Get kicked off the boat in Whittier, AK...less than ~300 people and almost all of them live in the condo in the background shot. Unusual to say the least...
We climb on the Alaska Railroad train: 10 1/2 hour ride from Whittier to Denali National Park area. The Cruise lines, regardless of brand, try to tie in some land based stuff, either before or after the cruise: they bus or train you to 'Denali', where one stays in their company built motels/lodges. And, they try to manage one's itinerary to move you every fookin day.
Thus, one spends hours on a freakin bus every day, going from lodge to lodge...and, we got the usual 'tour' of Denali National Park: in a freakin bus for half a day, riding maybe 30-40 miles, seeing trees and trees and inane stuff.
No dis to Denali, and I am sure there are fans of the place, but we were in 13 National Parks, 6 State Parks and several 'local' parks on our trip; Denali is enormous in size, but the usual tourist gets a bus ride up 14 miles of road, and turns around and comes back. WTF?! Certain vehicles, (awd/4wd), can get permitted to go another dozen miles on the gravel road...that's it.
We had gotten lucky and were able to see Denali, The Mountain, from the interminable train ride; alas, when in the park on a bus stop to 'see stuff', Denali the Mtn, was not to be seen in the near constant clouds that cover its
20,000+ height, and enormous 'base'...much bigger footprint than Everest and a couple other Himalayan peaks combined. Our bus driver/tour guide has been doing her job for 9 summers and had never seen Denali/Mt McKinley.
NEway, more bus rides down 2 lane roads, through corridors of trees, and we finally end up Anchorage. Stay a night, fly ~4 hrs south back to Vancouver, spend a night, float plane over to Victoria, spend a night, float plane back to Vancouver, find the Vette which has been parked in a garage for 2 weeks, load it up, and roll out of beautiful Vancouver, BC heading for the Canadian Rockies.
The Alaskan cruise, in hind sight, was one of those things we always wanted to do, and since V's Rents insisted, we went. I would do the cruise differently,
if there was a next time, but I was underwhelmed by the cruise, and Alaska in general, with a couple of exceptions...
Onward toward beautiful Banff, Alberta, & the Canadian Rockies, eh!
Thanks for looking and the long read...
BR, mD