We caught the 4am Hotel Shuttle to the Anchorage airport. We checked in for our 6:05 flight. Everything went smoothly with our travel today. We flew from Anchorage to Minneapolis/St. Paul to Detroit to Bangor, Maine. We arrived in Bangor close to midnight – tired, but happy to be home. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Bangor, and Mij & the dogs picked us up at 9am the next morning. The dogs were happy to see us, and they’d obviously had a wonderful time with Mij. It took about a week to get our body clocks back to East Coast time.
The Wrap-Up
The Cruising Portion: We would happily book another small ship trip with Un-Cruise Adventures. Their people were outstanding, and good customer service is a sure way to bring people back for more. The Alaska Scenery, opportunities to see wildlife, and learn about Alaskan history and culture made this an unforgettable journey for us. The hero of the trip was the Weather – of the 6 days we had rain, it only hindered our activities in Juneau. Sunshine, snow on the mountains, and natural beauty most everywhere we looked. Meeting so many nice people made the trip even better.
The Land Tour: There were a few hiccups, but the land tour portion of our trip gave us what we wanted – a quick overview of Denali and a chance to see more of Alaska. It was an opportunity to scope things out for a future trip. Next time, we’ll do all of the planning ourselves, but it worked doing it the easy way this time. We should have added one more night and stayed at the Lodge at Redoubt Bay – that would have increased our chances to see bears, because they (the people at the Lodge, not the bears) are very accommodating and will take you out for as long as you want.
Extra Excursions: We booked 5 extra adventures for the trip. Harv & Marv’s turned out to be a bust, but only because of the weather. Our flight over Misty Fjords with Island Wings was outstanding. We lost out on our private charter to St. Lazaria Island in Sitka, but we weren’t feeling well then, and happy to say our refund check beat us home. The flight seeing to Mt. McKinley couldn’t have been better – and we got a bonus flight the next day. The day at Redoubt Bay was bear-free, but otherwise fantastic.
How do you summarize a month long adventure?
In one word – Awesome.
In two words – Exceeded Expectations
In three words – Let’s Go Back !!!
Thanks for following along. If you have any questions, just give us a shout.
We loved your blog and especially the pictures, which are outstanding. We were particularly attracted to your blog because we are going on an Un-Cruise trip at the end of July 2015 on the Safari Endeavor. We will only be doing a single week out of Juneau to include Glacier Bay and Icy Straight. We’re looking forward to seeing the kind of whale activity that you folks saw, it looked like a great experience.
A couple of questions about your photo gear….what is the largest lens you brought? What size tripod?
I have a 600 f4, 200-400 f4, and a 80-400 f5.6. I think the 600 may be too cumbersome for this trip and I can use a 1.4 teleconverter on the 200-400.
Again thanks for writing such a comprehensive report. I took several days reading it and enjoyed it immensely.
Uh oh … just answering this 4 years later 🙂
I think the 200-400mm with the converter is plenty. And, given the improvements in 1 inch bridge sensor cameras, I’d seriously recommend a Sony RX10 IV with the 24 – 600 mm lens.