Celeb Alaska LAND TOUR #5 Review (Seward to Fairbanks) June 10 by Foodsponge F.

After three AK cruises with X we added our first Alaska “Royal Celebrity” CruiseTour #5 (3-nights, Seward to Fairbanks).

General Land Tour Impression (as I imagine the Alaska papers may report):

The Sockeye salmon spawning run began early this Spring. Since mid-May, coastal areas like Seward report that great masses of “silver heads” are thronging inland on their annual spending run. These mature “Silver heads” have spent many years away from Alaska, building up their cash reserves, and now have attained their “metallic years” (silver in hair, gold in teeth, lead in pants). Most “silver heads’ migrate in groups of male/female pairs. Female silver heads most often congregate inside gift and jewelry shops while the male hovers anxiously outside. Unlike sockeye that do not eat while migrating, “silver heads” are in perpetual eating and spending pattern. The silver heads’ season should be spent-out in September.

Next section is mostly outline of the CT#5 schedule. Impressions, feedback of CT#5 will appear in last section but I swear that in the Land of the “Midnight Sun”, gift/souvenir shops outnumber mosquitoes. I also learned why there are no local AK pageants to pick the town’s “Ice Queen”. It seems, once picked and labeled “Ice Queen”, these beauties thereafter had trouble getting dates. Go figure!

Embarkation in Seward started as early as 5:45am for those with early flights from Anchorage to allow for 3 hrs travel and advance check-in time requirements (you’re NOT being treated famously anymore!). Our CT#5 group (about 40 pax) reported to theater at 7am for transport. Bags had been left outside cabin by prior midnight and were already loaded in the CT#5 coach. We met our Tour-hostess Karissa on boarding the bus.

Day 1:

“Deluxe Coach” from Seward to Anchorage (4 hrs with 30 min-stop),

lunch on own in Anchorage (2 hrs), snuk in a nice mirco-brew draft at Glacier Brewhouse.

Coach to Talkeetna (3 hrs, arrive at around 5pm) Luggage brought to rooms.

Evening open for optional excursions – stays light until late

Hotel: Grand Talkeetna Lodge. Town of 700 locals was basis for TV show “Northern Exposure” (true to form, they had a charity book with 50 pages of local bachelors with weird bios who were up for auction for a ‘social occasion’). Lodge was spacious, modern/rustic relatively new, fresh feel, with back patio facing Mt. McKinley (aka Denali). Rooms not air-conditioned. Had been in low 70’s on arrival day and room was warm. One window to open that did not trigger much fresh air circulation. Ceiling and desk fan provided some air movement.

Hotel has rotating free shuttle for 2 mile ride to EDGE of Talkeetna. We ate casual dinner (burgers, salmon sandwiches) at ‘homey’ “West Rib Tavern” suggested by locals. Food was OK, good portions, around $10 for burger.

Breakfast buffet opened 6am was $13.50 full, $8.50 cold selections only. Large homemade muffins for $1.50 and takeout coffee from café counter covered us for breakfast.

Day 2:

7am departure but bags had to be out in hall at 5:30am so that factored into wakeup time (do ‘famous’ people have to get up that early?).

Coach to Denali Park (3.5 hrs, arrive around 11am)

Board Park’s SCHOOL BUS for 18 mile drive (at 20mph) for Natural History tour which includes intro historical film and two stops getting briefed on settler’s living conditions and native culture. (4 hrs) Great sunny breezy weather. Fortunately, we saw moose briefly, caribou clearly, grizzly at 350 yds for 10 minutes. This is better than usual for this short route.

4pm: Board separate Roy-Celeb “Wilderness Express” Scenic Train car set aside for our bus group. Another R-C CT group had its own Scenic car too. 4 hrs, arrive Fairbanks 8pm, meet coach with bags for transfer to Pikes Waterfront Lodge.

Pikes Lodge: very basic standard rooms, not especially spacious, busy crowded lobby. Wall-inset room air conditioner that cooled well. Good selection of TV channels.

Day 3:

7:30 am bus for 25 min ride to ElDorado Goldmine excursion (included in CT price) (3 hrs)

Coach to downtown Fairbanks for lunch on own (2 hrs)

1pm Coach to CT-included “SternWheeler Discovery” cruise on Chena River. (3 hrs)

Coach return to Pikes Lodge by 4:30pm

Final coordination for tour members for next morning shuttles to Fairbanks airport.

Day 4/5 ON OUR OWN

Had Hertz rental and room at Springhill Suites by Marriott in center of Fairbanks. Springhill was only couple years old, sitting area, sink, desk, very good value at $179 a night. Drove 60 miles on paved road to Chena Hot Springs Resort for scenery, lunch. Easy drive with some moose sightings, Yak farm. A milepost travel log at http://www.chenahotsprings.com/scenic_info.html was very helpful. Chena Hot Springs Resort was unimpressively rustic and did not look very busy - I was glad we had not chosen to stay there. Apparently resort is busiest in winter for visitors viewing Northern Lights.

Fairbanks Restaurants:

Pump House restaurant did not meet recomendations. Out of ribs (one of most reasonably priced choices), drink-special cranberry margarita tasted like kool-aid, 12-oz steak for $26 was ordinary, waitress unfamiliar with entrée preparations (I realize its early in season). Can’t recommend.

Gambardellas Pasta Bella – downtown 2d street – casual, not air conditioned but good selection of Italian dishes that were very good at reasonable prices, good fresh bread – busy at meal times – reservations suggested. Ate lunch, dinner there – it had been recommended on Alaska board.

Lavelles Bistro: street-front in Springhill Suites Marriott, 2d street. Upscale casual (opens 4:30pm daily) – new look, experienced wait staff – good variety of appetizers, entrees – reservations good idea 6-7:30pm. Seemed a fair number of local professionals meeting there. Good prime rib for $25.

CruiseTour FEEDBACK:

I knew at booking the CT we picked involved a lot of traveling on “Deluxe Motor Coach” and covered many miles from Seward to Fairbanks in just two days. Despite so much scheduled ‘seat time”, I had discounted the risk of “Polaroids” (northern version of hemorrhoids). DW and I did however pick up lingering colds by the end of the tour – a common side effect of close group travel?

PROs of organized coach tour:

Pay upfront, leave the travel, bag handling, lodging arrangements to operator. Roy-Celeb tours did a good job on time with minimal inconvenience in processing us through the tour schedule. Accommodations were reasonable (Pikes) to very-good (Talkeetna). Coach was standard long-range tour bus with restroom (in rear – of course). Wilderness Express scenic train was outstanding – choose tours that maximizes train travel even at higher cost

Scenic-car Train is better than airplane “first class’ compared to bus ‘coach class’. Train: 24in wide high back leather seats with double the knee space, bus 20in cloth. Train has dining section below and FULL SERVICE BAR and of course, gift shop. Train has ‘normal’ restroom, bus stops have portalets to handle the overflow (of people) Dinner meals on train (prime rib, grilled halibut) were the best in five days on our land trip.

CONS

You are locked in on an inflexible tourist conveyer belt traveling AK highways visiting ‘large scale’ sights/exhibits. Call me naïve not to have expected this. In the interest of cost efficiency, the cruise lines and tour operators have set up a highly homogenized system for processing armies of tourists along the single E-W route - same stops, same large-scale excursions.

If you have a smidgen of independence, interest in unique personalized experiences, setting your own pace and timetable, doing arrangements on your own – TRAVEL INDEPENDENTLY. I love the Celebrity cruise experience but I am not interested in being part of another bus-based tour by any cruiseline.

Examples of ‘mass-market’ experience:

Our first bus rest stop to Talkeetna – three other busses were there too and lines formed to wait for PORTA-LETS and ice cream (inside another gift shop). Get to wait extra ten minutes while ‘gift shop stragglers’ complete transactions. At two ‘lunch on own’ dropoffs in downtowns, several bus loads of tourists all let loose at same transportation center – flooding restaurants in immediate area, leading to long delays. Denali visitor center was like grand central station with many tour bus loads transferring to Park’s own busses. At ElDorado Goldmine Tour there were three 80-person clusters of tourists from various busses rotated through the presentations, displays, but time for gift shop built in.

22 busses, from Princess, HAL, Celebrity and private operators, dumped about 900 visitors for sailing at the same time at the Sternwheeler Discovery tour. Of course, ample ‘gift shop’ time was available AND the last five minutes at the return of the sternwheeler cruise was a PA advertisement for the ship’s own brand of canned smoked salmon.

The sternwheeler passes a house on the river bank where a famous dog musher happens to be hanging out with a hitch of dogs. A canned conversation ensues over the loud speaker between the ship and the dog lady with microphone. Interesting yes, but all I could think of was Disney animatronics could almost substitute. At the Indian village display, sternwheeler crowds were broken into groups of 300 and rotated among stations for presentations. Interesting yes – but I almost expected to hear moo-ing from the tourist herd.

You got this treatment regardless of the cruiseline – we kept intersecting all the other line’s bus groups at the same stops, tours, hotels. You are a cog on a well-oiled tourist assembly line – a coddled cog maybe – to participate in exhibits set up for large crowds. There’s an awful lot of ‘commercialization’ connected to this scenic unspoiled wilderness experience.

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Editorial message from Mrs. Greydog:

Stop encouraging his reviews. He’s worthless around the house for days when he’s composing it - has a wild look in his eyes, eats at the keyboard, doesn’t bathe or change clothes – smells even worse than usual. He hands me his old sea pass card when I give him a beer. I’d slap him into consciousness except for the 15% gratuity he pays. He never was quite normal to begin with and lately he mumbles in his sleep “is too a premium cruise line“.

Greydog ~ another outstanding review. Makes me want to go back to Alaska. We did a four-day pre-cruise adventure all on our own a couple of years ago. It was fabulous. I want to go back NOW !!!!! Thanks again for sharing!

Greydog, thanks again for sharing your cruisetour review! We too did a cruisetour (#13) thru Celebrity last May and picked it because it included very limited Motor Coach from Seward to Girdwood; stayed overnight there; then motorcoach to Anchorage for an afternoon flight to Fairbanks. Our tour didn't include the riverboat Discovery or El Dorido Gold Mine. Ours visited the Museum of the North at the University and we were the only bus there. We also visited the Alaska Pipeline outside Fairbanks; again only bus there. I must say your review made me glad we didn't get to do the riverboat or mine. Next morning we took the Wilderness Express to Denali for one night. Had the afternoon Tundra Wilderness Tour and must I enjoyed it very much. Next day we again boarded the Wilderness Express to Talkeetna. We too loved traveling by the train and agree on the food - in my opinion very good and a better value than most places we ate on the tour. The next afternoon we boarded the train again to Ancorage for our last night before flying home.

We are going back to Alaska on July 28th and this time will be going the independent route. Since we LOVED the trains, we are including 3 legs but this time on the Princess Trains, however this time spending more time. I look forward to being able to compare the two and since we're doing the shuttle bus instead of the Tundra Wilderness tour, I'll be able to compare those as well!

Hopefully your tour gave you a taste of the beauty of Alaska and will encourage you to return...and next time on your own! But to others who do decided to take a cruisetour thru the cruise line...do your homework and make choices based on your preferences!

Oh yes, this time I was hoping to do the gold mine and riverboat, however we're taking a flightseeing to Anaktuvuk Pass and won't have time to do the tourist thing...YEAAAAAAAA!

Again, thanks for an informative and great review!

The Eldorado Goldmine was interesting and everyone enjoyed the chance at indiv gold panning. We also visited Univ of AK Museum of the North on own trip time. It has an extra new wing of painted artwork. We spent maybe 1.5 hours there ($10 admission adult) and liked the native history section the most by far. On way to ElDorado we saw the pipeline.

Its very hard to make long bus rides entertaining. At least the best (the train) was last leg. If I had the train comfort early in the tour and then switched to the bus, I would have been kicking myself.

Live and learn and share info to help others make better choices.

thanks for the in-depth review - and esp. pros/cons of land tour. We decided not to do a land tour next summer - just cruise part - but if we like it and go back again then a land tour would be a serious consideration. But I'm going to keep your review - if my DH reads it he'll want to go the independant way for sure !