Alaska Cruise day -2, coach to Denali NP

Posted on by Ian C.

Coach transfer from Fairbanks to Denali Lodge near Denali National Park was some 3+ hours with views somewhat ruined by the damp windows – another disappointment was that the planned Denali Natural History Tour was completely cancelled due to excessive snow within the park, so we were left with an empty afternoon but a nice upgraded-by-us room to enjoy it in!

Evening dinner was a struggle, the lodge dining had long lines as did most other across-the-road alternatives, but we found one place offering crepes.

Alaska Cruise day -3, flying to Fairbanks

Posted on by Ian C.

After visiting the three north west states that we’d never visited before, we flew to Fairbanks to both visit Alaska, and begin our Holland America cruise – which includes a land section … we flew over spectacular scenery of mountains, glaciers, snow, rivers …

In the evening we walked around Fairbanks, including a visitor center with a nearby arch sculpture …

NCL cruise extras

Posted on by Ian C.

A few other photos, that didn’t seem to fit in the daily posts … here is the La Cucina restaurant which serves Italian food in the evening, but is the VIP breakfast and lunch restaurant; beautiful and quiet, with as many as two wait staff to each table (we never saw more than about five tables occupied, when we were there!):

The carpet in the hall to our room is decorated with fish heading the same way as the ship – except for the occasional rebel that is supposed to represent Norwegian, that “cruise different”:

Excellent steak dinner at Cagneys, our first night (I didn’t bother with daily food pictures!)

Our of the central areas of the ship:

Dinner preparations at Teppanyaki:

A “towel elephant”; we had a different towel animal every night including a rabbit (it was Easter), frog, pig and bear!

We enjoyed a fruit carving demonstration:

And that’s the end!