vibrations from us talking). It was so amazing!!!!!!!!!!

And here's where our guide went above and beyond my expectations. It was already 2 PM. Our tour was over. But he was so excited by her behavior and how she'd come right up to us, he said "well, the tour tomorrow is going to be feeding her, so we can't feed her, but this is too good an oppratunity to pass up!" and he lifted the net from the top of the tank! I was so grateful!

The second he popped the top - smack!!! The octipus swung her arms out of the tank! Octipuses taste through the suckers on their arms, so they don't want to hurt you, just get a sense of who you are. The guide and his assisntant watch everything that happens, so with such a small group that has 2 guides, nothing can go wrong.

Yeah. That's what I was thinking. But we also want to do a Glacier Bay flightseeing tour and I'm worried about fog being a problem for that. Hmm . . .

I think you should post a question about it! All the Alaska experts on the board will help you out for sure :) I don't know anything about the flightseeing tours, since I hate flying so I didn't look into it at all. But everyone we met who had done flightseeing anywhere REALLY loved it. You should definitly post a question :)

OMG you're such a TEASE!!!!!! waiting for that octopus!!!! :)

and i hope you have some more pictures of the seward scenery!!!! even that little bit behind the train wreck looks gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL! I'm getting there! ;)

Seward is spectacular!! It's such a special place!

At about 9:30 AM we were hungry (don't judge us, we had been up since 4:30! lol), but we just wanted a snack since we were going to be having lunch in a couple of hours. So we went over to the Wilderness Cafe'. This car is actually a really nice space, you should check it out. If you're traveling in a group with kids, you can send the kids over to the Wilderness Cafe to sit around one of the big tables and play cards (there was a group of kids playing cards in there, otherwise it was empty, and I'm sure their parents were enjoying some quiet time with the amazing views :)).I got a yogurt parfait, which was YUMMY!!!! Lior got an ice cream cone and we went back to our train car and were very happy campers.

One last thing about the train - like I said, all the seats in the Alaska Railroad Goldstar car face forward. But if you are traveling in a group and want to be facing each other, you can just flip the seats around, so that 4 people are facing each other around a small table.

Oh! Also, I don't remember if I've said this yet, but on all the train rides you should have your binoculars with you and ready, incase there's a bald eagle up in a tree or some gorgeuos scenrey in the distance you'd like to see more up close.

The second we pulled into Seward I was in love. Seward is so charming and special, it was Lior and my favorite place that we visited on the whole trip. It's a tiny little town, about a mile long, from the Sealife Center to the train depote and Safway across the street, and it's just a couple of blocks wide, sitting between the ocean and a green mountain range. The streets are charming and made up of small buikding with all kinds of different shops. I was in love! Here's what you see when you pull in: the ocean, behind it green mountains with white snowey caps. Does it get any better than that?? The scenery is constantly changing as the clouds and fog come and go, every second more beautiful than the one before. I could have stayed there for a month.

We got off the train at the tiny train station, and were so happy that we didn't have to get our luggage, and that we could just walk right over to the Holiday Inn Express, which is the closest hotel to the train station, and about a three minute walk away (maybe 5, depending how fast you walk...). We were shocked by how close the hotel was to the train station!! I knew it was close, but I'm telling you, it was right there!!

We went into the hotel, and of course our room wasn't ready, since check out is at noon, and it was now about 11:15. They had us (and everyone else from the train) put our carry on items that we didn't want to carry around town with us in a room which they kept locked (however, keep in mind that other people are going in and out of that room, so I wouldn't leave anything valuable in there). When you walk into the hotel, you see the beautiful harbor. Don't worry, I have great pictures of the view from the lobby, but there's a surprise in them that I don't want to ruin yet!

We out in search of food. We went over to The Train Wreck, which is right next to the Holiday Inn Express. It gets mixed reviews on TripAdvisor, butu I wanted to check it out, since it's cool that it's a train car turned into a restaurant.

Check out those mountains in the background! Oh Seward, I love you :)

They have seating inside and outside. Although it was a beautiful sunny day, we were freezing!!!! So we opted to sit inside. The sweet waitress informed us that breakfast was over and now they're serving the lunch menue, which was fine by us. HOWEVER, warning to all vegetarians!!! lol...their lunch menue is VERY limited. They mainly serve pork dishes and maybe also some sea food dishes, I don't remember. But they didn't even have a salmon dish on the menue. Really mainly pork. They did offer one vegetarian dish, but it was called the spicey something or another, and the explination said that it was covered in hot sauce. I have zero tolerance for spicey food...so there was just nothing for me to eat. We appologized to the waitress and decided to just walk down the street and a find a different place, but we had to do it quickly, since I had a 1 PM appointment with an octipus!

Ok, I gtg, to be continued later today!

Todah rabbah! Did you take the train in the morning or afternoon? Any issues with fog?

bevakasha! :)

We took it in the afternoon and it was a beautiful fog-free trip.

From the research I did, the morning train is the one that's more prone to fog problems, so I made sure too pick the afternoon one. Plus, that fit in anyways with the rainforest bicycle ride in the morning (which was one of our favorite excursions!)

Sorry it's taking me so long to continue! It's hard to find time to sit down and write...hopefully this evening I'll have time. Sorry, I know it's annoying...

Really appreciate your review. I like the looks of your hiking boots--what brand did you buy?

Thank you so much!

I love those hiking boots :) They're The North Face.

I don't remember which model, so I just did a search and I'm pretty sure the model is The North Face Vindicator Mid GTX Hiking Shoe. Mine are a men's shoe :cool: it just worked out that way...lol. I loved them! Super comfortable and totally water proof.

Lior's shoes are Merrell, and he loved his shoes too. They're apparently really popular, since we ran into 6 other people who had them, including Marry Shields :)

Yeish li od sh'eilah. For Skagway, did you book the White Pass Summit excursion directly through the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway or through Royal Caribbean? We always book all of our shore excursions privately. We never book any of our shore excursions through the cruise lines. We've attempted to book this with WP&YR. However, they are strongly encouraging us to book it with RCI instead. What did you do? Todah!

Hi!

I booked all of our excursions through Royal Caribbean (except for the Mendenhal glacier shuttle), just because it's easier and less stressful for me, so I'm on the other side of that debate :)

However, I just looked up the prices for WP&YR, and the difference between booking through Royal and booking on your own is just $5, and when you book through Royal you get on the train right off the ship, whereas if you book directly through the train company you have to walk over to the station (not a big deal, ten minutes walk tops, but why not just board the train right next to the ship? :)).

Make sure you sit on the left side of the train on the way up, and for that you should be in line about half an hour before boarding time.

I've signed up for the octopus encounter at the SeaLife Center in Seward so I'm interested to hear your opinion of it. I'm having doubts now and might change to the puffin encounter.:confused:

NO!!!! YOU HAVE TO DO IT!!!! lol...the octopus encounter was amazing! It was the one thing I was most looking forward to on the whole trip, and I wasn't dissapointed :) It was exactly what they said it would be. I fed an octopus and touched 2 of them for a good amount of time. It was SO awesome!

I'm going to try to post the rest of our day in Seward today or tomorrow, so you'll be able to read in depth what it was all about, but definitly do it!! I was disappointed by the mammal encounter, but the octopus encounter was worth every penny!

Chag sameach! Ani ohevet sufganiyot! Ta'im m'od! Anachnu ochlim harbay l'vivot b'hanukah!

 

So far, we have booked:

Ketchikan - Misty Fjords floatplane, lumberjack show

Icy Straight Point - whale watching boat tour

Juneau - Mendenhall Glacier helicopter tour, sled dog summer camp

Skagway - White Pass Summit train

Seward - Kenai Fjords boat tour

Seward - SeaLife Center mammal encounter, Exit Glacier

Anchorage/Whittier - Prince William Sound Surprise Glacier boat tour

Talkeetna - McKinley flightseeing

Denali - ????? shuttle/tour bus, Cabin Nite dinner theater

Denali - Canyon Run rafting

Fairbanks - Riverboat Discovery, Gold Dredge No. 8

Anchorage - ?????

 

I actually do have a question for you. Why/how did you decide to do the Eielson shuttle bus in Denali? Did you consider doing the Wonder Lake shuttle, Kantishna shuttle, and/or Kantishna tour? This is the only decision that we're struggling with.

You're going to have such an amazing time!!!! And you really are doing a lot of the same things we did, even the excursions that I haven't gotten to yet! :)

We LOVED the lumberjack show!!! It's so much fun!

Our whale watch in ISP was so incredible I actually had tears in my eyes... :rolleyes:.

Mendenhall Glacier is gorgeous!

We also did something with dogs in Juneau, our's was called Alaska Sled Dogs and Musher's Camp. I'm not sure if it's the same one you're doing? If so, this excursion was Lior's favorite excursion :)

The train ride in Skagway was beautiful.

We really loved Exit glacier. Don't forget your mosquito repellent there!! The mosquitos there were huge and aggressive!

About the mammal encounter, we did that too. It was very nice, but not exactly what they say it will be, since you don't interact with the animals at all, and we were a little disappointed. I'll be getting to it in my next post (hopefully:)), so you'll be able to see what it's all about.

I'm totally jealous you're going rafting!! So much fun!

As for the shuttle in Denali, I thought about this A LOT! lol...

It was actually the one activity I was most stressed out about, because of Lior's back (he fell off a mountain in an ATV accident 6 and half years ago. He broke his spine and now has a metal vertibra and metal cages and bolts in his spine). He doesn't do well on long drives, and reports on this board about the bumpy road and not-so-comfortable seats were making me very nervous, and I was even considering us not doing the bus at all.

However, we both really wanted to see bears, and aren't willing to get on a floatplane to do it ;) so we said we'd give it a shot. So then it was a matter of what was the minimum length shuttle that will give us what we're looking for. I searched this board, and the answer I got was Eielson.

After reading up on it, I really wanted to make it out to the Eielson visitor center, because I really like visitor centers and I wanted to go on the walk with the ranger, since that was a good way to go on some sort of an easy guided adventure in the park.

So, in short, Wonder Lake just wasn't an option for us because of the length of the trip. But I have to say that personally for me, I really had enough by the time we got to Eielson. I was happy we made it already, happy we didn't have any longer to go, and very happy that now we were going to be spending a couple of hours off of the bus. Don't get me wrong, we were having a great time, but we were both at that point where - right now, we're having a good time, but if we have to stay on the bus longer we'll start getting antsy.

When we were done doing everything we wanted to do in Eielson, we were ready to head back. So for us, back problems or not, that was just the right choice for us. But that's just us! For us, the Eielson shuttle was perfect :)

But we met many people who had done the Wonder Lake shuttle and loved it!!! (bring mosquito repellent if you're going there).

We also met people who had done the Kantishna shuttle and loved it!!! They showed us some amazing pictures and you could tell what a great time they had had.

So you just really have to read up on what each shuttle offers, do a search on this board to see what people say and pick what's best for you.

I definitely recommend the shuttle over the tour, because it's a third of the price and you have the flexibility of getting off the bus. So that way, if you decide you want to take the Wonder Lake shuttle, you can get off at Eielson, check it out, maybe hike one of the trails, and then continue. Or you can do it the other way around. But if you're on a tour bus, you're locked in. You can't switch buses, or stay in one place longer or change your mind because you suddenly got car sick. You're stuck. That makes me nervous!!! lol.

(Just FYI, we thought the seats were fine and the road was fine too, no need to worry about that).

Looking forward to more comments and pics. I am hanging on every detail because I will be in Alaska for 13 nights but starts with cruise tour and ends on Radiance. With my extended family going I am not ready to do a DIY.

I just realized I somehow missed this comment a long time ago! I'm sorry!

Thank you so much! I'm so happy you're enjoying it! and I love that you keep on commenting throughout the review :)

I totally get why you would rather do a cruise tour with a big group...it's a lot of pressure trying to please everybody and feeling responsible for everyone's happiness 24/7. The Radiance is an amazing ship, the staff is fantastic, the itinerary in my opinion is the best and there's a lot of different things to do all the time, so everybody in your group will have a great time :)

Great photos and commentary - thanks! We will be in Alaska in June for 3 days before a southbound cruise on Radiance, so I am reading your thread with eager anticipation!

 

We have the train from Anchorage to Seward already booked, the GoldStar service, so I hope our weather is as good as yours was. It's stunning!

Thank you so much! I'm really not a great photographer, so that just tells you how stunning the scenery really is if even I managed to get these shots! LOL...

You'll have an amazing time on both land and sea!! I'm so jealous!

Don't worry about the weather at all. I was also nervous about it before we left, but when we were there I realized that the thing about Alaska is that it's so beautiful there, it really doesn't matter what the weather's like. The different weather just sets the mood and provides a different shade of beauty :) When it rains, you just feel like your in this enchanted mysterious place. So don't give it a second thought! Just be prepared with rain gear, so that the rain doesn't prevent you from doing any of the activities you want to do. But don't be worried about the view, Alaska will deliver :)

Todah rabbah! Mitzuyan! (Ani morah b'bet sefer ivrit.) This review is very helpful! We are doing the Radiance northbound and then DIY land. We are going to a lot of the same places as you. We already have booked a lot of the same tours that you did. Now you've given us a lot of ideas of what to do in Fairbanks, Denali, and what else to do on days we have short tours. Plus your packing list if really helpful. Shalom u'vrachah!

 

Todah,

Allison

Hi Allison!! Eze kef leefgosh otach! :)

You're going to have such an amazing trip!! The Radiance is the perfect ship for Alaska, and we just had the time of our lives on that cruise. Alaska itself is beyond anything that words can describe! Which tours have you booked?

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Chag sameach!! :)

Happy Chanukah everybody!! :)

We picked yellow and blue candles tonight in honor of Lior's favorite soccer team - Macabee Tel Aviv! Which is fitting, since the Macabees are the stars of the holiday...lol

My favorite food on the planet!! Soofganiyot!!!!! I'm on a strict diet of at least 2 soofganiyot every day of Chanukah, lol.

As usual, at the beginning of the train ride they asked who was interested in eating. This time we did not raise our hands, since we had our packed breakfast from the hotel. So we munched on our bagels with cream cheese and enjoyed our breakfast very much. I loved the complimentry tea and soft drinks offered onboard, it made the train rides feel so relaxed. Just like everywhere else in Alaska, all the train employees were super nice and did a fantastic job.

Here are some more pictures:

This summer was an unussually cold one, so there was more unmelted snow than usual on the mountains, and even right there on the ground!

Is that Mickey Mouse on the front of the train?? LOL...I worned you...HUGE Disney freaks.

One of the glaciers and its river.

Today I will meet an octopus!

We woke up at the ungodly hour 4:30 AM, because we wanted to be at the station by 5:45 (an hour before the train leaves. Do it! You don't want to be stuck in a long line). Breakfast was already hanging on our door. Lior was ready before I was...so he toasted the bagels in the toaster and put cream cheese on them, so that we had sandwiches ready for us. We also took the energy bars and I don't remember what else we took with us. After putting the plate and knife in the dish washer we went down to the lobby to check out. This is when we discovered there is another entrance to the hotel with a ramp...The girl at the front desk saw us getting ready to haul the luggage down the stairs, and asked "why aren't you using the ramp?" Why indeed?! hahaha. So we left the hotel easily pulling our luggage down the ramp, laughing at ourselves about how hard we had worked the previous day.

Like I said, the hotel is like a 3 minute walk from the train station. Rolling luggage down isn't a problem, so we walked down to the station with all of our luggage. Because we had so much luggage, it was still a good work out, so I was hot, sheded all of my layers down to a tank top and proclaimed myself a local. Everyone else was in coats and everything. Not me! lol, I was a local in a tank top.

We checked our luggage in rigt outside the station. In seward, we were going to be staying at the Holiday Inn Express. It turned out you can check your luggage all the way through to the Holiday Inn Express! Fantastic!

We went into the station to check in, and discovered we had the front seats of the Goldstar car!! Yay!

Lior got a cup of coffee, and we waited until we were allowed to board.

This time the Goldstar car was completely full, and with good reason. The scenery on this train ride was BREATHTAKING!! It was like traveling through a post card. It was really like being on an amazing excursion. And we saw 7 bald eagles, including one baby in a nest, and one that was flying in front of the train for a while! That was awesome. Bald eagles were the only wildlife that I was good at spotting, for some reason. I was the one who spotted most of them during the train ride, but that meant a lot of responsiblity!! lol... is it at 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock?? The pressure, I'm telling you...

Me being a local.

The journey begins!

It was the perfect sunny day!

Now what you can see in the above 2 pictures is crazy. During the huge earthquake in 1964, the ground in areas around the head of Turnagain Arm near Girdwood and Portage dropped as much as 8 feet (2.4 m), and this area was flooded by the ocean!! Because of the salt water, the trees here were destroyed and cannot grow! We even saw the ruins of a building that used to be the local pub, but it was completely destroyed by the earthquake and is now in the water! Crazy!

Originally Posted by JustThinking23

So, I did really like the pictures of the conductor, the trains, the sky writing, etc. But, didn't you get any pictures of the tip of McKinley poking through the clouds?

LOL...I was expecting that question! I know, it's very dissapointing, and other people got great shots, but I'm not so into photography, nor do we have a great camera (just the standard regular digital camera), so I don't think we could have gotten a good shot of it anyways. The train is moving and you only have so much time to gaze with amazemant at the mountain, so I was just getting in as much eye candy as I could, with and without binoculars. I just wasn't interested at looking at the view through the camera, I just wanted to live the moment, you know? :)

BTW, I forgot to mention that you should have your binoculars out for this, because it's far away.

So glad you and Lior are alright and back to give more details about Alaska, I had been checking board every week.

Originally Posted by supsan

Glad you are safe and back online, as usual great review. Looking forward to reading more!

thanks for the update!!!!!! i was in total withdrawal already!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

 

about the hotel in Anchorage - i'm guessing you mean the Anchorage Grand Hotel (not Grand Anchorage Hotel) :D

Thank you all so much! That means so much to me :) I'm so happy you're following my review. Feel free to ask questions or make comments or anything you'd like!

Oops! Yes, I meant the Anchorage Grand Hotel...Thanks for correcting me!

Now for a little math:

If train A leaves Denali at 12:25 Pm and train B leaves Anchorage at I-don't-know AM, will they meet and what will the cunductor be wearing?

Here's the answer to the second half:

The conductor came around and talked to us, and punched holes into the tickets of anyone who wanted him to. It was cool!

As for the first part of the question, yes, they will!! And when they do, make sure to wave hello or make moose antlers at the passengers on the other train!

When the 2 trains meet, the staff on both trains switch places, so that they head back in the direction they started from. It's actually pretty interesting and makes a lot of sense, since this allowes them to go back home...

I apologise, I really don't remember if the Mt. Mckinley sighting was before or after this...but now for what we were all crossing our fingers toes and whatever we could for - will we see it or won't we??

For this, Lior and I went out on the outside platform. If I remember correctly, it happened after the stop for Talkeetna. I think we went outside to catch a spot while we were stopped in Talkeetna. Once the train left the station, the outdoor platform filled up, so we were very happy to catch a "front row" space.

And there it was!

It was a really beautiful, sunny day. However, Mt. Mckinley is so enormous, it creates its own weather system around it!!! crazy! What we saw were lots of clouds over a snowey mountain range. We thought we were looking at THE mountain, and oooing and ahhhing. It turned out we were looking at the little brothers of Denali...our fellow passenger friend from India, who had been with us on the train from Fairbanks as well said:

- "you see the clouds?"

- "yeah"

-"look above the clouds. way over the clouds. you see that mountain tip?"

- "OH MY GOD! THAT'S HUGE!!!"

lol

It's really amazing. It looks like something out of the Wizard of Oz. It was spectacular!

Later on the trip, the train again slowed down for wildlife. This time a salmon was leaping out of the water. We all missed it, but immediatly started a new mythology about the humpback whale that leaped out of the water in persuit of the salmon, and the herd of killer whales that were after the humpback. It was so much fun! What a great group of people...

At about 6:30 PM, I think, it was final call for dinner (I'm not completely sure about the time...sorry). We went down to eat, since we knew by the time we checked into the hotel, there was no way we were going to go out and eat, esspecially considering the crazy hour we'd be getting up the next morning.

Dinner was fantastic! I had the Pene pasta dish, and didn't leave anything on my plate! BTW, we never ordered drinks, since we had complimentry soft drinks in our train car. This was no problem at all.

We finished eating and went back upstairs. We were now at the outskirts of Anchorage, going by a US air force base. I thought that was very cool and took a bunch of pictures.

It turned out we were in town the day before an airshow, that reinacted World War 2 or something like that...and they were practicing when we rolled into town! Old airplanes from back in the day were doing all kinds of tricks up in the sky and promoting the airshow that would be taking place the next day

We got off the train and went over to collect our luggage. This was no trouble at all.

We had a reservation at the Grand Anchorage hotel. This hotel is the closest hotel to the train station. The problem is you have to walk up a steep street to get to it. If you have a lot of luggage (like us) or if you have mobility issues, you won't want to walk it. We tried to get a cab, but the first cab driver we asked said there was a free shuttle to our hotel, and pointed us in the direction of the shuttles. We thought "great!" and walked over to where people were boarding a shuttle, found out it was for a completely different hotel, and then back to the other side of the station, where a different group of people were boarding a shuttle, again not to our hotel. It turned out the guy just didn't want to take us on such a short drive, which I get, but sending us on a wild goose chase while we're stuck with all our luggage isn't very nice...just say you're not interested...

We called the hotel, and the very sweet girl at the front desk told us that she's sorry but there's no shuttle (I didn't think there was...but I believed the cab driver...). I started getting worried that no one would be willing to take us and that I would have to somehow make it up the hill with all of the luggage (I try to spare Lior from lifting as much as I can). But because the station was pretty empty by now, one nice cab driver said he'd take us. We were very gratefull, and gave him a very nice tip since it really is a ridiculasly short drive.

He was happy, we were happy, and all together the three of us stood and watched what was being written up in the sky above our heads.

cool, huh?? Can you believe this picture was taken at about 8:30 PM?!

We didn't know that there was another entrance to the hotel with a ramp, so we somehow got all of our luggage up the stairs and into the lobby (but if you stay there, take the ramp entrance!! lol) There were fresh big chocholate chip cookies on the counter and candies. We got the card key for our room and took the elevator up.

Our room was HUGE!!!!!! With 3 walk in closets, a big living room, big bed, and a kitchen with a stove, oven, dish washer, toaster, microwave, dishes and pots. The girl at the front desk told us we were welcom to use everything in the kitchen, and just place the dirty dishes in the dish washer before we leave. There's free Wifi in the room, and breakfast is also included. There's a breakfast card in your room. You write down what time you want breakfast to be there, leave it on the door, and the next morning there's a bag full of food hanging on the door handle. I wrote on it that we were leaving for the train to Seward, so that they knew how early we need the breakfast to be delivered.

The breakfast is very nice. It has bagels, cream cheese, energy bars, juice and I don't remember what else (maybe fruit? I don't remember).

We went to sleep, knowing we had to get up at 4:30 AM. That bed was so comfortable! It was Lior's favorit. BUT I had trouble falling asleep...because the hotel is so close to the train station, there's a lot of noise all night. I'm a very light sleeper, any little thing wakes me up, so I just couldn't fall asleep with the noise. I closed all the windows, tried again, and still I couldn't fall asleep. I have a tube in one ear (like a little kid, lol) so I have ear plugs for taking showers and for th Disney water parks (woohoo!). I ended up using the ear plugs to block out the noise, and finally was able to sleep.

So here's my take on the Grand Anchorage Hotel:

1. It is the closest hotel to the train station. If you don't have much luggage, it's great, since it's literally up the street from the train station. However, if you have a lot of luggage or have mobility issues, I think it's a whole lot more convenient to stay at one of the hotels that offer a free shuttel to and from the train station.

2. The rooms are enormous, with a full kitchen. So if you're planning on staying in Anchorage for a few days, I think this is a great option for you. It's also a very nice accomodation for a family, since there's so much space.

3. There definitely is noise from the train station all night. Not constant noise that will give you a head ache, just noise of an active station. We honostly didn't even notice it until we went to bed. Lior was not bothered by it at all and fell right asleep. However, if you are a light sleeper like me, it probably will bother you.

I took a bunch of pictures of the hotel from the train station, so that I could show you how close it is, but I can't find them...

Tomorrow is the day I waited 6 months for - the day I meet an octopus!

Sorry for the loooooong delay! We're musicians, and our lives were very much affected by the "war", so we've been working hard to catch up on things.

Anyways, back on the train!!

This time, the Goldstar car was pretty much full, unlike the half empty car we had from Fairbanks. There are a couple of things I would like to mention about the train:

1. They offer a free magazine that describes the places of interest you pass during the train ride. It's great, because that way you know where you are, plus you can read the info about what your seeing if the naration is unclear.

2. Naration is provided by local high school kids who voulentear to do this. Some are better than others, and they switch cars as the trip goes on.

The scenary from Denali to Anchorage was BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! We loved being in the glass domed car for this train ride, I think it's totally worth it. The 8 hours went by in a flash! There's always something to look at outside. Whenever the train goes by something of interest or wildlife, the train slows down so that you can get a good look at it. We even aw a bald eagle purched in it's nest, a female moose, swans and lots of mamma ducks with little ducklings following. Other than that , there were another 2 female moose spotted (but we missed them), a salmon that leaped out of the water (but we missed that...) and a BEAR ON A TREE!!! which everyone but the engeneirs at the front missed...more on that later.

Right after the train left the station, we were asked who wanted to eat lunch right then, and we raised our hands and were escorted down to the dining car. The dining car is so nice, and hey, every table is by a window! :)

We shared the salmon chowder, which was DELICIOUS!! yummy, yum yum. I had a salmon dish which was amazing, and I don't remember what Lior had, but he loved it. We were really pleasenly surprised by how good the food was, since the breakfast wasn't great. I guess we just lucked out with the breakfast, because everything else onboard was amazing.

We went back upstairs, and the girl providing the naration said that since it was such a sunny and bright day, we would probably get to see Mt. Mckinley!!! Woohoo! Everyone was extatic! The other passengers on the train were so nice and friendly. We had a little group, and we were chatting it up and cracking jokes the whole time. It was great!

At some point, I don't remember who started the rumor, but suddenly we were all staring at this big snowey mountain and cheering "Mt. Mckinley!We saw it! We're part of the 33%!!" There was a whole celebration going on in our Goldstar car, until the guy providing naration (he switched the girl, who was now in a different car) gently informed us that we had not yet gotten to the point of the trip where Mt. Mckinley is visible, and those are some other mountains, nowhere near as big as "The Great One". oops!!!! Now didn't we all feel silly...LOL.

Beautiful!!

We went over a high longish bridge. I thought it would be scary, but it was fine. Thank god!!

Looking down from the bridge. You can see its shadow.

I don't remember when it happened, but there was a "bear in the tree debacle" lol...Whenever the engineers up front see wildlife, the train is slowed down, and they tell the narators where the wildlife is. At this point we had a new girl in our car, and she seemed to be the youngest and least experienced. You could tell she was very nervous and shy. She anounced in her mic "bear in a tree on the right". Obviuosly, everyone in the car was excited and searching for the bear, but with no further info (like "on the right at 3 oclock") there was no way we could see it, and we missed it. No big deal! We were all just in Denali and probably saw bears in there. But people were PISSED!! They were really angry at the poor girl...who's just a voulenteer and trying her hardest! I felt bad for her, and I also wanted to try to lighten the atmosphere in the car, since people were so disappointed, so I said "wow! that bear was cool!" getting my who "click's" attention. They asked "what?? You saw it??" And I said "yeah! it was so cool! But the coolest part about it was it had a salmon in its mouth, and there was a pack of wolves circling the tree on the ground, and an eagle circling from above!! And with Mt. Mckinley in the background!! Man, that was awesome!" People started catching on and laughing, and adding details to my tall tale. One woman spoke of the porcupine the wolves were trying to get away from. By the end of it, everyone was laughing and we had our own little mythology going. It was great!

great update!!!

thanks!

so the place that you checked your baggage is between the train station and the front of the park?

did you leave everything there, including your carry on luggage?

is that where you also check in your checked luggage for the train, or do you have to take all of your luggage across the street to the depot when it's time to check in for your train?

Hi!

All of that is inside the Denali Park. The baggage check is part of the visitors center complex, which is right across the street from the train depote (which is also inside the park).

Yes, we left everything there, except for my backpack, so that was great!!

The baggage check is seperate from the train station. You have to take your luggage, cross the street, and go check in at the train station. It's VERY easy and well organized! :)

Keeping you and Lior in our prayers. Stay safe. Don't worry about posting right now - we'll all be here, waiting, when you feel up to it again. Know that we're thinking good thoughts and sending them your way.

Thank you so much! You have no idea how much that means to me and how heart warming it is to read such encouraging words when things are so bad...thank you!

You have not posted in a while, I hope you and your family is safe with all the crazy stuff going oh over there!

Thank you very much for your concern and kind words.

We're ok, and so are all our friends and family members in the meantime, thankfully. But life is very scary right now, and everything is just so overwhelming and upsetting that it's hard and even impossible to think about anything else...

Thank you everyone for following my trip report. I'm sorry for this break in the flow. Believe me, I'd much rather be writing about our amazing adventures in Alaska, I just don't have it in me right now. Hopefully I'll get to continue this soon.

Yummy yummy yummy!! What a great retuarant...good memories from the Base Camp Bar & Grill at the Denali Princess Lodge.

Bye Nenana! (The gorgeous view from the Princess Lodge)

Hot tub at the Princess Lodge, for the brave souls who can manage the freezing walk back to their room.

Lior and and Melvin the moose at the visitors center.

One of the trails that start at the visitors center.

Train depot.

We didn't want to get up so early, since we were tired from the previous days, and we knew that we'd be getting up at 4:30 AM the next day, so we allowed oursleves a later morning and got up at 8 AM. We called for a bell boy to come help us with all the luggage, and within minutes he was at our door. We waited with our luggage for the 9 AM Princess shuttle to the park, and in the meantime Lior got himslef a cup of coffee.

The shuttle takes maybe 5 minutes to get to the park. It makes a couple of stops, and we got off at the Visitors center, which is right across the street from the train depot. Between the two of them there's baggage claim, where you can check your luggage for hours or days. We went over there, and checked in our luggage. I'm sorry, I don't remember how much it costs...it wasn't expensive, and it was vey convinient, since this way we could spend the morning in the park and go strieght to the train, without having to back track and go back to the hotel to get our stuff.

Bag free, we went into the visitors center. This place is FANTASTIC!!!! If you like visitors centers, don't miss it! The exhibits are great, many of them are hands on (so it's great for kids) and you learn a lot about the park and Alaska in general. We spent a little over an hour inside.

Important tip - when we went into the visitors center it was pretty empty, so we pretty much had everything to ourselves. It was great, because there are many exhibits that are hands on. By the time we were done, at about 10:25, people were pouring in! More people just kept coming in and the place was packed. We felt extremely lucky that we got to explore everything by ourselves and we had such a great time.

When we were done, we went ove to the ranger desk to ask for a trail map. On the desk was sign that stated that at 10:30 there was going to be a free ranger presentation in the theater. Lior's back was bothering him a little, so he prefered going to that over the hour trail I had planned for us at the front of the park. The presentation was led by the sweetest ranger, who was so excited about Alaska and Denali, and really swept us up in her enthusiasm. This specific theater program was about sounds in the wild. She played sounds of different animals in Denali and had us guess which animal each sound belonged to. Then she explained all about different sound frequencies and showed us how sound polution effects nature. She also told us how they put cameras and michrophones across Denali, so that they can see what changes are happening in nature throughout the years. I have to say, I wasn't so into the talk at the beginning. I was kind of bummed out that we weren't walking around. But it turned out to be extremely interesting, and it actually turned out to be, somehow, one of the most meaningful experiences we had in Alaska. We just really got a lot out of it. The ranger was so passionet about the subject, she really won us over. She ended the talk with telling us that now, after everything we've learned, she hopes that when we hike in nature we'll take a moment to be quiet and listen. And that she hopes that when we go home, and people ask us if Alaska was beautiful, we'll answer: "yeah, it was beautiful, but you should have heard it!". That sentence became the motto of our entire trip..lol...we were just so moved by it. We still say it, every time we're somewhere amazing: yeah, it was beautiful, but you sould have heard it :)

This presentation is sponsored by the cruise companies, so it's designed to have you out in time for the train (it's 40 minutes long). Since we had about 15 minutes to spair before we had to be at the train depot (the train leaves at 12:25 and you need to be there an hour before that), we went on a short walk combinig two trails, so that we didn't walk back the same way we walked out, and get to say that we did two trails. It was a lovely walk through the woods, extremely easy, and much faster than the times written in the park's trail map. We ran into a couple of ground squirrels on the way. When we got back to the visitors center we heard a noise from a tree. Thanks to the ranger's presentation, we knew that it was a ground squirrel and not a bird we were looking for :) So we looked at the tree, and sure enough, there he was!

Our Denali adventure was over. I would have loved to walk all the trails at the front of the park, and take the free bus over to Savage River...so much to do so little time. But we had an amazing time and we didn't feel like we had spent too little time in Denali, we were very happy with the amount of time we had there.

We got our luggage from bag check and walked over to the train depot to check in.

Leaving the Princess Lodge. Sad!! But at least there's coffee!

Glitter Gulch - not so glittery! Actually very quiant looking to me and very convinient. This is right across the street from the Princess Lodge.

At the visitors center. As close to a bear that I'm ever going to be!

Great review. We were planning on taking a cruisetour for this trip but after reading your review I will be planning on the land portion myself. Thanks for the information. It will be very helpful.:)

Wow! That's great! I'm so happy to hear :) you'll have a great time!!!