Monday, August 15, 2016
I finally got a full 8 hours of sleep last night! That’s
better. We had a breakfast of our Trading Post supplies and I drank 2 cups of
in room coffee. We walked over to the Lodge for a last try for a view of
Denali. There were some blue skies visible but Denali was wearing her clouds.
Once again we saw various bits and pieces but never a whole mountain. Time’s up
and we have to move on. We had packed up the car and checked out already so we
just walked back to the car and headed south. We had one sightseeing quest
today and that was the Independence Mine State Historical Park. It was a scenic
drive up and back to it, but it wasn’t as interesting as I’d thought it would
be. Maybe because the Visitor’s Center was closed the entire time we were there.
We saw a park ranger leaving as we were walking up and one drove up and parked
as we were driving out. Maybe that wouldn’t have made it more interesting
anyway. We were there walking around and reading the signs for over an hour. It
was cold and windy up there and very scenic. It didn’t rain! We did drive
through about 15 minutes of heavy rain about 20 minutes before we got back to
Anchorage but that was it.
We drove into Anchorage around 2:30pm. We checked into our
Junior Suite at the Captain Cook Hotel in downtown. We paid $369.98 for this
one night here as an add-on to our Delta Air tickets back in February. It was
the only category of room left available. We wanted to stay here because this
is the hotel that Crystal Cruises is using as its pre-cruise hotel and where the
buses to the ship depart from. I remember that I felt any price premium would
be justified by the convenience.
After we deposited the baggage in the room, we took the
rental car back to the airport. Somehow the rental was more than the quoted
amount when we reserved the car. Clay wasn’t bothered by it and we paid $409.48
for the 4 days. We had planned to take the bus back downtown, but it was only
running once an hour and we didn’t want to wait 45 minutes. I had gone inside
the terminal to Starbucks to spend my $10 gift card from Stuart Jones for an
Anchorage mug. It took longer than expected because the baggage claim shop I
went to first was out of mugs and the one upstairs was busy making drinks. So
the mug was $10.95 and instead of a $4 bus for the 2 of us, it was about a $20
cab ride.
When we got back to the Captain Cook Hotel, we wandered the city
block of lobbies until we found the Crystal desk. We gave them our names and we
got 2 pink tickets for the first bus to the Serenity tomorrow at 11:15am. I don’t
know if that is good or bad. The last bus will leave at 1pm. The instructions
sheet they gave us says it is a 3-hour bus ride. We are to have ourselves and
our luggage in their room by the desk by 11am and the room will open at 10am
with seating, bag storage and refreshments. We didn’t have any plans for Anchorage
and I guess that’s a good thing because all we’ve done here is drive and sleep!
Our special Junior Suite/Delta deal included a $20
food/beverage deal so we dined at Fletcher’s Pub in the lobby. It turns out the
food/beverage credit can only be used at the breakfast restaurant in the center
of the lobby at breakfast. You’d think they could have made that clearer. Even
without the credit incentive, we’d have probably just eaten there. Clay wanted
salmon and it was probably the same price all over downtown with or without the
walk to get it. I had a small pizza and it was overwhelmed with garlic again.
It must be an Alaskan thing. We had an Australian couple sitting next to us who
are on the same cruise with us, so it begins. We stopped at Sweet Chalet, gourmet chocolate shop on our way back to our tower and bought 2 Aurora Chocolate Bonbons each for $6.50 per person. They were beautiful, but not that delicious. Another disappointment.
So, that’s the end of our Alaska road trip. Tomorrow our
North West Passage cruise begins.
Photos
