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Diamond 7/18-7/25, Land Tour


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In short, WOW!

 

We arrived in Vancouver the day before the cruise to enjoy the city. We had been booked into the Pan Pacific through Princess. The price was a little on the high side, but well worth it when it came time to board.

 

Princess took care of all of the paper work between 8-10 AM. We went down to the dock about 11 and walked past the crowds in the staging areas and were on board in our cabin by 11:15.

 

We were assigned cabin C115 on the Caribe deck. Note: this is a large ship that only gets longer if you use the mid or aft elevators!

 

We had a balcony, only issue was it had a solid bottom portion of the rail, therefore sitting on the balcony and viewing the sights was not possible, but we still enjoyed having the balcony. So if you book a balcony, make sure to move back a few cabins from the bow.

 

We went to the Lumber Jack show in Ketch, very entertaining.

 

In Juneau we went on the Rainforest and Whale Watching excursion. Our guide, Richard Stokes was excellant. After a brief walk through the rain forest, we popped out on a beach across from the Mendenhall Glacier, what a view! Afterwards we wen to a small marina and boared a boat for phenominal whale watching. We got into a pod of about 8 whales and later moved off to follow a mother and calf. Capt. Collin along with Richard made for a memorable excursion.

 

We did not do any excusions in Skagway, however we ate at the Skagway Fish Company, the King Crab was the best.

 

On ship, we purchased the pass for using the saunas in the Spa, well worth the $149. Went in there every day.

 

For the beer drinkers, on deck you can get a bucket (5) of beer for about $20, a better choice is Room Service, you get 6 for the same price. Please be aware, if you get the Alasken beers, you need a bottle opener, not twist tops. Could not find anything suitable to open a bottle in the cabin!

 

As for the cruise, only one complaint - What is it with people checking thier manners! The folks who treated the crew so rudely and complained out things that are part of life.

 

We did the Direct to the Wilderness Tour, off the ship and train moving out by 7AM. Very relaxing way to travel. Please keep in mind, the train takes longer to get there than the bus, but then again the train was way more comfortable.

 

Into Talkeetna, very quaint. The shop near the bus staging area had some great items at a really good value. Lots of native and local stuff.

 

The Mckinley Lodge is about an hour bus ride from Talkeetna, so it is a good idea to do ypur sight seeing before heading up there. They will let you off at the bus area, they run every hour to and from the Lodge.

 

The Lodge is fantastic, nestled on the side of a mountain. They do not have A/C, but no worry, cool enough with the window open, but if you have trouble sleeping with the sun out, oh well.

 

We did a 2 hour trail ride, they picked us up at the lodge. What a nice group of folks. They are the same folks who do the wagon ride. Beautiful country.

 

Next morning off to Denali, again on the train. Got there about 3 PM. We checked an upgraded our Natural History Tour to the Tundra Wliderness. It was not available on Tuesday, but Wednesday morning @ 6AM was good. We were not set to depart until 3:30 anyway.

 

So we went across the road to Glitter Gulch and purchased the Husky Homestead tour independently. Saved about $10 a person. Jeff King's place was fantastic. He put on a great show and shared some great insight into sled racing.

 

Wednesday, we went on the TWT, it is worth it. The tour took 7 hours and we saw Dall Sheep, Grizzlies, Carabou, a marmot, golden eagles. Our guide was very informative and willing to slow down, stop and linger.

 

While on our way back the guide mentioned the park rangers would be putting on a sled doug show @ 2, wo we got off at the information center and did the program, very good presentation. From there we went to the train depot (across from the information center) and boarded the train to Fairbanks.

 

You get to Fairbanks at 8-8:30. We did the Riverboat in the morning which is very relaxing and informative. After lunch we did the panning for gold which was very entertaining.

 

We decided to the North Pole exscurion, it was a little hoky but fun. Lots of good shopping for christmas stuff. The guide was hillarious.

 

Then Thursday- home.

 

We had a great time and look forward to doing it again in the future, with some different destinations.

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