Icy Strait Alaska

[smileyfacedeb]

We have recently returned from our Alaska cruise, which was fantastic on the Celebrity Summit. Our one BIG DISAPPOINTMENT (and that is putting it mildly) was our experience with Keith Skaflestad of Tekk Outfitters. We had booked with him, not through Celebrity, based on the rave reviews we had seen on previous message boards.

 

First, we booked with him 4 months before our cruise, and he had nobody else booked yet for that date. He told us that he had a van that held up to 12, but he did not like to take more than 8-10 people. He also said the day was ours, and what we did was based on what we wanted, but he usually went through Tongrass National Forest, and he was the only one with a permit to do this, saw the town, and he took us to a logging mill that his grandfather had started and it was the first one in Alaska. The main thing we had read on the message boards, and he had said, was that we would see a lot of wild life. We were told, multiple times, to make sure we had old shoes because we would be walking through muddy, marshy areas.

 

Well, the week before we were going, when I was reading the message boards, it became apparent that there were too many people booked for us all to be in this one van, so I called him. He told me he had a large group, so we were going to get our own personal tour with somebody who worked for him. He said that everybody who worked for him were also native Alaskans and promised us a memorable day, or he would refund whatever portion of what we paid ($150 per person) we thought was reasonable.

 

We were met punctually by a very nice man, who drove us all over Tongrass National Forest for 5 hours, who was from Texas, not Alaska. We got out of the truck two times, once for the views and the only port-a-potty in the area, and the second time for the views; we did not have to walk at all for either of these. During this time we saw one deer, which I see at home on a regular basis, and got a fleeting glance of the back of one bear. My partner had spotted what he thought was a bear, so the driver backed up to look, said "No, it's a rock" and started to drive off. With that the bear took off in the opposite direction.

 

We were never told to bring anything to eat or drink, and we were never given so much as a bottle of water and there was no place to stop for anything. We drove through what I can only guess was the town on the way back to the ship because I asked about it. Our driver felt so bac about us not seeing any wildlife that he took us to the town dump, to see the bear that hangs out there, so we did get to see a grizzly bear in I guess what you would call it's natural habitat, if you consider a dump in that category. That was our day.

 

When I got home I contacted Keith avia e-mail about his promise of a partial refund if we were not satisfied. He wrote back saying he would call me to discuss it. That was over 10 days ago and I have yet to hear from him.

 

While I do understand that he has no control over where the wild life would be, he made several promises that he did not keep, and he pawned us off on somebody else when he got a larger group. I do not consider him to be a person of high integrity, and would not recommend booking with him. Other people who took other excursions, booked through Celebrity, had a much nicer day. They said the whale watching in particular was fantastic (we had done that in Juneau with Captain Larry and were very happy with that).

[Orion1325]

Hi Deb...

We were the group that was in the van (9 of us). If it makes you feel any better, we actually booked with Keith in February. Why he told you he didn't have anyone booked for that day is beyond me... And we didn't see any bears either! We saw three deer, but no bears -- not even one at the dump, which we were also taken to. We did see quite a few bald eagles on the beach on the way back, but never anything other than bear scat as far as bears were concerned.

Let me know how you make out with a partial refund...

 

We did manage to see several grizzlies and cubs when we went to Denali, and even had a grizzly cross the road in front of us while we were driving from Fairbanks back to Anchorage. But it was quite a disappointment to pay all that money in Hoonah and not see one single bear!