Jump to content

Live Blog! – B2B2B Seward to Japan – Millennium 2018– Join us for our next adventure


Jim_Iain
 Share

Recommended Posts

There are not many options for dining at Denali Park Lodge. Choices are either sit down dinner at the lodge where entrees start at about $45-50 ala carte, a hamburger café at $15 for a hamburger and $5 for fries or a Thai food truck across the street at a campground. We aren't really all that hungry so may just chow down on a hamburger.

 

For tomorrow we selected the optionalTundra Park Tour at $70 pp. It is a 6-7 hour tour and takes you deeper into the park than the 3-4 hour tour included in the excursion. We just found out that we have to meet in the lobby at 05:35 Ugh.... I guess it's going to be another early morning. We are hoping to see some wildlife on this tour. With the exception of a couple eagles and swans we did not see any wildlife today.

 

I forgot to mention that one thing that is really nice is the hotel offers free WIFI both in your room and on the property. It is nice to have as cell phone coverage has been quite sketchy all day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Jim. Pulling up a chair here in (overcast) Sunnyvale. Looking forward to meeting you and Iain when we board the Millennium in Vancouver for the crossing. Will be following your Alaska adventure until then.

 

Bon voyage,

Betsy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are not many options for dining at Denali Park Lodge. Choices are either sit down dinner at the lodge where entrees start at about $45-50 ala carte, a hamburger café at $15 for a hamburger and $5 for fries or a Thai food truck across the street at a campground. We aren't really all that hungry so may just chow down on a hamburger.

 

 

 

 

 

I am enjoying following your journey. And while this bit of info won't help Jim and Ian, for others' reference, the Denali Park Village is located at mile 231 of the George Parks Highway. One of the most interesting restaurants in Alaska is named 229 Parks and is located at mile 229 of the George Parks Highway. It is owned by a husband and wife, and the wife has been a semi-finalist in a James Beard culinary competition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love your photos. Thanks for sharing them and hopefully many more. :-)

 

Thanks. I hope to post a lot of photos - especially of the ship and on the TP and Japanese portion of the cruise. We have been to all of the ports on the Alaska cruise so probably will just be doing the ports on our own and won't be doing any excursions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Jim. Pulling up a chair here in (overcast) Sunnyvale. Looking forward to meeting you and Iain when we board the Millennium in Vancouver for the crossing. Will be following your Alaska adventure until then.

 

Bon voyage,

Betsy

 

Betsy - nice hearing from you again. Look forward to meeting a neighbor. We are in 6104. Will have to make sure we meet up for a drink.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am enjoying following your journey. And while this bit of info won't help Jim and Ian, for others' reference, the Denali Park Village is located at mile 231 of the George Parks Highway. One of the most interesting restaurants in Alaska is named 229 Parks and is located at mile 229 of the George Parks Highway. It is owned by a husband and wife, and the wife has been a semi-finalist in a James Beard culinary competition.

 

Thanks for sharing your incredible knowledge of Alaska with all of us. 229 Parks sounds wonderful and would be something we would have enjoyed. I'm not sure we would have walked the two miles as it got really chilly last night (at least for us wimps from California).

 

For others traveling on a tour like us, are there any cabs or transport available in the area?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Denali Park -

 

 

 

After such a beautiful clear day yesterday, we awoke to low clouds and drizzle. We had a fantastic day anywise. We had opted for the longer Tundra Wilderness Tour and have to say we were pleased with our decision.

 

 

 

We met our tour at 5:30 and were quickly loaded onto our tour busses. Luckily the Starbucks in the lobby opened at 4:30 AM and we grabbed a Yogurt and Double Cappuccino to get the day started. Snack boxes were provided for the 7 1/2 tour.

 

 

 

First a note about the busses that are used for the tour. The busses look like older converted school busses. We were told that the seating was tight and there was no storage area for back packs etc. We consolidated all of our things down to a small day pack only to find that they have a nice bag rack. The busses also are equipped with pull down Video Flat Panel Display which is connected to a high power camera with telephoto lens. When wildlife was spotted the driver would pull over and use the camera to help you spot the animals as well as to zoom in on animals like Wild Sheep that looked like white spots on the side of the mountain.

 

 

 

The tour ended up being one of the best tours we have taken. Our driver / naturalist, Don, was excellent. He spoke for most of the tour and was never boring or annoying. He was a wealth of knowledge and was an excellent orator.

 

 

 

While Mt. Denali was shrouded in fog and clouds all day we were rewarded with spotting the big 4 - Moose, Cariboo, Grizzly Bears and Dall Sheep. Don was starting to get worried as we had not seen any Grizzly's on the way out but were rewarded with viewing about 8 on the way back.

 

 

 

I would definitely recommend the Extended Tundra Tour.

 

 

 

We got back to the Park Village around noon and 1 1/2 hour to grab something for lunch before loading back on our tour buses for a 3 hour trip back to Talkeetna. We arrived at the

Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge at 5:00. It is a beautiful property and very well maintained.

 

32ebdc4230bbbe1a0933881e90d09009.jpg

 

f911bc587c266194dbeaaac601d11183.jpg

 

45e773ccc40233118c00966a4cb684ba.jpg

Edited by Jim_Iain
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Betsy - nice hearing from you again. Look forward to meeting a neighbor. We are in 6104. Will have to make sure we meet up for a drink.

 

Absolutely! This time next week we'll be in Vancouver. Now if I could just figure out what to pack.:o

 

I'm enjoying reading about your AK adventures.

 

Betsy

Edited by BBsails
Removal of rogue link
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tonight we are staying at Talkeetna Alaska Lodge. It is a beautiful property and nice rooms.

 

b086bcf13b8bed9940b35a8148f4bc68.jpg

 

1e702f6e02f5384c3faecc875e4738c9.jpg

 

Had a nice dinner at hotel. Iain had steamed mussels while I selected the halibut quesadilla. We decided to split a chocolate pave for desert.

 

It was another long day so planning an early evening.

 

Tomorrow we have to have luggage out by 7:00 with our Celebrity Luggage Tags. We won’t see those bags again until they are delivered to our rooms.

 

Tomorrow we drive to Anchorage and then will have 1 1/2 hours for lunch. It was explained the reason for returning to Anchorage is so they can transfer luggage to a truck that will go directly to the ship.

 

After lunch we have a stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and they expect to drop us at the ship by 3:00.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry for the delay in posting. Yesterday, Friday, was rather busy. We met our tour at 8:00, and enjoyed "sleeping in". One thing that has been enjoyable on our Land Tour is that all of the guests on our tour bus are really respectful and show up on time.

 

 

 

It was another crystal clear morning in Talkeetna and the driver suggested a quick stop at the same lookout for one last look at Denali. The sun was just coming up and created a beautiful glow on the mountain.

72da39bd66ea191318fc346f04a9f883.jpg

 

 

 

Our first stop was Anchorage again. We were given 1 1/2 hour to spend on our own. The main reason for the stop was for the driver to drop off our luggage to a transfer truck. The weather was really nice and running between 55-60 degrees.

 

59f5b9b3e91c13b7b13379fca3ecd8c1.jpg

 

889dbb6db0aa354559e1583df538079d.jpg

 

1cc4378a690f83973a615393f17ca6ca.jpg

 

10e42149f26116435c565d65f6d973d2.jpg

 

 

 

We rejoined our tour at 12:00 noon for a 1 1/2 hour drive to Alaska Wilderness Center. It was a very interesting preserve for indigenous wildlife and provided us with an up close experience with the animals. We were given an hour to explore on our own

 

 

 

The driver let us know the reason for the stop was for scheduling purposes. To prevent congestion at the port Celebrity had given each bus a scheduled drop-off slot time. After a scenic trip to Seward we arrived at the port at 4:30.

 

 

 

I was really impressed with Celebrities handling of us as a Celebrity Suite passenger. When we got off the bus the tour director told us that we had an escort waiting for us and introduced her to us. The Celebrity rep escorted us through security and directly to the first available agent. We were literally onboard Millennium and escorted to our room in less than 5 minutes from arrival at the port.

 

 

 

Our butler Marco Joaquin, whose name is Joaquin but Celebrity asked him to use the name Marco so guests could easily pronounce his name, introduced himself and our stateroom attendant.

Edited by Jim_Iain
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure how effective I am going to be today posting pictures. It is 8:45 and everyone must be using the internet. Internet speeds are extremely slow and my uploads are failing using Forum.

 

Safety drill was scheduled for 4:45 and was fairly painless. The ship set sail immediately after the drill.

 

We went back to our room after the drill and finished unpacking. it is so nice to not have to go through all your luggage to find what you need and to be settled in for the next 5 weeks.

 

We went down to Michael's Club at 7:30 for pre-dinner cocktails. There were about 6 couples there and service was a little slow until the bartender called for some backup.

 

We had dinner in Luminea at 9:00. Surprisingly the restaurant was almost filled.

 

I had a fresh Mozzarella as a starter and followed with Turbot and Iain (the scotch version of Ian) had Salmon Tartar as a starter and also ordered the Turbot.

 

As we were tired we went to bed at 11:00.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding WiFi. I found that we had a dead zone for nearly a week while at sea in the North Pacific last year. WiFi worked great while we were close to land. But quite slow while in the middle of nowhere. Seems the TV is connected, and for about a week, we had only pre-recorded programming. Just a heads up. But free movies on demand changed frequently, so we watched a lot of movies.

 

Sent from my Z981 using Forums mobile app

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding WiFi. I found that we had a dead zone for nearly a week while at sea in the North Pacific last year. WiFi worked great while we were close to land. But quite slow while in the middle of nowhere. Seems the TV is connected, and for about a week, we had only pre-recorded programming. Just a heads up. But free movies on demand changed frequently, so we watched a lot of movies.

 

Sent from my Z981 using Forums mobile app

 

 

 

Thank for the update. I was expecting the internet to be slow so we came prepared. I brought my Roku with me and lots of recording that I use Plex to stream.

 

I usually have them unlock the HDMI port on TV but have found you can bring up the HDMI device by plugging device in and powering up your HDMI device while TV turned off. It automatically turns on TV with the HDMI device active on the screen. To get back to ships tv just use remote to turn TV off and then back on.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ve been asked for pictures of our Celebrity Suite 6104.

 

60950b6c4e690b7bdcc0cf567fc9e945.jpg

 

8ab377e2bfeaa42b0134e7102bca3569.jpg

 

7e6406acfb2cedd74a5e71049fd084d0.jpg

 

476ca4c27c8ff087a6311224f7549a4e.jpg

 

77140ab2084d01a9d0878f80372fe541.jpg

 

I’m happy that the Suite is in pretty good shape. Soft goods are in good condition. The bathroom is looking dated and there is a small amount of mildew in the caulking of the bathtub. Stateroom attendant said he would see if he can remove it.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...