Alaska Land tour/Cruise HAL

We are booked on the HAL land tour that begins in Anchorage in July. What can you tell me about the land tour? How expensive are the meals if you don't buy the meal pkg?

We have to carry insulin epi pens and the backups have to be kept cold. How do I handle that on the plane and then the land tour?

We were taking the tour a couple of years ago, and I kept reading on the Ports of Call board that the food in Alaska was extremely expensive and that you should buy the meal plan. At the same time, people were complaining that the food on the meal plan was at best mediocre. We decided to buy our own meals. We did not find the meals to be any more expensive than they would have been at home in most cases, though a few times they might have been a bit higher -- closer to what you see in vacation places. We ate in two very high-end restaurants in Fairbanks, and the prices were very much like a restaurant at home. Bear in mind that some foodstuffs are not indigenous to Alaska at all and have to be brought in, but you don't pay a hefty penalty for that.

Then rather than having mediocre meals, i compiled a list of restaurants from the Alaska Ports of Call board, and we had a good sampling of Alaska cuisine.

I would skip the meal plan and do your own thing.

I cannot help you with the epi pens question. I would go to the Ports of Call section, and then to the Alaska board, and ask that question there to see if anyone can give you specific help.

Here is the Alaska board:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

You may also get more and better info on the HAL board, here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=171