My husband and I just arrived home after a 5 day land excursion (pre-cruise) and then a 7 day cruise aboard the beautiful Summit. This was our first cruise, but the regular cruisers we chatted with also thought the Summit was the most beautiful ship they had ever experienced.

The land trip started at Anchorage, then we went by train to Talkeetna for 1 night then also by train to Denali for 2 nights, then bussed to Fairbanks for 1 night, flew back to Anchorage and bussed to Seward. Hotels were ok&Both the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge and the Grande Denali Lodge were disappointing as they were Plain Jane hotels&clean, comfortable and sterile. Nothing lodgy about either other than the fabulous locations.

The 3.5 hour train ride to Talkeetna was fun and comfortable; breakfast on the train was delicious (loved the reindeer sausage) as were all the wonderful coffee drinks served while we waited for the second seating. I wish they had had some munchies available as we boarded train at 8 am and were not seated for breakfast until after 10 and we were really hungry. We had not booked an extra activity and the town was small, but full of options for munching on local flora (fern curls), locally concocted fireweed jam and fauna-moose, caribou, reindeer, etc. The fresh baked pies found mid-town were not too shabby either! Other than the jelly, most of the gift shops wares came straight from elsewhere (Taiwan, China, etc.). Read more