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Thank you for you review. It is great.

Thank you AKman for the update. The fire has indeed caused havoc for many. There have been passengers stranded in Anchorage unable to get up to the lodges, missing part of their tour (post cruise). We were able to get through Wasilla and Willow prior to the fire so we have not been affected but we did see the fire from the plane when we took the flight tour.

 

We are on the train right now on the way to Whittier and I will lose cell service soon so I will post more as soon as I can.

If you get a chance can you post the menus from the MDR please. I have been looking for them.

Enjoy your time in AK. I hope the weather is nice so that you can see Mt McKinley as often times is is hidden in the clouds. The NPS trip to the Mt McKinley visitor center is well worth it and you will see various wildlife going and coming. I have seen grizzlies, wolves, foxes, beavers, reindeer, mountain goats etc. The park has a really interesting show of their dogs they actually use for dog sleds in the winter. Per usual it was very informative. If you have not already figured it out get ready for continual daylight and very short darkness.

 

I have gone to the Glacier Brewhouse several times in Anchorage and enjoyed it. They have a really good rating on several travel sites. Spend a few hours in Talkeetna as it is a wonderful small town with many interesting little shops.

Satxdiver, what a pretty dog in the picture? Is it a Golden? He looks very sweet.

Thank you AKman for the update. The fire has indeed caused havoc for many. There have been passengers stranded in Anchorage unable to get up to the lodges, missing part of their tour (post cruise). We were able to get through Wasilla and Willow prior to the fire so we have not been affected but we did see the fire from the plane when we took the flight tour.

 

We are on the train right now on the way to Whittier and I will lose cell service soon so I will post more as soon as I can.

That is a shame about the fire and people being stranded. Glad to hear it will under control soon.

Looking forward to your review on the Coral. I think it is a great ship. Have fun.

Let me second the Wildflower Cafe and add that the portions are REALLY, REALLY big. We split the fish and chips and it was still more than enough.

Do they take reservations? Thanks.

snow City Cafe is just down the block from Captain Cook - not even 5 mins walk. The north side of the hotel is on 4th Ave and I and K Streets. The cafe is on 4th Ave and L Street.

 

 

 

I actually enjoy answering questions (if I can) - all my planning was based on info from other members - I am happy that I can give back.

 

The last shuttle out of Talkeetna back to the Lodge was at 9 PM. The return shuttles run every hour on the half hour (6:30, 7:30 etc) except there is no 8:30 since the last one is at 9. I don't know how late the shops and restaurants stay open. We didn't have reservations at Wildflower but we were eating lunch at an off hour - if you can get reservations, I would.

Thank you so much. I have learned so much from this site over the last few years. I really do appreciate you taking the time to answer all my questions. I did make a reservation for breakfast at the Snow City Cafe. The Wildfire sounds great as well but just worried about timing. It didn't look like they took reservations. If I think of other questions I will let you know. LOL. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

About an hour each way.

WOW. I didn't realize it was that far. Do you think it is worth the trip? Two hours round trip?

10%? 20%? 30%? We've been told different percentages from locals, but all I know is we are now in the elite club of viewing Denali, in full, without a cloud in the sky. Words nor photos can capture its magnificence. I am sitting outside Mt McKinley Lodge at the moment, waiting for our motor coach to Denali and it is 82 degrees out. We still cannot believe our luck.

 

Yesterday was a day that will be stamped in my memory forever. There was one little annoyance though. We had to wake up at 6AM for Princess to collect our bags even though our departure wasn't until 9 AM. We had to keep the bags in our rooms and not place them outside (probably for safety reasons since Princess doesn't own the hotel) so we did have to be up.

 

The motor coach ride to Mt McKinley took about 3 hours and unfortunately, the PA system was poor and we could only understand about every other word from our driver. She tried to correct it several times to no avail. The scenery on the ride was okay - a lot of "nothing but trees" so many people took the opportunity to take a quick nap. Once we arrived at Mt McKinley lodge we were given packets with our room keys but headed out to the back deck to take phenomenal photos of Denali. Our room was in the 21 block as far away from the main lodge as you can get. They do have a property shuttle but if you have mobility issues, you should call Princess and request closer rooms on the ground floor. It was a long walk to 21 block!

 

The Talkeetna shuttle runs every hour on the hour and we rushed back to the lodge and caught the 1 o'clock. Talkeetna is a cute little town with lots of shopping and restaurants. As usual, anything with "Brewhouse" or "Brewery" is always packed to the gills and true to form, Denali Brewing Company had long lines and long waits. We ended up going to Wildflower Cafe, which is owned by the former chef for George Bush (the first one) when he was President. We sat outside on a their little terrace and the food was super - Steve had a burger and I had a grilled salmon topped Caesar salad and a cup of AMAZING seafood Bisque - the best I've ever had!

 

A few months back I posted a query on the Alaska Boards, "If I do not Fly will I regret it Forever?" Well, of course I got in depth responses from our Alaska experts, Budget Queen, Maple Leaves et al. The gist of their responses were, "yes, if you don't fly, you will regret it forever." So with no mind to our bank account or pocketbook we bit the bullet and booked the Base Camp Tour with Glacier Landing with Talkeetna Air Taxi. I really wanted to do the Grand Denali Tour but just couldn't justify the cost. It was a perfect day for flying and the scenery was indescribable. When our pilot showed us the Wikersham Wall - I became confused. We weren't supposed to see the wall on our tour. Perhaps weather diverted us to a different route? When we landed on the glacier I asked our pilot why we flew by the wall. He responded that it was part of the tour. I told him we were supposed to be on the Base Camp Tour - he laughed and said "well, you've been upgraded because you are on the Grand Denali". This was, by far, The best upgrade we have ever received - even better than our upgrade from balcony to mini suite a few years ago!!! I can highly recommend Talkeetna Air Taxi - this was an experience of a lifetime - one I will never forget. I can't thank the people on the Alaska forums enough - their advice was dead on and the flight tour and glacier landing was money well spent.

 

Food in the lodge was disappointing and we are not fussy eaters. I don't like to focus on the negatives but I'll post more on this subject if folks are interested.

 

We are on the bus now to Denali - Keep those questions coming and I'll post more as soon as I can!

Me again with more questions. LOL. How long is the ride from lodge to Talleetna? Do you know how late the shuttle runs and how late the shops stsy open? The Wildflower Cafe sounds great. Would you suggest we make a reservation? We have a tour the afternoon we get in. Thanks again for all the help. I am sure you have better things to do than answer all my questions. :)

Yes, they do take reservations and you definitely need them. We met a couple who stood on line at 6:30, the cafe doesn't open until 7 and they still had an hour wait. The lines for breakfast in The Cafe at Captain Cook were super long as well - we ended up getting coffee and breakfast sandwiches at what I think was called "The Cubby", also at the hotel. There were no lines or waiting and the coffee was good!

How far is Snow a City Cafe from the Capt Cook? But if the Cubby has good coffee that is a plus for me.

Can't wait to hear more. I was hoping you could have told me about snow City Café. I thought about going there when we are in Alaska next month. Do they take reservations? Hope you have a wonderful time.

Thanks for all the answers. We are so used to being on the ship at noon and have all day to walk around then have dinner later. This will be so different not getting to the ship until after 5 pm and then not sailing until 8:30.

I think I may have seen something on this before but as we are just a few weeks away from our Alaska trip/cruise I had a question about the first night. We get on the ship around 5:30 pm and it sails at 8:30 pm. I have heard dinner the first night is open but when do they do the muster drill? Do they stop serving in the main dining room and if so what time do they stop? I am a little confused about all of that. Thanks.

It's a Panasonic DMC-FZ200 with a 24x optical zoom. I had seen a review a year ago by someone who had used the camera and I was very impressed. Purchased mine on Amazon and it is a great camera and easy to use. I did take a class at our local adult school, but it wasn't necessary. The automatic settings do almost everything you need. You can go to the photos and camera section of the cruise critic forums and there is a great thread just for this camera.

Thanks. My husband had asked. He just bought a new camera, a Canon with a few different lens. He may want to rethink that now. He had a nice camera but wanted something that he could take really nice pictures and zoom in. We both loved your review.

What kind of camera and lens did you use? The pictures are great.

Four people with lots of luggage will fit very nicely in a mini-van cab which makes up about 17% of Vancouver taxi fleet. You may have to wait an extra few minutes for one but is the same cost a car taxi. You haven't identified what hotel you are staying at but if you are staying downtown then figure about $35. If you are staying out at an airport hotel, then likely they will offer a free shuttle.

Yes we are staying at a hotel downtown. Thanks for the information. I assume if we called for a taxi we would just tell them what we need. Thanks again.

Great review. Thank you so much for sharing. We are doing the land tour in July.

Thanks for the great review. We will be there for a few days after our Alaska cruise.

Transportation from hotel to airport. There will be four of us with a lot of luggage. Better to take two taxis to airport or get a shuttle service? If shuttle service can you recommend one? Thank you.

How exciting! We will be on this cruise too. My husband, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary along with our best friends. This is our first time on Princess, first trip to Alaska (pre-cruise Denali land tour-yay) our 2nd cruise with our best friends! We have extended our stay in Vancouver and have tickets to the Women's World Cup quarter final game. Can't wait for our Alaskan Adventure to begin! Happy Sailing!

How exciting that you get to see a World Cup game. That will be great - enjoy

Thank you so much for all of the information. It is very helpful. I just thought about that yesterday that we want to go bike riding and I will need to change and also have my tennis shoes. Thanks again to everyone that helped me out on this.

I had a question about our luggage for our upcoming land tour. We fly into Anchorage and stay there for two nights. I know our luggage for cruise will be taken away until the cruise but when we take the Princess shuttle to the hotel does our other luggage go with us or will that be delivered later? We are going to rent bikes and I wanted to be sure I could get to those clothes. Anything else special we should know about the luggage part? Thanks.

I think you are right about the menu because I remember looking at it and it was divided into decades. Did not appeal to us either.

 

As for the food, we had traditional dining. It was supposed to be at 5:45 but when we got onboard, discovered it was 5:15. Not happy it was so early but we managed by pretty much not eating lunch. (During Glacier Bay cruising we just ordered a sandwich from room service. The club sandwich was very good.)

 

In the MDR, for breakfast, I really liked the pancakes, incl the blueberry pancakes. Salmon, bagel and cream cheese also a favorite of mine.

 

Nothing stands out for dinner. Many nights I had no or only one starter. The food was basically good but the only thing we doubled up on were the crab legs (second formal night).

 

The only things we were not happy about was the chilled cantaloupe soup (me) and the beef medallions (my husband) which are available all the time.

Do you know what time the late seating for dinner was? I have the 5:45 for our Coral cruise in July and I had heard that the 5:45 was really 5:15 which seems very early. I keep going back and forth about changing to the later time. 7:30 or 7:45 would be good but not 8:30 - I don't think. Thanks for your review. We are so excited about our upcoming cruise.

The Coral is our favorite Princess ship. We had also been on her in November after getting off the Regal, which is a very beautiful but way too big of a ship for us.

 

This was a spectacular cruise. Alaska has such beautiful scenery. This was our 8th Alaska cruise and we saw more whales, Humpbacks and Orcas, this cruise than any of the others. Service in our opinion was great, and food, though subjective, was also very good. I find the food threads on CC very entertaining. If you don't like something, just let your server know and they we work diligently to please you with something else.

 

We enjoy traditional dining because we get to meet and become a little better acquainted with our table mates. This cruise we were assigned a table for 4 and met a very nice couple who were both retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They were full of very interesting stories of life in rural Canada.

Thanks for the information. We did the Coral last year through the Panama Canal. We loved the ship as well. WE are doing the Regal in February 2016. I can't wait for that. I agree about it being big but just want to experience it. I am with you on the food. I have never had a complaint. I can always find something I like. I am just a plain Jane so I am easy to please. LOL

Looking forward to seeing the whales and the best part bears. WE are doing a bear adventure - part of my bucket list -

We just got off the Coral. We had first seating, traditional dining, in the Provence Dining Room at 5:15. Our Cruise Personalizer indicated it would be at 5:45. We did not find out it would be at 5:15 until we got our cruise cards. Hope that helps clarify the time for you.

Yes it does. Thanks so much for the information. How did you like the cruise?

Ours is the fixed dining and says 5:45 pm but I have heard on other post that it could be 5:15. I think the late was 7:30 I heard. I would rather change to the 7:30 if that is the case. After 8 pm is way to late but could handle 7:30 I think. I wish I knew for sure.