My wife and I and our friend Gail embarked from Pittsburgh on Sept. 1 headed to Fairbanks for RCI cruisetour #6. Our flights were arranged by RCI and all went well arriving into Fairbanks around 8:30 PM. We were met by our hostess, gathered our luggage and were bused to Sophie's Station in Fairbanks. This hotel was fine but the food costs at the hotel were pretty steep. The next day we did the Discovery sternwheeler, the El Dorado mine gold panning and a tour of Fairbanks. We had lunch at Gambardelli's(sp) and it was very good and reasonably priced.

The next morning we headed for Denali onboard the Wilderness Express and the 3 1/2 trip was very enjoyable. We ate breakfast on the train and the food was great and once again very reasonably priced. Our bus driver Mike met us at the train station in Denali and took us for the short trip to the park entrance where we had a couple of hours to have lunch before boarding our bus for the 7 hour Tundra Wilderness tour in Denali National Park. What an experience as we saw an abundance of wildlife. We encountered moose, caribou, dall sheep, grizzly bears, wolves, fox, snowshoe hares, and some others. We spent the night at the Mckinley Village Lodge and our accommodations were fine. Once again the food prices at the hotel were extremely high since there was no place else to go.

The next morning we went on the white water rafting excursion from the cruise line which was great and then boarded our bus for the 3 hour drive to Talkeetna and arrived at the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge. This was the best hotel of the trip. We were fortunate enough to be in the 30% of people who actually got to see Mt. McKinley. They say that 70% of the people never see the mountain because of clouds. Through the internet we had arranged for a flight seeing tour with Talkeetna Air Taxi around the mountain and a landing on the glacier in front of it. I recommend this excursion highly and our pilot Tom was outstanding. Read more