When Manitoba
grandmother, Emily Wilson, turned 80 years old this summer, by her own
definition she received the gift of a lifetime. To mark the occasion,
her daughter, Donna Rosentreter, and granddaughter Rieva McCuaig, took
her on an Alaska cruise, a package offered by Princess Cruises that
combines seven days at sea with a three-day land tour. “It was
the best present I ever received,” said the young-at-heart
octogenarian.
Wilson, along with just over 2,000 other passengers aboard the Coral
(myself included), experienced a phenomenal trip whose highlight was
the matchless rugged beauty of the Alaskan landscape. As we sailed into
deep finger-like fiords and were awestruck by the sight of massive
glaciers, or cruised along jagged rock-rimmed coastlines flanked by
towering snow-capped mountains and endless wilderness, it was hard to
imagine any place on the planet more visually striking. “The
scenery is spectacular,” said McCuaig. This was an opinion
unanimously shared by her mother, grandmother and other passengers like
Randy and Judy Morgan and Joan and Henry Mombourquette, a travelling
foursome from Halifax. All four were seasoned cruisers who said the
Alaska voyage was the best one they had ever done.
| The scenery, of course, is one thing but
topping off the humbling beauty of this remote northern land mass
regarded as one of the world’s last great frontiers was the wildlife.
Few if any passengers on the Coral were without a camera poised to
capture unforgettable images of moose, deer, bears, sea otters, whales,
seals, mountain goats and bald eagles. |
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Overall, the
land/sea Alaska sailing wasn’t just the trip of a lifetime for a
Manitoba grandmother; it was the experience of a lifetime for those of
us onboard who had longed to see this remote and unspoiled “land
of the midnight sun” whose colourful 19th century Gold Rush
history has filled the pages of many a book.
This particular Princess itinerary began by flying into Fairbanks,
followed by the three-day land tour before boarding the ship at
Wittier, a small community on the edge of Prince William Sound, a
protected body of water that opens into the larger Gulf of Alaska. The
following seven days were spent cruising along the Inside Passage, an
arm of the Pacific Ocean sandwiched between the mainland and a series
of large and small islands. These barrier islands that provide
protection from the open sea generally make for extremely smooth
cruising where land is always within sight. This itinerary can also be
done in reverse with a northbound sailing that departs from Vancouver
and ends in Fairbanks. In 2008, Princess is offering a variety of
Alaska itineraries (for which they are already taking bookings) that
vary in duration and port stops. For the purposes of this story I will
refer only to the 10-day cruise that I experienced.
Getting a feel for the land
The odyssey aboard the Coral began with a four hour train ride in
glass-domed Princess rail cars from Fairbanks to the six-million-acre
Denali National Park whose crowning feature is Mt. McKinley, a
20,320-foot massif that ranks as North America‘s highest
mountain. Mt. McKinley is often shrouded in clouds and it’s said
that only 30% of visitors get to see the entire mountain exposed.
Fortuitously, the passengers aboard our rail trip were among the
privileged few. Two days at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge were
punctuated with opportunities for excursions that included midnight sun
golf, hiking, fly fishing, jet boat safaris, airplane tours of Mt.
McKinley, white water rafting, heli-hiking and glacier-landing
helicopter rides. In addition, the lodge’s wooden buildings are
the centrepiece of what amounts to a small, man-made village featuring
several Princess restaurants including its brand new, upscale King
Salmon dining room and a dinner theatre featuring lively Alaskan
frontier entertainment. There are also plenty of charming little shops
stocked with everything from fur coats to native crafts, and just
across the street is a string of stores selling a vast range of
merchandise from small souvenir totem poles to T-shirts.
| Next leg of the trip was a bus ride from
Denali to Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. With the king of
mountains towering in the distance, a one-day stay here essentially
offers the same kind of amenities and land excursions featured in
Denali. This lodge is a little more remote than the Denali Lodge but the delightful village of Talkeetna is close by. |
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Conveniently,
Princess runs a bus service to this historic little frontier town where
it’s easy to conjure up images of the days when it was frequented
by prospectors seeking gold in the area. Easily explored on foot, its
attractions include a collection of rustic-looking shops selling
authentic Eskimo arts and crafts, plus a history museum and a variety
of eateries. Talkeetna, in fact, is the train boarding point for the
last leg of the land tour that ends with another scenic dome-car ride
through pristine wilderness and the Alaska mountain
range.
At sea
The voyage began with two days at sea when we experienced the sight of
our first glaciers in College Fjord. This fjord has several ice fields
but the largest is the Harvard, a 1.5-mile-wide, 225 foot high mass of
ice that stretches 24 miles back from its face. Harvard is among
Alaska’s “advancing” glaciers that daily calve tons
of ice into the fjord. While the College Fjord glaciers were hugely
impressive, on our second day at sea we found they were exceeded by
those in Glacier Bay. Here, the bulk of them are situated at the end of
a five-mile inlet where 18th-century explorer, George Vancouver, once
described the sight as a “sheet of ice as far as the eye could
distinguish.” Indeed, the voyage into this bay was one of the
most fascinating highlights of the trip where, with thundering cracks,
passengers witnessed several tidewater glaciers calving off giant
icebergs into the sea. Largest and most famous of these ice mammoths is
the Margerie Glacier which is one of the state’s most active
glacial faces. This colossal river of ice is one mile wide, 25 miles
long and 250 ft. high from the water’s surface. It’s the
most visually stunning glacier on the cruise,” said onboard
naturalist, Barbara Bennett.
| Overall, it has been estimated there are
100,000 glaciers in Alaska and that to be qualified as such; they must
be at least 25 acres in size. During the cruise we naturally didn’t see
all of them but I can say that a day at sea never passed without seeing
some---and in the case of College Fjord and Glacier Bay we were treated
to up-close viewings. |
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Ports of call
The cruise embodied three port stops beginning with Skagway, a town
once known to thousands of gold rushers as the gateway to
Alaska’s Klondike. Today, the town of 1,000 residents retains the
flavour of the Gold Rush era and in my opinion was the prettiest of the
three port calls that included Juneau (Alaska’s capital) and
Ketchikan. Several pretty downtown streets lined with colourfully
painted wooden buildings house scores of eateries, saloons, a museum
and shops selling jewellery, clothing, original art and souvenirs. One
restaurant, the Red Onion Saloon, is said to have once been a popular
brothel for miners during Gold Rush days.
Juneau was our second port stop where except for its larger size
(30,000 residents and more downtown streets), its shops, attractions,
on-shore excursions and restaurants differed little from Skagway.
However, the city boasts an unparalleled setting with stunning views of
mountains, glaciers and water. Moreover, many artists who have rendered
its beauty have deemed it to be Alaska‘s most picturesque city.
Last but not least of the port calls was Ketchikan, a town that has a
higher concentration of native Alaskans than any other city in the
state. Again, the town’s architecture, downtown core and history
do not differ significantly from the previous ports of call. However,
this was the last stop on our southbound cruise to buy souvenirs and
gifts which were not hard to find. A patchwork of criss-crossing
streets is filled with stores selling everything from boxes of
preserved smoked salmon to Eskimo bead work and carvings. After the
three port stops there were few people onboard the Coral not wearing a
shirt, vest, jacket or T-shirt bearing some sort of Alaska
logo.
Optional land excursions
The good thing about an Alaska cruise is that shore excursions offer
something for everyone ranging from low impact to high energy,
historical and cultural. I took two separate golf tours (yes, there are
golf courses in Alaska), in addition to an underground goldmine tour
that culminated with a chance to do some actual gold panning. I panned
nothing but my husband came up with a small garnet and a few flakes of
real gold. In addition to these options, passengers could also choose
from an assortment of tours that included sightseeing adventures in
small airplanes, helicopters, trains, buses and horse-drawn carriages.
There were sport and fly fishing expeditions, a visit to an Alaska sled
dog and musher’s camp, outdoor salmon bakes, bear sighting tours,
sea kayaking, zip lining, river rafting, plus many others. Tours are,
of course, discretionary and can be pre-booked online as part of the
cruise package. They can also be booked onboard but there’s a
risk of encountering fully booked tours.
Bon appetite
Cruise lines will tell you that an average passenger often consumes
5,000 calories daily making it obvious food is a prime attraction on
any voyage. Consequently it had better be good and there’d better
be plenty of it. The Coral Princess rises to the occasion on both
issues. Head chef, Remo Bolis, said everything onboard from soups to
waist-expanding desserts are made from scratch in the ship’s
galley. In this amazing below-decks kitchen, 375 workers prepare 85
tons of food on an average seven-day cruise during which 10,000 meals
are prepared and served each day.
To contend with what has all the earmarks of a feeding frenzy, the ship
has several eating spots include an extensive 24-hour buffet restaurant
and two main dining rooms that offer five-course personal choice dining
which means you can opt to show up anytime between 5:30 and 10 p.m. and
sit with whom you please. Alternatively, passengers can choose
prescribed seating at one of two evening sittings. In addition there
are two specialty restaurants--Sabatini‘s for Italian cuisine or
The Bayou Café & Steakhouse for Cajun inspired food. Both
are exceptional dining spots that require reservations and a small
cover charge. There’s also a pizzeria, a pool-side hamburger/hot
dog grill and 24 hour room service. Lunch can be taken in the two main
dining rooms where afternoon tea is also served daily.
From a splendid selection of top-drawer food choices, this cruise is
definitely the occasion to enjoy king salmon and halibut fresh from
Alaskan waters. Certain special food extravaganzas like the
Alaskan-inspired buffet laid out on the pool deck are not to be missed
events. This particular feast features Alaskan reindeer chili, rockfish
chowder and barbecued Alaskan fish together with unlimited side dishes,
salads and desserts. Nobody goes hungry on the Coral or--for that
matter--thirsty. At least 1,500 bottles of wine and 8,200 bottles of
beer are consumed on a single cruise.
Shipboard activities
There’s no shortage of ways for passengers to amuse themselves
and the truth is I got tired just reading the activities listed in the
ship’s daily newspaper, the Princess Patter. Options included
line dancing, trivia contests, putting competitions, card playing,
exercise classes, art auctions, spa treatments, ceramic painting,
pottery making, current movie presentations and more. There was also an
American Idol-style contest and nightly Las Vegas-type shows featuring
dancers, singers, jugglers and comedians.
Travel planner
For more information about the Alaska land/sea cruise and other Princess Cruises sailings, see their website at www.princesscruises.com.
Alternatively, you can also visit your travel agent or one of the three
local CruiseShipCentres that specialize in Princess Cruises. A tip for
packing that’s specific to the land portion of the Alaska cruise:
this is a destination that calls for casual clothing suited to the
rugged outdoors. Even the Princess lodges do not require dress-up
clothing for dining.
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