masterdrago

We did 8 days land mid May, then 7 day south cruise. Car rental in Anchorage. Four days in Denali area. More would have been better. Need a lot more time in Kenai. Just now have the appetite to go back for longer land tour in late August, early September.

Since you asked, my walking stick/monopod. Even though My 600mm has VR, it may have been nice to be able to steady it if the weather had not been bright. Fortunately, it was very clear and sunny every day but the one day we did the 4 hour Orca watch out of Seward on a large rolling boat where only high shutter speeds mattered.

DW and I both took our Merrell boots since we would be outside in mid May on the 8 day land portion. The only time you might need something warm and comfy on board the ship is when topside during the time at Hubbard Glacier or Glacier Bay. It can be cold and a pair of after ski boots might work but so would a good pair of sneakers with warm socks and long warm pants.

I consider DW a heavy tipper. On average I think she tipped about 10% on most of the excursions we took. One we took was a Denali flight tour with a landing at their base camp. The tour price for the 2+ hour flight for the two of us was $900+. I think she handed the pilot $60. A lot of our tours were full day (Prince William Sound small boat tour, van tour to Carcross/Emerald Lake, etc). Most of those, she gave $40-$80 to each of the involved captains, assistant or driver/narrator. $40 to the bus driver on the Denali Transit bus tour. He was especially good. We only went as far as Toklat River (mile 53). She did a spreadsheet when planning our trip and the bottom line for the 16 day trip including cruise was about $600 including all the baggage handlers (she over packed) and all the drivers (parking garage, bus, etc). This did not include any gratuity that she added into an envelope for our room steward on board the Radiance of the Seas. Also, it does not include the tip she added to meals at nice restaurants like Seven Glaciers, Ray's Waterfront, Simon & Seaforts, The Grape Tap or many of the dives we found during our trip (Creekside Cafe or Wildflower Cafe). Typically, I see her tip 25% if the service is par with the food. Again my DW is a heavy tipper.

I know there are few tourist and few locals roaming Alaska this time of year but the aurora have really been popping the last days as far down as Talkeetna and Juneau. Most folks do not venture outside much when it's 40 below zero! Mouse down to the forecast on this page - https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Taken yesterday near Fairbanks https://spaceweathergallery.com/full_image.php?image_name=Sacha-Layos-2020_01_08_9999_175frozen-beauty-14-1_1578575008.jpg

I sure wanted to see the Inside Passage but the part we transited southbound in late May was during dark hours which astounded me.

On 12/9/2019 at 3:46 PM, Jimbo said:

Latest Itinerary has us skipping Talkeetna

 

Friday Night.... Girdwood. AK (Alyeska Resort ) (Wildlife Conservation Center, Williwaw viewing platforms)

Saturday Night.. Palmer, AK ( Knik Glacier Tours)

Sunday Night.. Denali National Park 

Monday Night.. Denali National Park  (Eielson shuttle)

Tuesday  Night... Anchorage, AK

Wednesday Night.. Seward, AK (Train from Anchorage to Seward) (Shuttle to Exit Glacier. Visit the SeaLife Center)

Thursday Night...Seward, AK (Major Marines Kenai Fjords)

Friday Night (Radiance of the Seas)

Jimbo, the best view we got of Denali and the Alaska Range was from the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge which is a fabulous place to stay. We did get closer views from other places but the Range is something to see.

We also did a flight with Talkeetna Air and landed at their base camp at 7200 feet. It was 24 degrees and bone dry.

We did mid May to June and in Icy Strait saw more than I could have ever imagined on a small boat tour with Glacier Winds.

We also had a great small boat experience in Juneau with Harv & Marv's

And in Seward on a 4 hour Orca watch with Major Marine. We were lucky the weather was pretty awesome.

And the 4 days we were in Denali, the weather was near perfect.

We did a full day in Prince William Sound with Lazy Otter Charters on a small boat tour (6 person). It was a fabulous but chilly day last May. I highly recommend the small boat tours due to the close proximity to glaciers and wildlife. Also the trip can become very personal as the captain can easily make fast changes to accommodate the passengers spotting wildlife.

You guys are just killing me. I updated this old W7Pro64 desktop to 16G RAM and replaced the 500G HDD with a 1T SSD a few month back. And at the insistence of some on this group, might consider a W10 upgrade next month. And earlier this year bought a new Dell laptop capable of editing HVEC video (really nice touch screen and screaming performance). So this Christmas, I walked past all the putr deals but could not resist upgrading my 20+yo Sig P229 DA/SA Select Compact to the new P229 Legion Compact SAO. Feels right. Merry Christmas to me.

On 11/28/2019 at 10:14 AM, pierces said:

This patience thing is paying off!

 

<snip>

 

Graphics card and CPU are the only big items left, along with the storage HD and working SSD.

 

Might be worth another quick scan through the lightning deals....

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

 

Dave

 

 

Only a few things remain??  I've just so much enjoyed learning from your work, experience and dedication to sharing the build. When I read that line, I just chuckled.... So when are we all taking bets on completion date? Took me over two years to put together the things I wanted in our pontoon boat.  🙂

This last May, we went with Harv & Marv's. Excellent 3+ hr trip. Very personal experience on their 6 passenger 28' custom Bolton whale watching boat. DW spent the entire excursion in the co-pilot seat for a warm great view. I spent the full time on the starboard viewing deck and took well over 150 photographs. One sequence was a very lucky 10 exposure burst in one second capturing an attack by an Orca on a Sea Lion trying to hide near a full grown Humpback. We were fortunate to have stunning weather but several of the passengers enjoyed the views from inside the cabin. We all had up close and personal conversations with Captain Graham who did a great job maneuvering the boat for good views. I highly recommend getting reservations early for a small boat experience.

7 hours ago, pierces said:

 

That will work just fine. I like it. Lends new meaning to "this old drive is shot..."

 

I may have to pack "retirement candidates" next time I visit my son in Houston.

 

 

Dave

Next time you're in H-town, give me a heads up. Would love to buy you a cup of Jove. I'm usually reachable on that gee ml thing. masterdrago plus the number fiftytwo. We're up on lake conroe.

Around here we use HDDs and cell phone for target practice. I'll most likely update this now improved desktop to W10 when I can get some replacements for software that does not play with W10. I'm able to run this W7 desktop in XP VM to run those old pesky 8 bit programs that so far, I've not found anything to replace them. But still looking. Thanks for the link.

I covered some of my thoughts on packing in my thread...

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2656006-planning-report-pre-cruise-rci-excursion-plan/

Dave, a question... I see you're going to store archives and images on a spinner. Just curious when you think it might be late in the game to use older drives, and I'm sure you have a bucket full, to use as backing up data. I'm currently using 3 older drives for that put into external boxes. One is ~7yo, the others 3. Is the error checking tool in W7 adequate to run a real test with? I suspect the $150 you'll spend on the spinner is a good investment for long term storage. Mind sharing what brand and model?

What upset me the most was that we had a starboard side balcony and only at one port did we dock in such a way as to have a view of the water while in port. All the others were looking at the dock. I'm really not sure how one could even choose since it may be up to the captain and dock master how the ship parks at dock.

2x on the Nikon brand. I own more pair of binoculars than I can count but I rely on a pair of Action 7x35 Nikons for most of the general watching I do. 7x power (low enough to easily hand hold), wide field of view (good for finding what you want to see), and rather light weight. Also the cost is rather low. Next step up would be a pair of 8x42 Nikon Monarch but now your spending more coin.

Alaska is such a great place. We did our 1st trip this last May - 16 day cruise and land tour booked DIY. For us, it was such a magical place and we were mostly about scenery. When we go back, we may spend more time walking the towns. We spent a lot of cash because we thought it would be our only trip to the big state. We're in our late 60s. Most of the trip reports at the top of the forum have great reviews of the excursions. As for the 3 towns you mentioned, we did a half day whale watch, van tour with train ride, and flightseeing. My report is at

1 hour ago, mom4mom said:

Can you tell me the names of the private excursion companies you used?  We will be going on RT Seattle next May.  TIA.

 

If you're talking about Juneau, we ended up using Harv & Marv's for whale watch.

For our 16 day trip, the list is long:

In Icy Strait, we used Glacier Winds for whale watching.

In Skagway, we used Dyea Dave for the van excursion to Emerald Lake and back to Fraser, then WPYR Railway to Skagway.

In Ketchikan we did flightseeing with Island Wings.

In Seward, we did a 4 hour Orca Watch with Major Marine.

In Whittier, we used Lazy Otter Charters for a full day in Prince William Sound.

In Denali, we did the Transit bus to mile 53, a 4 hour evening jeep tour out the Denali Highway with Denali Highway Jeep Excursions and a 4 hr 4x4 ATV adventure with Black Diamond Tour Co. and late evening dinner at their cabin.

In Talkeetna, we did a flight around Denali w/landing at base camp with Talkeetna Air Taxi.

I've got a long list when we go back to Alaska:

Up close with bears, Glacier calving, Whales bubble net feeding, Autumn colors and all the way to the end of the park road in Denali to Wonder Lake. I want to also watch for aurora. Might take a two week land tour at end of August/September to fill that list.

Thanks. I found the emails. Turns out it was not Adventure Bound but Allen Marine that told me they only book through the cruise lines per an email from them. They pointed us to True Alaskan Tours with which they are affiliated. Sorry I confused anyone.

We were there in May and I don't have the email from them anymore but I had contacted them in September or October last year. I may be confusing them with another vendor as one would not book us direct and the other one had a boarding time 30 minutes b4 the Radiance docked in Juneau.

I've read on more than one flight forum that the cheapest fares usually fall about 53 days out from departure. When we decided and booked our cruise, we began watching the prices closely. You can even mark flights in a way to have any price changes sent to your cell as a text. It turned out that the 53 day thing ended up not applying to the flight we wanted. We had picked the flight we were going to take and watched the seating assignments change. When it got close to about half full, we pulled the trigger due to wanting specific seats. Used miles and "companion fare" on AlaskaAir to get our best prices. It was about 90 days out. If you are just price shopping, I've also heard that the cheapest is the day of or 1 day b4. Sounds a bit risky to me. Matrix - ITA Software by Google is a fair way to search, although I have found some flights can disappear and then return in a couple of days. I've also been told that some flights are not shown at all. Some destinations don't have non stop flights - example, IAH to ANC.

I'll tell ya what RCI did to us. When we boarded in Seward, we found out passes to an excursion in Juneau (day 3) had the time changed from 3:30pm to 10:15am. I had to go to guest services and cancel due to a conflict with another excursion that morning. No warning. They just dropped it on us. We ended up booking all of our excursions through the private companies directly. A much more close and personal experience. Found a couple that would only book through the cruise line like Adventure Bound.

To get a sense for the train ride I made a short video. The first 2 minutes has a lot of the beginning, but hang in there for a bit of the scenery. A video can never equal seeing this gorgeous Alaska with your own 2 eyes. It was simply majestic to view real time. It was about a 40 minute ride. Rose, with Dyea Dave, took us by the depot in Skagway to pick up our tickets. Then when she dropped us off at the Fraser depot, she made sure we were safely onboard the rear car which was only half full. Awesome service. Discovering the dog training camp was fun.

https://vimeo.com/345258416