HAL air arrangements to Fairbanks?

[jtl513]

For anyone who has booked air through HAL (preferably from the east coast) to Fairbanks - where did you change planes, just Seattle? Or did they pick that route where you change at Anchorage for an hour flight to Fairbanks arriving at 12:48a? Thanks in advance.

[wandb]

It's been a couple of years since we flew to Alaska for our cruise tour, so can't remember exactly the arrangement. However, I can say that the ONLY part of our entire cruise/tour experience that was a disappointment was the flight arranged by HAL. I suggest that if you can make your own arrangements, do so! We could have had a non-stop flight from Atlanta to either Anchorage or Vancouver (on Delta), with connecting flight to Fairbanks (on Alaska Airlines).The reason we went with HAL on air arrangements was that this was the flight we understood we were to have. Instead, we had several stops (I remember Minneapolis!) that took a lot longer, cost more, and had a couple of glitches that had us frantically calling our TA for help from one of the airports. A couple of weeks later we could laugh about it, but at the time it was unnecessary stress and a bit more money we could have spent during the trip.

 

However, the cruise/tour was wonderful, and I can't imagine anyone doing a better job than HAL did there (Ryndam, 2005).

 

However you go, enjoy!!

[Skye23]

We're going to be flying into Fairbanks for a HAL Cruisetour in late May this year. My TA and I arranged our flights and honestly, its ugly any way you do it. To get to Fairbanks before Midnight means either leaving very early in the morning (before 8am) or having absolutely no time for your layovers. I refuse to fly out at 6am, because it means getting to the airport at 4am and getting up at 2am. I go to bed later then 2am most nights, I'm not getting up at that hour. So we're leaving Philadelphia around 11am, and its taking us 3 flights to get to Fairbanks, I've managed to get layovers of around 2 hours between each flight. Which is long enough to find a bathroom and buy a snack since the airlines have quit feeding people. We'll be arriving in at somewhere between 12:30 - 12:50 am, I forget which. We did however take the precaution of booking our flight for the day before HAL would, and paying for an extra night in the same hotel the CruiseTour uses, and of course linking everything to HAL and buying supplimental insurance.

[Skye23]

I forgot to mention our plans take us from Philadelphia to Chicago to Seattle to Fairbanks going. And from Vancouver to Dallas to Philadelphia returning.We're using American Airlines or Alaska Airlines for all of our flights.

[Jade13]

We used HAL for air to Alaska last year paid an additional $50pp diviation fee and the got the exact flights we wants a day earlier. We also stayed in a better hotel than Hal/owns uses (at least based on internet reviews) for less money, The Captain Cook.

 

Pay for the diviation and tell them exactly which flights you want. You can do it as long as they have an agreement with that airline.

[jtl513]

Thank you all for your info. After much hunting I've found an Alaska Airlines option that will let us leave Orlando at 8:25a and arrive at Fairbanks at 4:47p with a plane change in SEA and a stop in ANC. I'll contact my TA and pay the $50 pp "deviation" if I have to in order to get that! I was dreading having to wait 8 or 9 hours at a layover in SEA and/or an arrival at FAI at 12:48a !! :)