Alaska Sea-Land cruise 6-29-16 Review—Y2C

[rajkr74]

Hi Rick and Joyce,

 

Thanks for doing this. I'm loving the pictures and the commentary. Looking forward to following along.

 

Karen

 

Hey Karen, how are you? Have you done one of these HAL Sea-Land cruises?

 

We found no reviews on the HAL Sea-Land cruises that we thought we'd do one. Glad you are enjoying it. We are going to evaluate the hotels and eating establishments we used along with the HAL's available meal vouchers. More to come...:D

 

Rick & Joyce

Edited July 22, 2016 by rajkr74

[utahtea]

Hey, give me credit for a few photos. :D Trying to get this done in the next day or so. Will have a link to our OneDrive photos we will send to you later.

 

Yes, Rick you take excellent pictures too! (It must be from all those years being married to Joyce! :D )

 

I emailed you last night before I saw this post. Looking forward to the link!

 

Utahtea

[rajkr74]

Day 9 Fairbanks

 

We were bused out at 8:00am to Dawson’s airport for our flight to Fairbanks at 9:00am. Very interesting since the runway is gravel and security is done on the tarmac with folding tables. Both groups A & B were bused to the airport and we boarded a 737 with only HAL cruisers getting on the plane. We got out of the bus, presented our carryon luggage which was inspected and then we were hand scanned with a metal detecting wand. It was a good quick 51 minute flight with beverage and snack service that was a very smooth flight. We gained an hour on this flight so we landed in Fairbanks about the same time as we took off from Dawson……. We got to the WestMark hotel around 10:00am and the rooms were available and our luggage was in the room when we got there.

 

We had planned on walking down to the river water front for pictures then taking the Blue bus for a tour of Fairbanks. The Transit Center is just a 4-5 blocks from the hotel and the river front park. We got off the bus at Super Center Walmart to buy some fruits and then got back on the bus to continue the tour around Fairbanks. There are Fairbanks bus schedules in the lobby of the hotel and the blue line goes in a big circle around Fairbanks. The Blue and Red line go in opposite directions around Fairbanks. By riding the Blue bus the bus stop was very close to the park entrance and it was nice to get a view of Fairbanks. Seniors get a discount so the fare for us was $1.00 each, pretty cool. We got off the bus in front of Pioneer Park which is like an open air museum that is free. There are some venues in the park that require a fee to get into the buildings. Lots of old cabins turned into shops. It used to be known as Alaska Land in previous years. At 5:00pm there is a Prime Rib, Salmon and Cod fish all you can eat dinner for $32.00/person on site. It has seating both outside or inside that was very good and since the weather was clear and warm we ate outside. The food was very good and enjoyable with many items to pick from along with beverages pop, coffee and tea included. Alcoholic beverages are extra. After a great dinner we walked out to the bus stop near the entrance of the park and took the bus back to the Transit Center then walked back to the hotel.

 

737 airplane from Dawson to Fairbanks.

 

Security check.

 

Griffin Park on the Chena River downtown Fairbanks.

 

Stern wheeler in Pioneer Park.

 

Church in Pioneer Park.

 

Street of old buildings and shops in Pioneer Park.

[rajkr74]

Day 10, 11, 12 Denali

We boarded a bus for a HAL tour to Gold Dredge #8 at 9:30am, for a short drive from the hotel. The Gold Dredge tour was very informative and enjoyable including seeing the Alaska Oil Pipeline along with a small train trip around the dredge site discussing the use of the dredge for mining gold in the area then finishing up with panning for gold. Yes, most everyone walked away with gold flakes. There are shops that you can view items including a large gold nugget that you can pick up. There were about 6-7 busses there at the same time but that did not deter us from this enjoyable tour. The dredge staff would even weigh and value the gold you panned with the ability to put it into jewelry to wear. There was free coffee, hot chocolate and cookies served in the shops. You had plenty of time to tour inside the dredge also.

 

After the dredge tour we went to Griffin Park in downtown Fairbanks for a lunch break on our own. We found a BBQ place, Big Daddy’s, a couple of blocks from the park and bought a sandwich to split back in the park. After an hour we headed out for Denali with a 2 ½ hour drive to get to McKinley Chalet Resort and our rooms. We had one restroom stop and a photo stop on the way. We got there about 5:30pm and received our packets with our room assignment in the Canyon Lodge. The resort has on-site free shuttle buses that travel around all the resort sites and generally are available every 15 minutes. There is a free shuttle to the National Park that leaves every ½ hour from in front of the main lodge and delivers you to two stops in the park, The Wilderness Access center and then the Visitor center in the park. There is also a free restaurant shuttle, that starts around 4:30pm, that goes around in a loop, to a number of restaurants including a Salmon Bake restaurant and the Princess Lodge near the McKinley lodge, we did not use it so not sure what other restaurants it stopped at. Since the weather was great we jumped the shuttle bus to the Wilderness Access center to investigate the possibility of doing a tour after our HAL sponsored Tundra tour the next day. We were not sure what the weather and viewing conditions would be on our HAL tour the next day. The Wilderness Center had current weather forecasts. Well….next day looked like it was going to be the best day for Denali viewing over the next two days so we deferred booking another one.

 

Alaska oil pipeline

 

Demonstration of gold mining techniques.

 

Gold Dredge #8

 

Rest stop on the way to Denali

 

On the road to Denali

 

Arrived at McKinley Chalet Resort in Denali

 

[ron1946]

Rick - You know that Flo and I are really enjoying your review and pictures. How were the hotel accommodations? Did you guys have meal vouchers or did you eat on "the economy"? I know you were on the buses quite a bit, but did they stop for picture ops or did you have to take pics while moving?

 

Thanks so much for putting this together. It will really be a help to us when we leave on August 16th.

 

Roll call is dead, so if anyone out there is planning to travel with us on the August 16th R2L:Seattle Gold Rush cruise/tour would love to hear from them.

[kazu]

What a fabulous review Rick (and Joyce). Great travelogue with marvellous pictures. Really enjoying it and want to say thanks for taking the time to do this.:)

[rafinmd]

I'm really enjoying this also. This is on my bucket list.

 

One question: The day you flew, where did you clear Customs and Immigration?

 

Roy

[rajkr74]

Rick - You know that Flo and I are really enjoying your review and pictures. How were the hotel accommodations? Did you guys have meal vouchers or did you eat on "the economy"? I know you were on the buses quite a bit, but did they stop for picture ops or did you have to take pics while moving?

 

Thanks so much for putting this together. It will really be a help to us when we leave on August 16th.

 

Roll call is dead, so if anyone out there is planning to travel with us on the August 16th R2L:Seattle Gold Rush cruise/tour would love to hear from them.

 

Ron, you are welcome.

I'm going to do a full post with pics on each of the hotels after the last post on Anchorage along with a summary of our eating experiences. Just about there. We did not buy the meal vouchers.

[rajkr74]

What a fabulous review Rick (and Joyce). Great travelogue with marvellous pictures. Really enjoying it and want to say thanks for taking the time to do this.:)

 

Thanks, glad you are enjoying it. It's kind of fun doing it. We take a lot of pictures and it's a little tough deciding which few to put in this thread.

[rajkr74]

Rick - You know that Flo and I are really enjoying your review and pictures. How were the hotel accommodations? Did you guys have meal vouchers or did you eat on "the economy"? I know you were on the buses quite a bit, but did they stop for picture ops or did you have to take pics while moving?

 

Thanks so much for putting this together. It will really be a help to us when we leave on August 16th.

 

Roll call is dead, so if anyone out there is planning to travel with us on the August 16th R2L:Seattle Gold Rush cruise/tour would love to hear from them.

 

Forgot to answer your other questions. On the buses we did get to stop for photo ops at scenic spots. We did try to shot thru the window at times and got some OK shots. But to tell the truth a lot of the scenery is the same and somewhat boring. The rides on the buses were not that bad and were comfortable. I am 6' 9'' tall and these type of rides can be tough on me, but not on these buses.

 

One note...on the train trip, which I liked very much, go down and get out on the platform between the trains for pics. It was tough shooting thru the doom glass. It gave us rainbow colors in some of our photos. The platforms between the cars are covered and some what protected and will allow you better shots from both sides. You can roam around the car with ease and that was very nice. Also have breakfast or lunch (or both) on the train, its very nice with good food. You just don't get that when traveling anymore like back in the 50's and 60's.

 

Our Roll Call was also DEAD, it had me and one other person who was trying to get enough posters to do a Meet & Greet on ship. It did not happen.

 

When you get done with your cruise we would love to get your schedule with times and dates to compare to our sea first cruise. Just curious on how the times in each town compare. Thanks.

 

rreedfam (at) Live (dot) com

Edited July 23, 2016 by rajkr74

[rajkr74]

I'm really enjoying this also. This is on my bucket list.

 

One question: The day you flew, where did you clear Customs and Immigration?

 

Roy

 

You are welcome, glad it helps make your decision on doing this type of cruise. One suggestion, HAL has 26 combos of this sea-land cruise, do one that has at least 3 days in Denali, it is worth it. Any shorter and you miss things there.

 

We flew from Canada to Fairbanks USA and we did go thru US Customs in Fairbanks. It was the fastest Customs check that we have ever had coming into the US. Three agents for the aprox. 56 people on board, it went fast. If you did the trip the opposite direction you would probably go thru Canadian customs in Dawson also. When we took the White Pass train trip from Skagway to Fraser Canada before we got off the train and onto the buses, Canadian Customs came thru the train and looked at our passports.

[RuthC]

You're bringing back some memories of my HAL land tour back in '93. I remember it being exhausting! And know I couldn't do it today.

 

We had busses with those accordion joints, and in back there was a lounge-type area, with very comfortable couches. We had snacks, there, too.

Tell me, is HAL still using those type busses? On such long travel days they were really nice.

Edited July 23, 2016 by RuthC

[rajkr74]

You're bringing back some memories of my HAL land tour back in '93. I remember it being exhausting! And know I couldn't do it today.

 

We had busses with those accordion joints, and in back there was a lounge-type area, with very comfortable couches. We had snacks, there, too.

Tell me, is HAL still using those type busses? On such long travel days they were really nice.

 

HAL has newer buses with lots of knee room which I LOVE since I am 6' 9" tall and I don't normally fit normal bus or plane seating. The buses are not the "accordion" type. We did not have snacks but water was provided on the trip between Whitehorse and Dawson. We had plenty of rest stops along with photo stops. It was not strenuous since HAL handled all the moving of luggage between rooms and buses. It was different living out of a suitcase rather than having all of your clothes in a closet on the ship. We did have a lady in a wheel chair in our group of 26. She handled it very well with no problems.

 

Here is a link to our photos on Microsoft OneDrive. There is a picture of the buses HAL uses for the longer trips in the link. Just click the first photo and a slide show will start.

 

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AsptL998yK8Hga1vAG3LkXsBVx164Q

 

Rick

[RuthC]

So, that would be a "no". Thanks for the explanation.

 

Those busses were nice because you could get up and walk, then stretch out in the back for a while. IIRC, there was a restroom back there, too, so no extra deep steps to an extremely cramped toilet like on some busses.

Glad I did the land tour when I did. Couldn't manage it now.

[rajkr74]

Day 10, 11, & 12 Denali Continued

 

The next day our Tundra Tour drew an 8:40am time to start the tour. This was not to our liking, we had hoped to go earlier since we thought more animals would be out early in the morning. It turned out the mountain was out earlier and animals showed up all day, who would have thought? The buses look like school buses but have been refitted with nice cushioned seats and were better than what we had read about buses of yester-year. I was lucky and got the seat right behind the driver and was happy since my legs could not get into the seats further back in the bus and would have stuck out in the isle the whole trip. Weather turned out with partial clouds, no rain and warm weather. The guide/driver Tom was very good and informative making the 9 hour trip very enjoyable. We had a boxed lunch with packaged snack items. We spotted Dall sheep up the mountain, caribou, a Golden eagle, many bears including a grizzly sow with her two yearly cubs….OUTSTANDING! I’d like to find the person who, on cue, got the sow and cubs to walk across the meadow as we came around the corner. The guide/driver had a video camera that he’d pull out with 100X zoom and would record the animals and simultaneously display that video on pull down TV monitors for passengers to see in the bus. It was a great system for those with bad eyesight or who could not locate the animals out the windows. There were two rest stops both ways coming and going. We also had a number of scenic/photo stops that allowed us to stretch our legs. We got to see Denali with some minor clouds covering her summit and were happy since only about 30% of the people see it at all. Overall it was a tour not worth missing and we really enjoyed spotting all the wildlife.

 

If you are in Denali for 3 days with the HAL tundra tour and did not get you the views of the mountain you wanted, you can go the next day if it has better weather and get on the a free shuttle out to Savage River. This bus will have views of the mountain without going all the way up the park. You would have time to take this or pay for another tour going further out by booking thru the Wilderness Access Center. There are a number of options you can review at the Wilderness Center. Our Tundra Tour was good enough (not the whole mt.) that we decided not do another one. If we had, we would have missed the Sled dog demo.

 

We got back to the lodge at 5:30pm and got ready for our HAL show Music of Denali in the Gold Nugget Saloon next to Denali Square. The dinner was good and the show was fun.

 

Denali

 

Denali

 

Valley meadows

 

Glaciated valleys

 

River bed in valley

 

One of the tour buses

[rajkr74]

Day 10, 11, & 12 Denali--Continued

 

Dall Sheep

 

Caribou

 

Here's what we all came to see....Grizzly bears!!!!

 

Mama and her 2 yearly cubs.

 

Mama by herself

 

Ptarmigans--Alaska's state bird, they turn pure white in the winter

[erewhon]

Fabulous photos, enjoying your review.

[rajkr74]

Day 10, 11 & 12 Denali--Continued

 

The next day started out partly cloudy but dry. As the day rolled on it got cloudier and we got rain later in the day when it came down pretty steady. We took the shuttle over to the visitor center then walked over to the Murie Science and Learning Center. We went back to the Transportation Center/Bus stop near the Visitor center and got in line at 1:20pm for the shuttle to the Sled Dog demonstration. This is one not to miss if you like dogs. You have to be at the bus stop 40 mins before the demo which are held at 10:00am, 2:00pm and 4:00pm. You were allowed to pet and get pictures of the dogs before the demo. Nice presentation of what the National Park does with these dog teams during the winter in the park. We took a shuttle to the Princess Lodge just to see what it was like and to check out the two restaurants on site for possible dinner.

 

NPS Dog Sled team

 

Dog sled team on demonstration run

 

One of the sled dogs

 

Denali Square at McKinley Chalet

 

Wildflowers in Denali

 

Denali Park sign----last day there.

[utahtea]

Great review! I knew the weather forecast for your time in Denali wasn't favorable so I'm glad to see you got to see mountain!

 

This brought back great memories of our time in these areas oh so many years ago!

 

Thanks Rick (and Joyce for some of the pictures :D )!

 

Utahtea

[rajkr74]

Day 13- Anchorage

Now on to Anchorage via the train. We got on the bus from McKinley Chalet at 8:30am and were taken over to the transportation center/train depot for a 9:15am departure. We were on the Kashwitna dome car. There were two other HAL cars attached to the engines. The car had two levels, the upper one for passengers with full glass windows for great views and the lower level is the dining area that was serving breakfast and later lunch. So if you don’t go to breakfast at the McKinley Chalet then you could have it on the train. They also had staff that could serve light snacks and drinks up in the passenger section. We had lunch later down stairs which was nice and everyone should do it since you don’t get that type of service any more. The rail car was great with (again) great leg room, clean and comfortable with very good seats. It was easy to walk around the car and also to go downstairs and stand on the platforms between train cars. That turned out to be the best place to talk photos and is somewhat protected and covered. We got some more shots of Denali as we rolled to Anchorage. As a kid I remember riding the train with my mother and this trip was really a roll back on the nostalgia meter. We got to Anchorage about 5:00pm but I could have spent another 12 hours on the train, it was that fun. We pulled into the rail depot in Anchorage about 4:00pm. Buses were waiting for all three dome cars and we were whisked off to the Anchorage Westmark hotel.

 

This where we said goodbye to Ben our host as he lived in Anchorage and had 3-4 days off before he took another HAL group going the other way from Anchorage on their Land-Sea tour to Skagway. Ben was friendly, helpful and always there to provide answers to any questions we had. He and Shannon, host of the B group, even went out and bought cake for the 4th of July celebration at our hotel in Whitehorse Canada, a very nice touch that I think came out of their own pockets. Their attention to detail helped make this cruise very enjoyable.

 

Our dome car leaving Denali

 

Upper passenger deck of the dome car

 

Lower deck dinning room

 

Another look at Denali

 

Scenic views traveling to Anchorage

 

Our last day with Ben.

[kazu]

FANTASTIC pictures and review.

 

Love the dogs :)

 

Thanks so VERY much.

[ron1946]

Rick: Really enjoyed the review and especially the fantastic pictures. Of course you realize you have just made us that more anxious for August 16th to get here. Really appreciate the work you put into the review and it will be a tremendous help to Flo and I as we prepare for our "journey"! You do know any questions that arise between now and departure will go directly to you! Hopefully we can also provide good info like this to future cruise/tour participants. Just have to learn how to load pictures! Thanks so much. Look forward to your hotel/meal review! Take care and God bless!

[rajkr74]

Sorry, looks like two of my photos dropped off my last post. So here they are again. I added one photo of all cruisers in our groups Y2C-A.

 

Lower level dining on dome car

 

Scenic view on the way to Anchorage

 

Group picture taken at Minto Landing lunch stop

[rajkr74]

Day 14- Seattle

 

We left our luggage out in the hallway at 10:00am and took the bus to the Anchorage airport at 11:00am for a 1:17pm flight on Delta Airlines. We checked in with our luggage that was on the bus at the Delta counter. The one thing that we were not ready for was when I checked in on the Delta website the night before, we had to pay $25.00 per bag for 2 checked pieces of luggage in order to print out our boarding passes. We thought that was covered by HAL so I was a little disappointed with the additional $50 charge for two bags. Everyone flying back to Seattle did not go on Delta. If we had known that I might have tried to get on a United flight with HAL since we get 2 free checked bags when we fly with United. WestMark hotel did have computers in the lobby hooked to a printer that you can print your boarding passes for the flight the next day. It was about a 3 ½ hr. flight to Seattle and since this is the end of the tour and people in our group were going in different directions we did not see any HAL rep there to direct us to the Hilton shuttle. A group of us who were all going to the Hilton very near the airport figured out where to catch the Hilton shuttle over to the hotel. It took us about 10 mins to get to the hotel and checked in. The front desk had our rooms ready along with a cover letter from HAL.

 

Sorry no pictures here. The next and final posts will discuss eating arrangements and review of the hotel accommodations at the WestMark hotels we stayed at.

[rajkr74]

Rick: Really enjoyed the review and especially the fantastic pictures. Of course you realize you have just made us that more anxious for August 16th to get here. Really appreciate the work you put into the review and it will be a tremendous help to Flo and I as we prepare for our "journey"! You do know any questions that arise between now and departure will go directly to you! Hopefully we can also provide good info like this to future cruise/tour participants. Just have to learn how to load pictures! Thanks so much. Look forward to your hotel/meal review! Take care and God bless!

 

Ron, sure glad this helps you on your up coming cruise. You should have a good time like we did, it was fun. Let me know if you have questions I'll try to answer them.