The Location:
The first thing I would say about traveling to Alaska is that it's far....really far...away! In order to get there we had a 5 hour flight from Cleveland to San Francisco, a 5 hour layover in San Francisco and then a 5 hour flight from San Francisco to Anchorage. 4,179 air miles and 15 hours later...you are in Alaska! For some reason I guess I never really looked at the state on a real map....oh yes I have looked at the state of Alaska but it was always in a little inset box at the bottom of the map of the continental United States! Take a look if you haven't. It's really far West and it's really far North. I guess what put it into perspective for me was that it is actually north of the Yukon (Canada) and on a direct line with Maui in the Hawaiian Islands! So yes....it does take a long time to get there!The Players:
This vacation was one that was entirely personal travel for all of us. My husband and I took our 22 year old son with us on this one. After all...how often do you get to go to Alaska?
The Flight
This was one of those trips that we decided to use some of my husbands miles he had accrued from business travel to upgrade the three of us to First Class. Our rule of thumb is that if it's a long trip, it's worth it to us to use the miles for the upgrade rather than save them for a free trip. For us...this means....trips to Hawaii, sometimes the West Coast and now definitely Alaska. The extra room and the fact that you get actual meals in First Class are definite perks. In addition to the travel time, we had an hour and a half drive to airport to consider as well as factoring in time for getting through security and being in plenty of time to board. My husband is always concerned about getting there in plenty of time so we were up by 3:45 AM EDT and headed to the airport by 5:00 AM for our 8:34 AM Flight. We had time to relax in the United Lounge (again.....perks are great and we try to take advantage of as many of my husband's business perks as we can!) and have a little snack before boarding our flight to San Francisco. The flight was uneventful. Nice breakfast. Great service. Time to doze off a little bit since we were pretty tired from our early wake-up call. The only issue that I had was that my seat was in constant recline! I would push it to sit up, let the button go and boom I was fully reclined. Kept trying to get it to stay. Pulled on it....tugged it. Nothing. Now I know why they tell you to make sure your setbacks are in the upright position when taking off. You are staring at the ceiling of the plane the entire time you are taking off and climbing!!!! Finally after we level off I am able to get the stupid back to stick in an upright position and it stays till I use the restroom!! Then the same thing again. Not sure what was up with the seat but I have to say I wasn't unhappy to leave it behind! Only me!!! 'We did land early at SFO and were able to catch a quick lunch before heading into the United Club there.Couple things about the airport in San Francisco:
1. I have NEVER been there when it hasn't been busy, the gates crowded and people trying to find seats anywhere they can. Often times this means sitting on the floor or on the sides of the people movers! If you see a seat anywhere near where you want to be.....GRAB IT!
2. When you are in San Francisco...even if it is just in the Airport....it is a must to have the Clam Chowder in a Bread Bowl from Boudin's! Well worth the wait and tasted so yummy! Just screams San Francisco to me!
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| It's not San Francisco without a Bread Bowl with Clam Chowder! |
After our quick lunch sitting on a sofa in the middle of the airport (you can't take food into the United Club!) we headed off to the lounge to recharge our electronics and relax until it was time to board our flight to Anchorage. We still had about 4 hours to wait so we settled in. I must say that the United Club at SFO was amazing. It was very large, had quiet areas if you wanted to work or rest or louder areas if you wanted to watch TV. Just a reminder.....I had purchased the Belkin Mini Surge Protector to take with me on this trip. This was the first place that I put it to use and boy was it great!! The lounge was crowded, just like the airport, so outlets were at a premium. You can't come off of a 5 hour flight and prepare for a second 5 hour flight without charging all your electronics and this little handy dandy device was just perfect!
About an hour or so before our Anchorage flight was ready to board, we headed out of the club and off to our gate. Tip: Always make sure you leave the lounge in plenty of time because sometimes they are not located near the gate your need to get to for your departure.
We got to our gate in plenty of time and everything seemed to be on time....or at least that's what the departure board indicated. Well.....sometimes departure boards aren't always correct! Our first indication should have been that the airport personnel didn't seem to have a clue how to board people onto the flight! It was bad...I mean I was ready to start doing the boarding calls myself! We get on the plane and are seated. We are asked about our pre-flight drink. (Another perk of first class) while the rest of the passengers are boarding. Our flight crew looks a bit like something out of the movie Deliverance and were a bit scary but heck....we were on our way to Alaska! ....or not! We sat and waited and the airport personnel started to come aboard. Then maintenance people started coming aboard. We sit and sit. Finally someone makes an announcement that the co-captain has been delayed on his incoming flight and we were waiting for him. Ok....get that....need a co-pilot. No arguments! About a half hour later the co-pilot comes running on board, runs into the lavatory and heads into the cockpit. Ok...ready to go right? Wrong! Maintenance is fixing a seat in the back of the plane as well as a problem with the plane itself. Ok....don't want to fly in a broken plane so we sit and sit some more! Finally after about an hour of waiting in the plane we now had both a co-pilot and a clear maintenance report! Off we go...next stop Alaska...finally!
This flight turned out to be pretty good after we finally got into the air. Dinner was good and the flight attendants were generous with the free wine! I think they wanted everyone to sleep! We were actually able to make up quite a bit of the lost time and landed pretty close to the time we were supposed to land without the delays. I did have time to talk to a couple of the flight attendants on this leg. They had to fly the SFO-Anchorage leg and then load up and head from Anchorage to Chicago on a red-eye! Ok...that would be pretty horrible and a really long night. Sometimes as passengers I think we tend to forget that the flight attendants might be tired too!
The last 30 minutes of our flight was absolutely amazing. I have never seen anything like the views from the windows as we approached Anchorage. You are over ocean and then all of a sudden this:
At this point....as tired as we were....there was nothing that was going to take our eyes off of this wonder! We quickly pulled out the camera and started snapping pictures before we started our final descent. I have never seen anything like this before....this was Alaska! It was as if we were landing in a foreign country! The strangest thing was that it was 8:30 PM Alaska Time (4 hours time difference) and it looked like noon...the sun was still so high. The "Land of the Midnight Sun" was certainly looking
Anchorage airport is not a huge airport and was quite busy when we landed. The nice thing about not being large though is that it made finding our baggage carousel and our rental car pretty easy! The rental vehicles are on-site (well at least for National) and it was a pretty quick pickup!
Our Hotel
Our hotel for the first night was a Homewood Suites by Hilton that was only a couple miles from the airport. This is one of the best tips that I can give you. If you have a long flight, you are going to be very tired when you arrive, choose a hotel that is close to the airport. This saves trying to figure out the whole area when you are tired and cranky. We had been up for about 21 hours by the time we checked into the hotel and were ready to just hit the hay as soon as we got into the room. Luckily we had a small dinner on the flight because we didn't have the energy to go find a restaurant!
Now as a reminder, because my husband travels for business, he has chosen Hilton as his hotels of choice and this is where the loyalty program comes into play. Alaska is not cheap. Everything is expensive there from food to gas to hotel rooms. In order to cut the cost of our trip, we used our points from other stays to book this hotel as a reward stay. Tip: Pay for your cheaper hotels and save your points for more expensive hotel rooms to help cut costs.
We were very happy to get to our room and weren't there all that long except for sleeping and showering and having breakfast! The first thing we noticed when we arrived was the Alaskan feel that you got as you entered the lobby.
The hotel was very clean, quick service and very friendly. We quickly headed to our room. The room was very clean and nice. I will say that this room was smaller than many Homewood Suites that I have stayed in before. There wasn't a whole lot of room to store our luggage and the pullout sofa for my son almost didn't pull out without hitting the TV. Just an observation as the room worked out just fine for us. Beds were comfortable and really clean and comfortable and outlets to charge our electronics were the three things that we were looking for at this point!
We got up in the morning for breakfast. The buffet was nice and was restocked quickly. It was basic buffet food, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, home fries. They also had a "make your own waffle" station that was a nice extra but did tend to be pretty crowded. It was a short but comfortable stay and allowed us to rest up for Day 2 and our trek to Denali National Park.
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