My wife and I just completed a 10 day land /cruise vacation on the Coral Princess. We did three days on land prior to boarding the ship in Whittier and sailing south to Vancouver. We started in Anchorage and then took the Princess motor coach to Mt. McKinley Princess lodge and then up to Denali Princess lodge. HUGE TIP: If you are doing a land/cruise trip and your land package is first, you should pack luggage for three days of land, and the rest for what you will need on the ship. This was a big issue when we were at the Anchorage airport checking in to be transferred to Mt. McKinley Princess Lodge. There were several people that did not know that this was an option (including us.) When I spoke to a representative with Princess, she said that there were a lot of people trying to resort their luggage at the last minute so they would not have to take all of their luggage to the lodges. Princess would take your "cruise luggage" directly to the ship. This would have been very helpful to know when we were packing at home. Nowhere, did we read this before we left. Great concept...just make it known so people are not re-packing thier bags on the floor of the airport.

McKinley Princess lodge was very clean and had a wonderful deck with breathtaking views of Mt McKinley. We were very blessed to have absolutely PERFECT weather when we arrived on July 20, and also July 21st. There was not a cloud in the sky and the mountain was gorgeous. We stayed in building 20 and enjoyed the walk both morning up to the main lodge. It is not that far and the grounds are very pretty. The first night we ate at the Mountain View restaurant with yet again great views, and the food was very good. The second night we ate at the 20,320 restaurant. The food was good, but Mountain View was better, in our opinion. Different type on menu for each. Mountain View is more "fine dining" and 20,320 more casual.

In the reviews that we had read, people are correct in the fact that there is not that much to do at the lodge itself. Enjoy it for what it is, and venture out to enjoy some excursions. We booked all of our excursions on our own by researching Trip Advisor and Cruise Critic. The relaxing deck and views at the lodge are spectacular. We went over to Talkeetna for the day on the the shuttle (50 minute ride) and had a wonderful time walking around this little town. We ate breakfast at the Roadhouse and lunch at Mile High Pizza Pie. Try the reindeer sausage at the Roadhouse. Another tip for the Roadhouse...order half orders instead of full. the pancake were huge and looked very good. Mile High pizza was excellent, and you can order by the slice. Sarah was our hostess and she was very polite and attentive. Todd the owner came over to us to visit and was very polite. They have a great area to sit outside and people watch, enjoy some pizza and have a beer. In Talkeetna we were fortunate to take a scenic flying tour and glacier landing. OUTSTANDING!!! Again a lot of this had to do with the perfect weather that we had for this day. We flew with Talkeetna Air Taxi ( Brad was our pilot ) and I have nothing but positives to report with this company. Highly recommend. I will post a picture of what we saw on Trip Advisor under "Perfect Weather". Read more