Its Going to Be Majestic - Live Review Princess Majestic Cruisetour - June 10-22

[Stealthdog]

For the train ride down, take the left side of the train for the same reasons as the ride up.  It’s not as important because you can leave your car and stand on the platform between train cars to take some pictures.  The train ride down was much better than the bus ride up, going through some tunnels, crossing bridges, and getting much more interesting sights.  The train provided 1 meal and bottles of water.  

 

We rode past Lake Bennett and had about a 45 minute stop on Bennett.  I need to correct the previous post - the video of the White Trail was in Bennett, not Carcross.  There is also time to explore the area where the town of Bennett used to be.  We tried to do both - watch the video and do the walking tour of Bennett and it hard to do both leisurely and not feel rushed.  The highlight of Bennett is the old Church, but there are some nice nature views as well.  The walking area around Bennett does have some steep inclines, particularly  by the church and down to the lake area.  
 

After Bennett, the rest of the train ride continued all the way to Skagway with no more stops to get off.  You will need your passports handy again for the US side of the border.  When the train arrived back in Skagway, the same bus driver was there to take us back to the pier area.  We elected to just walk it since we could see the ship from where the train dropped us off.  The walk back to the tender was about 20 minutes. 
 

I’d highly recommend the White Pass to anyone stopping in Skagway that hasn’t done it before, with a preference towards the rail vs the bus.  The views are stunning.  Like in the ship, there are portions of narration where the tour guides point out wildlife and give history because the stops and the rail.  One of the coolest things we saw were beaver dams along the way (though didn’t see beavers).

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Stealthdog

[Stealthdog]

2 hours ago, gottagoacruzn said:

Did you see the Carcross desert, emerald lake & etc?

We probably did - the train portion was just 4 straight hours of breathtaking views.  I stopped paying attention to the narration and was just watching the nature we were passing, taking over 500 photos during the train portion alone.  I think I remember the tour mention Emerald Isle, but don’t remember mention of Carcross desert.

[gottagoacruzn]

I thought I was crazy to take that many pictures, the last time I was up there. How many of those will you keep? That reminds me, when I was on the train, took two batteries, before gettin back to town, both batteries died:( This time, will be takin five batteries. Ya think thats enough?

[Stealthdog]

2 hours ago, gottagoacruzn said:

I thought I was crazy to take that many pictures, the last time I was up there. How many of those will you keep? That reminds me, when I was on the train, took two batteries, before gettin back to town, both batteries died:( This time, will be takin five batteries. Ya think thats enough?

when I get home, ill upload all the photos to my laptop and organize into folders.  Will probably keep about 75-100 for the whole trip.  Alot of the picture I take are similar so I can go back and choose the best ones.  We use iPhones for photos so have to be careful about battery life for the phones.

[Stealthdog]

Our first land stop was Kenai Princess Lodge.  The bus from the port to the lodge took about 2 hours.  The views were nice, but nowhere close to what we saw on the tours from the port stops.  
 

We weren’t really sure what to expect at the lodges, but based on Kenai they are really nice.  Big rooms with seating areas, outdoor patio, and a nice sized closet space.  The best part was the wood fireplace, which we definitely used!  Our suitcases were already in the room when we got there.  
 

The lodge had a full restaurant, bar, coffee stop, and people manning a tour excursion station if you wanted to add an excursion to the package.  There was also 2 separate laundry facilities, a small gym, and outdoor cornhole and horseshoe games.  
 

Outside the back of the lodge was an awesome seatings area where there were great views of the river and surrounding area.  There are two nature walks to do on your own - a 1.5 mile hike path and an area at the base by the river with several observation posts to watch the rafters go by.   

[Stealthdog]

When we checked in they handed us a packet that provided all the information for the lodge with a map for the hiking areas.

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Stealthdog

[CruzeQueen2]

@Stealthdog Thank you for continuing to take us along! Bonus to see the lodges; nice to see the great weather you are having.

 

Pardon my ignorance here - are the meals included as they are on the ship?

Seeing your photos, I may choose to try out a lodge one of these days. I've only seen AK via the cruise ship itineraries; was informed by some locals that I have yet to experience the true Alaska.

 

Enjoy your hikes! The scenery is very nice, like a lot of the scenery we have in BC. Spoiled to live on the west coast, that's why the AK cruise is easy to jump onto, year after year.

Can't wait to see Denali. I think you mentioned you are also going there.

Thanks so much, JC. It's so generous of you to share this part of your travels with us.

 

Would love to see some food pics, if you deem them worthy of sharing. Food is always nice to see, IMO.

[Stealthdog]

@CruzeQueen2 we have a pit stop in anchorage on our trip from Kenai to McKinnley so have a few minutes.  Food is not included in the land portion - it’s out of pocket.  I did overhear someone saying some packages may have vouchers, but I don’t know about them.  I will post the rest of the Kenai (with food 😁) after we get back on the bus to McKinley or when we get there.  Internet service is really spotty on land - we have periods of 30-45 minutes with no service.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Stealthdog

[cruzrbachoua]

1 hour ago, CruzeQueen2 said:

@Stealthdog Thank you for continuing to take us along! Bonus to see the lodges; nice to see the great weather you are having.

 

Pardon my ignorance here - are the meals included as they are on the ship?

Seeing your photos, I may choose to try out a lodge one of these days. I've only seen AK via the cruise ship itineraries; was informed by some locals that I have yet to experience the true Alaska.

 

Enjoy your hikes! The scenery is very nice, like a lot of the scenery we have in BC. Spoiled to live on the west coast, that's why the AK cruise is easy to jump onto, year after year.

Can't wait to see Denali. I think you mentioned you are also going there.

Thanks so much, JC. It's so generous of you to share this part of your travels with us.

 

Would love to see some food pics, if you deem them worthy of sharing. Food is always nice to see, IMO.

We are booked on the connoisseur land tour later this year and it includes 2 meals per lodge usually breakfast and dinner. 

[Stealthdog]

Here are some pictures from the nature trail and the river observation points.  Some of the rafting excursions passed by.  Sadly, the only animals we saw was Molly the labradoodle who at the river with her parents and butterflies.  The lodge provides walking sticks for both the nature walk and river views.  Going to the river is a very steep walk down and up.  At the bottom they have a phone station where you can call the lodge and they will come down and drive you back up. 

[Stealthdog]

Kenai Princess Lodge has the Rod and Reel restaurant inside the lodge.  Seating is available both inside and outside.  It is nicely decorated with interesting things (such as antler lights).  We had a very mixed experience.  Last night for dinner, everything was great. Menu and dinner pics below - the bacon lollipops were awesome.  We got some kind of goat cheese salad.  Eric got the halibut and says it was cooked perfectly but was really salty.  I got the lasagne with bison Ragu and it was pretty good.  Food at this restaurant was better than anything on the ship except The Catch, and maybe the balcony dinner.   The menu was great and they had a nice, extensive wine list.

 

This morning for breakfast, we were one of the first there and asked to be seated by the windows, so we could see the great views of the mountains.  We were told they were saving those seats for larger parties and were seated about as far away from the windows as possible.  We watched several couples come in after us and get seated at the same windows that we asked to be seated at.  A waitress came by and joked that we were hidden away - I replied no kidding and that we really wanted to be by the windows. She gave a blank look and then walked away.  A little later our server came to ask if we wanted coffee.  We asked him if we could move to one of the remaining window seats and were told no because it was different servers station.  We stood up and just walked out and went to the Cafe to get coffees, something light to eat, and enjoyed them at a table outside (pic below).  Land lodge customer service is certainly not the same standard as the ship customer service, at least not this morning.  Last night service was great.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Stealthdog

[Mike & Zen]

1 hour ago, cruzrbachoua said:

We are booked on the connoisseur land tour later this year and it includes 2 meals per lodge usually breakfast and dinner. 

Cruzrbachoua, have you read Caribill’s excellent review about their Princess Connoisseur land tour in 2012?  Keep in mind everything from prices, etc, is from 2012, but it should give you an idea of what’s entailed.

 

 

[cruzrbachoua]

2 minutes ago, Mike & Zen said:

Cruzrbachoua, have you read Caribill’s excellent review about their Princess Connoisseur land tour in 2012?  Keep in mind everything from prices, etc, is from 2012, but it should give you an idea of what’s entailed.

 

 

Yes it is what helped us decide to do the connoisseur tour..ours was originally planned for 2020 pushed back to 2023 this September 

[Stealthdog]

Left these off the hiking post for Kenai Lodge.  They have information at the entrance to the trail on the map options and wildlife you could see in the trails.  Earlier this month there were sightings of a Momma Moose and her two babies.  

[Stealthdog]

Made it to McKinley Lodge.  It’s been a day, but we just saw a moose so everything is great.  Will give details on trip from Kenai to McKinley thru Anchorage later.  

[arizonaperson]

@CruzeQueen2

in my opinion yes ,try a AK land tour. Highly recommend.

First time to AK just did cruise. Second time did land tour first then cruise.  It’s very organized. We did train from Denali lodge area to Whittier( ship) We thought we would be bored all that time we were on,but it was great.

We paid for food on land tour.Spent 2 nights Mt. McKinley Lodge, did day trip from there to Talkeetna. Only spent 1 night at Denali lodge, which wasn’t enough, but that is what our tour did. 2 nights would have been perfect.

Edited June 19, 2023 by arizonaperson

[Stealthdog]

Day 2 of the Land tour - will walk through Kenai to Anchorage with this post.  We did not know we were going to have 2 hours in Anchorage so this was a pleasant surprise to us.
 

We had to leave our luggage outside our door by 715 for collection and the departure was 9am.  No check out is required for the land tour - they do a group checkout for everyone.  You can either drop your room keys off at reception or give them to the driver on board the bus.  For this portion the luggage was on the same bus as us.  
 

When traveling from Kenai to Anchorage you want to be on the left side of the bus.  You will have nice views throughout the trip on the left, as it travels along some rivers and sea areas, while the right side will often have obstructed views because it passes along the base of a mountain/hill/cliff areas.  There will be periods of nice views on the right.

 

Total trip was about 2 hours and the bus stops outside the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage.  A Princess representative met us outside the bus and provided city maps of Anchorage and recommendations for lunch.  We went inside the hotel and there was a Princess/Holland America help area inside - I’m not really sure what their purpose was.

 

With 2 hours in Anchorage, we had a lot of time to explore and have lunch. We went down to the water, stopped by the Captain Cook monument to get some nice pictures of the harbor area and Denali, and had lunch at 49th State Brewing Company before heading back to Hotel Captain Cook to get back on the bus.  The streets around the hotel are all flat and  easy to walk.  The area West that leads to the water turns into steep inclines/declines.  
 

49th State was a really nice restaurant, with a lot of indoor and outdoor (which overlooks the water and towards Denali).  I got the Yak Burger and Eric got the Crab Stuffed Jalepeos and Halibut Tacos.  For a pub like restaurant they had some really good and unique food.  They also had their own beers - we tried one each and they were great.  
 

We had about 10 minutes to spare until we had to board the bus. Everything from Kenai through Anchorage was great.  Everything after   leaving Anchorage through checkin at McKinley was a nightmare (until the moose changed our luck), which will be the next post. 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Stealthdog

[Stealthdog]

This post will be titled “The Bus From Hell” - that is what a lot of people on the bus was calling it.

 

I was about to comment on the age of the buses they use for the land tour portion and this experience kind of reaffirmed my thoughts.  The buses are fairly low tech and old.  The seats are comfortable and there is a bathroom on board.  But there are no outlets for plugs or USBs to charge cell phones and there is no Wi-Fi on the bus.  As we go through the Alaskan countryside there are stretches of 20 minutes to an hour where there is no internet service/dead zones, and when there is service it’s mostly 3G.  So, make sure you are fully charged before leaving the lodge, or bring a battery charger on the bus.  
 

We boarded the bus at 125pm in anchorage and were supposed to be at McKinley lodge by 4pm.  When we boarded, the bus was really hot but I thought once we started moving the AC would probably kick in.  Within 5 minutes, the grumbling already started and people started yelling out to the poor bus driver to turn the AC on.  It’s funny because you would think it’s Alaska, why do you need AC?  It was low 70s and sunny yesterday.  It felt like it was probably high 80s-low 90s on the bus.  After about 30 minutes there was a coordinated attempt to close all the window shades to at least prevent the sun from entering the bus.

 

For about 45 minutes the grumbling continued and people starting taking all their layers off.  Eventually the bus driver announced he was going to make a stop to call Princess and see if they could trouble shoot the not working AC system.  The bus stopped on the back side of a little hill and a passenger who is a firefighter got us all to move away from the bus because where the bus parked on the side of the road was unsafe and if any driver crossing over the hill wasn’t paying attention they could have rammed into the back of the bus.  
 

It turned out there was something wrong with the pressure and the the bus needed to go into maintenance to fix the AC system.  We loaded back onto the bus and got to McKinley around 5pm, one hour later than we were supposed to get there.  When we parked outside the lodge, the lodges Princess rep tried to board the bus to give us instructions of what to do.  The passengers started to riot and told him we were all getting off and he could give us the information off the bus.  I don’t have any recommendations on what side of the bus to sit on because no one was paying attention to the outside and all the window shades were down so we didn’t have views anyways.
 

Everyone’s clothes were drenched of sweat from sitting on that bus for about 4 hours, and the riot moved inside the lodge to guest services where there was a steady berating towards all the reps at guest services.  We didn’t wait to watch the show and immediately went to the restaurant try to make reservations, which there weren’t any because we were the last bus to get to the lodge and they were already seating for dinner.  We were told we could be seated right then, or next available time was 845pm.  Because our clothes were still wet, we probably smelled of BO, and just wanted to shower and change, we didn’t want to eat at 515 in our wretched state.  It was also too late to sign up for any excursion tours at the lodge.

 

We took our room key to check out our room and drop off the backpacks.  The room was a lot different from Kenai - it was hotel style with 2 twin beds.  We had no internet service in the room and were too far away from the lodge to get onto the lodges Wi-Fi.  And of course our luggage wasn’t there - we called the lodge to ask and were told we may not get our luggage until 7pm.  Morale was very low in that hotel room, but our luck was about to change!  
 

Bus impromptu stop pics below - got to see a Smokey the bear forest fire sign. Sorry for the upside down bus - my state of mind was so off I probably wasn’t taking pictures right. 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Stealthdog

[CruzeQueen2]

15 minutes ago, Stealthdog said:

This post will be titled “The Bus From Hell” - that is what a lot of people on the bus was calling it.

 

I was about to comment on the age of the buses they use for the land tour portion and this experience kind of reaffirmed my thoughts.  The buses are fairly low tech and old.  The seats are comfortable and there is a bathroom on board.  But there are no outlets for plugs or USBs to charge cell phones and there is no Wi-Fi on the bus.  As we go through the Alaskan countryside there are stretches of 20 minutes to an hour where there is no internet service/dead zones, and when there is service it’s mostly 3G.  So, make sure you are fully charged before leaving the lodge, or bring a battery charger on the bus.  
 

We boarded the bus at 125pm in anchorage and were supposed to be at McKinley lodge by 4pm.  When we boarded, the bus was really hot but I thought once we started moving the AC would probably kick in.  Within 5 minutes, the grumbling already started and people started yelling out to the poor bus driver to turn the AC on.  It’s funny because you would think it’s Alaska, why do you need AC?  It was low 70s and sunny yesterday.  It felt like it was probably high 80s-low 90s on the bus.  After about 30 minutes there was a coordinated attempt to close all the window shades to at least prevent the sun from entering the bus.

 

For about 45 minutes the grumbling continued and people starting taking all their layers off.  Eventually the bus driver announced he was going to make a stop to call Princess and see if they could trouble shoot the not working AC system.  The bus stopped on the back side of a little hill and a passenger who is a firefighter got us all to move away from the bus because where the bus parked on the side of the road was unsafe and if any driver crossing over the hill wasn’t paying attention they could have rammed into the back of the bus.  
 

It turned out there was something wrong with the pressure and the the bus needed to go into maintenance to fix the AC system.  We loaded back onto the bus and got to McKinley around 5pm, one hour later than we were supposed to get there.  When we parked outside the lodge, the lodges Princess rep tried to board the bus to give us instructions of what to do.  The passengers started to riot and told him we were all getting off and he could give us the information off the bus.  I don’t have any recommendations on what side of the bus to sit on because no one was paying attention to the outside and all the window shades were down so we didn’t have views anyways.
 

Everyone’s clothes were drenched of sweat from sitting on that bus for about 4 hours, and the riot moved inside the lodge to guest services where there was a steady berating towards all the reps at guest services.  We didn’t wait to watch the show and immediately went to the restaurant try to make reservations, which there weren’t any because we were the last bus to get to the lodge and they were already seating for dinner.  We were told we could be seated right then, or next available time was 845pm.  Because our clothes were still wet, we probably smelled of BO, and just wanted to shower and change, we didn’t want to eat at 515 in our wretched state.  It was also too late to sign up for any excursion tours at the lodge.

 

We took our room key to check out our room and drop off the backpacks.  The room was a lot different from Kenai - it was hotel style with 2 twin beds.  We had no internet service in the room and were too far away from the lodge to get onto the lodges Wi-Fi.  And of course our luggage wasn’t there - we called the lodge to ask and were told we may not get our luggage until 7pm.  Morale was very low in that hotel room, but our luck was about to change!  
 

Bus impromptu stop pics below - got to see a Smokey the bear forest fire sign. Sorry for the upside down bus - my state of mind was so off I probably wasn’t taking pictures right. 

Love the cliff-hanger teaser. You luck is about to change...can't wait to read what happens next. Better than the book I'm presently reading. Thank you @Stealthdog

[Stealthdog]

This post will be called “The Moose Changed My Luck”

 

With no clothes to change into, we didn’t want to shower, so we decided to just go out to no one of the trails and hopefully see some wildlife.  When we left our room and moved back to the lodge, we saw a nice Horse and Buggy carriage outside the lodge that appeared to be taking passengers around the grounds. 
 

Eric texted guest services to see if there were any rooms with a queen/king bed instead of 2 twins, and we started the Lodge Trail.  About 5 minutes into the trail we saw a big dark shape in the woods.  At first I thought it was Bear.  But it wasn’t shaped like a bear and Eric thought it might be a horse.  There was no mane it had a furry coat and then we saw the little brown shape behind it.  It was a momma moose and baby moose.  We carefully moved away down the trail to leave Momma Moose alone and not get rushed.  
 

We went back to the lodge to let them know.  They thanked us and told us not to tell anyone and then shut down the trail to prevent any encounter between Momma Moose and a guest.  While we were chatting with the wildlife desk people Eric got a text to go to guest services. When he got there, they had new room keys for us - they moved us into a nicer room in the lodge building with a king bed and views of Denali!  
 

We collected our backpacks from the other room and headed back to the lodge, stopping by the restaurant to see if any reservations had opened.  And what do you know…….they had an open Essex’s room at 730 for us.  Got to the new room, luggage was already moved.  Quick shower and change of clothes and we were seated at the restaurant!  Ill post lodge information and pics later.

 

The Moose Changed Our Luck!

[Stealthdog]

Slight typo from last post and it’s too late to edit.  There is no Essex Room - it was autocorrected.  It should say they had an open reservation for 730.

[gottagoacruzn]

What a beautiful picture that was, upside down!!

[arizonaperson]

Upright.

 Thanks for your fantastic photos 

[Stealthdog]

3 hours ago, arizonaperson said:

Upright.

 Thanks for your fantastic photos 

Thanks!  Made it to Denali.  We will be here 2 days.  There was no Wi-Fi on the train, so I’m a little behind.  I will post McKinley lodge info and photos and the train from McKinley to Denali when I get a chance.

[gottagoacruzn]

Is this a picture for the pit stop?