Well, we’re back, and now they tell me there are books about the best way to take cruises. I had no idea. I imagined you sat on deck chairs, sipped rum drinks, and enjoyed being waited on. Silly me. Our Alaska cruise and land tour met all the superlatives, but after it was over, it dumped us on the wharf in Vancouver, British Columbia, exhausted and cranky. Worst part of it was that it was entirely our own fault.
What did we do wrong? Let me start at the beginning.
The first overly ambitious thing we did was drive from Denver to Vancouver.
Now, in the four days it took us (not to mention the four back), we saw some wonderful things: Montana and Wyoming are beautiful states (when the wind and the snow aren’t blowing). The B.C. lake town of Osoyoos where we crossed into Canada from Spokane looks like the Italian lake district. We saw neat “historical down towns” (see previous blog), ski resorts we’d never heard of before made into downhill bicycle meccas, and wineries we didn’t have time to stop to explore. We bought blankets at the mills and saw saddles being made at Hamleys in Pendleton, Oregon. This cross-country jaunt, in fact, could have been a vacation trip in itself. But, as might be expected, at the end of it, we arrived in Vancouver already tired before we had even begun the main trip.
The second mistake was not checking out beforehand what could be brought into Canada when we returned.
After two days of visiting family in Port Moody, we flew up to Anchorage. We’d planned to arrive a day ahead of time in case of any delays as we didn’t want to miss the land tour. That’s when we learned that Alaska makes the most of a brief tourist season by charging heroically for hotels. Anchorage is the state’s main business city and looks much like any similar mid-West city for that matter. Much of what must have been the historical section of town was washed away by the tsunami in the 60s so we spent most of our time in the historical museum and visiting the gift shops, which were lined up almost five to a block on the main streets. I bought some souvenirs, including a walrus tooth and some Alaska curved chopping knives called ulus with bone handles. Nobody told me that Canada severely restricts animal parts, particularly ivory, from entering the country. Or that ulus are considered weapons even though they are sold as kitchen implements. More on that later.
The third msitake was not realizing how much endurance parts of the land tour were going to require.
We started the tour at the Anchorage hotel and went by train (via Wasilla of certain fame and where jokes were surprisingly prevalent) to Talkeetna, the original setting of the tv show “Northern Exposure.” This is the jumping off point for climbers on Mount Mckinley (known as Denali locally) and Sid wanted to see where he’d climbed, so we signed up with Talkeetna Air Taxi. We were very lucky because the weather permitted us to fly around the mountain, but one of us had tried reindeer sausage that morning and the result was a very sick passenger when the plane landed. I will say no more, but the moral is not to try reindeer sausage unless you are absolutely sure your stomach will welcome it.
When we reached Denali Park, we found that the park requires all visitors to enter the park on the park’s buses, school buses with small seats. We spotted bears, caribou, moose, fox, wolf, and ptarmigan, but when we did, everyone on the other side crammed over to the other to take pictures. It was fun, but very intimate at times. When we got off the bus at the end, my knee was so stiff I had to hop down the stairs and my back was demanding naproxin.
The most challenging part, though, was at the end of our land tour when we were getting ready to fly to Anchorage and join the ship at Seward. That night we learned that Fairbanks airport was closed due to smoke from forest fires and we had to leave the hotel in the wee hours next day to be driven to Seward, which was going to take about eleven hours. I’m not sure we would have made it as well as we did had it not been for our tour guide, Debbie, who played games with us and even sang the Alaska state song. We couldn’t stop more than once if we were going to make the ship deadline so the night before, we trekked out to the supermarket to get something to take with us.
We fell off the bus at Seward and went directly on to the ship. Naturally we were late since we didn’t get there until around five and boarding had started at 1:00 p.m. There was a vigorous raffle going on in the main entry hall as we found our cabin and collapsed. We didn’t even eat dinner that night. It was now that the ulus I had bought caused me trouble. My suitcase went missing until I received notice quite late that it was being held in security. I had to go down to the second deck and hand over the ulus to be held until we reached Vancouver. Incidentally, we didn’t find out about the Canada restrictions on animal parts until the second night on board when the newsletter announced it. If I’d known, I would have mailed the stuff from Anchorage and saved myself having to post them in Skagway.
The fourth mistake was booking shore excursions in advance.
The cruise line, for the obvious reason that they were receiving commissions and actually owned many of the gift shops and tour companies, encouraged us to book early on shore excursions if we were not to miss out. So we did. They were expensive and we hated to miss them but we were tired and they became one more grueling thing we had to get up early to get off the ship at the appointed time. Actually, Sid passed up on the last one and I went alone. The tours were great and worth it (or most of them anyway), but we soon discovered that these same tours were available on the pier once we got off the ship and we could have taken them at any time we wanted. In other words, we could have waited and seen what we wanted to do.
Would I do this cruise again? Oh yes. The Hubbard Glazier was amazing and we got a close-up when the ship navigated to within five hundred yards of it. I saw the animals and eagles I wanted to see and watched sled dogs running. I saw the magnificence of Denali, mountain and park. The Royal Caribbean ship was wonderful, even if I was too tired to appreciate much of it.
But I would do it differently.
First, I would FLY to the starting point of the tour. Second, I would do the cruise first, before any organized land tour. If I was tired after the land part, I could just sleep on the plane home. Third, I would book only a couple of land tours from the ship and only those where my heart would be broken if I didn’t do them. Fourth, I would not over-plan my land activities, leaving some of them to be spur of the moment as I felt like it. Fifth, I would understand that while seeing Alaska is important, so is the experience of cruising. And, fifth and finally, I would research the advice and experience of others who had done it before me.
I guess you can say I will have the next cruise under control.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
On the Road
Having just returned from a series of cross-country jaunts, one from Denver to Phoenix and the most recent from Denver to British Columbia where we took a tour to Alaska (more on that in another blog), I’ve come to the conclusion that our entire nation is one large gift shop. It seems that every little town along any road that boasts continuous traffic towards a destination relies on some gimmick to tempt travelers to stop and spend money.
Of course, 16 days of driving over the last six weeks doesn’t make me an expert on roadside attractions, but having also driven all the Western states and down to Florida, I will claim some experience. I’ve found these “ploys for a pause,” as I call them, if not informative and entertaining then at least diverting. To quote Shakespeare, I’d call most of them much ado about nothing.
My favorite is what I call the “make a joyful noise” category, where a town has to invent freely, as in Arizona. Beside rest stops, there’s not a lot to see in vast stretches of desert, so Arizona has been very creative. If you want to see the world’s largest petrified tree, it’s here waiting for you. It probably had to be trucked in for your pleasure, but then so was London Bridge, another Arizona transplant. You can also see a meteor indentation and a real-fake replica of an Indian pueblo along with the casinos with names about wild horses and thunder that clearly cater to truckers, judging from the lines of parked rigs. Everyone can get in the act. Rest stops have prominent signs saying that vending is not allowed, so entrepreneurs from the reservation have built shop fronts along the rest stop fence and people trade money and jewelry over it.
Next is the “let’s-gussy-it-up” attraction that I saw all across Montana and Wyoming. My gosh—how many jails did Butch Cassidy find himself in? How did he ever have time to be an outlaw? It seems that every town with any claim to anything has “a historic downtown.” These downtowns are more or less impressive depending on how rich the town was to begin with. In some, there is a row of brick buildings now housing gift shops, sometimes augmented with some kind of tram ride up a mountain with a sign saying “Welcome, bikers.” In others, there is a row of run-down, fading wood buildings, some of them leaning precariously but at least showing their age. In the end, all the historic downtowns tend to look the same and all have converted their passenger railway stations into restaurants.
Now I have to be fair. Many of these same states have genuinely wonderful things to see that are worth the stop. Route 66 is a case in point and I learned that people actually drive what remains of it as a summer vacation. There are signs along the side of the interstate indicating that at the next exit, one may see some remnant of “Historic Route 66.” Going off on these exits invariably takes one through towns (Gallup, New Mexico, is one example), where the highway is also the town’s main street. Invariably, this road is four lanes wide and the shops and stores along it have 1940’s architecture, what can be seen of it that is behind hanging t-shirts bearing the highway marker. One town has turned itself into a celebration of the ‘50s, with diners, big-finned cars on display, and more kitsch than I have ever seen in my life. I even spotted a plush bear wearing motorcycle goggles and a Route 66 t-shirt. People are proud of their piece of history and it probably is the main reason they still have a livelihood.
Despite my cynicism—how many times did I ask ‘do you suppose it has a historic down town?’ as we approached some small town barely on the map—I have to admit I’m a sucker for these things. Route 66 was part of my generation, as was Highway 40 across Wyoming and the other roads that pioneered touring. During those days, Chevy sold thousands of cars with its slogan made famous by Dinah Shore: “See the USA/ in your Chevrolet” and travelers were assured that “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.”
These were the years when Jack Kerouac channeled national restlessness into a form of self-discovery and everyone tried (or wanted ) to take to the road. Without Route 66 there could have been no Kerouac—or interstates, or strange little mom and pop motels that still cling to their shabby existence in the shadow of the big hotel chains, or even the free ice water and 5 cent coffee that are still offered as a bit of nostalgia (providing, of course, you stop to see their animated dinosaur and buy a few souvenirs at the same time).
Ah the open road. Despite all the commercialism though, some things are still the same. Montana and Wyoming are still beautiful although there is far too much of them, kids still demand to know how much further it is, and the dog still throws up on the back seat.
Of course, 16 days of driving over the last six weeks doesn’t make me an expert on roadside attractions, but having also driven all the Western states and down to Florida, I will claim some experience. I’ve found these “ploys for a pause,” as I call them, if not informative and entertaining then at least diverting. To quote Shakespeare, I’d call most of them much ado about nothing.
My favorite is what I call the “make a joyful noise” category, where a town has to invent freely, as in Arizona. Beside rest stops, there’s not a lot to see in vast stretches of desert, so Arizona has been very creative. If you want to see the world’s largest petrified tree, it’s here waiting for you. It probably had to be trucked in for your pleasure, but then so was London Bridge, another Arizona transplant. You can also see a meteor indentation and a real-fake replica of an Indian pueblo along with the casinos with names about wild horses and thunder that clearly cater to truckers, judging from the lines of parked rigs. Everyone can get in the act. Rest stops have prominent signs saying that vending is not allowed, so entrepreneurs from the reservation have built shop fronts along the rest stop fence and people trade money and jewelry over it.
Next is the “let’s-gussy-it-up” attraction that I saw all across Montana and Wyoming. My gosh—how many jails did Butch Cassidy find himself in? How did he ever have time to be an outlaw? It seems that every town with any claim to anything has “a historic downtown.” These downtowns are more or less impressive depending on how rich the town was to begin with. In some, there is a row of brick buildings now housing gift shops, sometimes augmented with some kind of tram ride up a mountain with a sign saying “Welcome, bikers.” In others, there is a row of run-down, fading wood buildings, some of them leaning precariously but at least showing their age. In the end, all the historic downtowns tend to look the same and all have converted their passenger railway stations into restaurants.
Now I have to be fair. Many of these same states have genuinely wonderful things to see that are worth the stop. Route 66 is a case in point and I learned that people actually drive what remains of it as a summer vacation. There are signs along the side of the interstate indicating that at the next exit, one may see some remnant of “Historic Route 66.” Going off on these exits invariably takes one through towns (Gallup, New Mexico, is one example), where the highway is also the town’s main street. Invariably, this road is four lanes wide and the shops and stores along it have 1940’s architecture, what can be seen of it that is behind hanging t-shirts bearing the highway marker. One town has turned itself into a celebration of the ‘50s, with diners, big-finned cars on display, and more kitsch than I have ever seen in my life. I even spotted a plush bear wearing motorcycle goggles and a Route 66 t-shirt. People are proud of their piece of history and it probably is the main reason they still have a livelihood.
Despite my cynicism—how many times did I ask ‘do you suppose it has a historic down town?’ as we approached some small town barely on the map—I have to admit I’m a sucker for these things. Route 66 was part of my generation, as was Highway 40 across Wyoming and the other roads that pioneered touring. During those days, Chevy sold thousands of cars with its slogan made famous by Dinah Shore: “See the USA/ in your Chevrolet” and travelers were assured that “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.”
These were the years when Jack Kerouac channeled national restlessness into a form of self-discovery and everyone tried (or wanted ) to take to the road. Without Route 66 there could have been no Kerouac—or interstates, or strange little mom and pop motels that still cling to their shabby existence in the shadow of the big hotel chains, or even the free ice water and 5 cent coffee that are still offered as a bit of nostalgia (providing, of course, you stop to see their animated dinosaur and buy a few souvenirs at the same time).
Ah the open road. Despite all the commercialism though, some things are still the same. Montana and Wyoming are still beautiful although there is far too much of them, kids still demand to know how much further it is, and the dog still throws up on the back seat.
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