Denali flightseeing

[PandasRUs]

We will be on a HAL cruise tour with 2 nights in Denali. We are planning on doing a flightseeing tour there. It looks like the four options are:

1 - plane w/out landing

2 - plane w/landing

3 - helicopter w/out landing

4 - helicopter w/landing

 

We would be interested in hearing experiences for any of these options - what you did on the tour, what you liked, what you didn't like....

 

Looking forward to hearing your responses.

[RuthC]

I did the plane w/o landing ages ago. It was a thrill that I would love to repeat. As a matter of fact, I did try to repeat it the last time I was in Anchorage, but weather at the mountain canceled the excursion.

 

And that's the only problem with anticipating this excursion---weather at Denali can be iffy, and flights are canceled if weather won't cooperate.

Otherwise, there is nothing I can say that's negative about this tour.

[mek]

We did a plane flight with landing last summer out of Talkeetna. It was a wonderful experience and I'm so glad we did it. It's one of those things I wouldn't book in advance just in case the weather is not good. Last year we walked around town and there were lots of flights available - in fact, we were in the right place at the right time and got a BOGO for $299. There was a plane getting ready to take off with 2 empty seats and they offered them to us if we could go immediately. I'm not sure if it's quite that easy near the park, but the prices are much less booking independently even if you don't get a two for the price of one.

[Lady Chew]

We did the flight with landing in 2014. It was wonderful. I don't remember what it cost, but it was worth it.

 

Down on the ground, the temperature was in the upper 70s! But we had been advised to bring outerwear, hats & gloves. They provided boots which went over our own footwear.

 

We had seven passengers plus pilot. Loaded according to weight, so the plane would be evenly balanced.

 

We had a gorgeous day - beautiful blue sky, puffy white clouds ... just wonderful. We flew around the park, then straight towards Mt. Denali. At one point, all we could see out the window was the face of the mountain! Our pilot took us around the peak and over many glaciers before landing on the one selected for that particular day. We spent about 30 minutes on the glacier before taking off again. Then more flying around overlooking the park.

 

Just wonderful! Would love to do it again some day!

[summersigh]

We chose a somewhat different option for seeing Mt Denali from the air ...

 

We did our HAL land tour portion with double Denali that started in Anchorage and ended in Fairbanks.

 

We'd chosen the HAL option of flying back to Anchorage to meet the bus that would take us to the ship. The flight path went very near Mt Denali as well as giving a spectacular view of all the glaciers nearby. We were very lucky to have beautiful sunshine the day of our flight and we knew it was going to go rain or shine :D

[dakrewser]

We did the flight with landing and it was, by far, our best excursion experience in 20 years of cruising.