Millennium Alaska June 16, 2017 LONG Trip Report photos - menus - schedules

Hi There!

We recently returned from our first trip to Alaska. I'm going to give a detailed trip report, not just a review of the cruise. We had a total of 15 nights in Alaska, including 8 nights before boarding the ship. I'll get to the ship eventually, but I'm going to go through our trip from start to finish. I enjoy writing detailed reviews -- it's a way for me to re-live the trip and gives me incentive to sort through and organize all my photos. :) If you are only interested in the cruise, you'll want to skip ahead.

I’ll have lots of photos, menus, daily schedules and more. But first some background…

We love to travel and try to take one big trip every year. This year we decided to take our kids (a daughter, age 28, and a son, age 24) with us. We had a family meeting and discussed several options before settling on Alaska.

We wanted to cruise, but also wanted to spend some time on a land tour. We started researching our options. We have cruised Carnival a few times, and were very happy with them, but we have been wanting to try a different line just to see how we like a different cruise operator. Our only other cruise outside of Carnival was last year on the Paul Gauguin in Tahiti. That is a luxury line, a very small ship (about 300 passengers) with a reputation for excellence. So we have had two very different kinds of cruise experiences.

I'll be giving you my honest observations. I don't consider myself either a cheerleader or a critic of any cruise line. They all have good and bad. When I offer criticisms, please don't think these small issues "ruined" my cruise or were deal-breakers.

Sometimes people think my level of detail is nit-picky. Fair point. I do go into a lot of detail. If you aren’t interested in this much info, my review might not be a good place for you to spend your time. I do not mean it to criticize any cruise line or tour operator.

I'll have many photos for you once we arrive in Alaska, but first I'm going to explain all the planning for the trip.

But here is one photo to introduce ourselves. We took our Santa hats with us and snapped this selfie near Haines, AK for our Christmas card this year.

So, on with our cruise planning.

We settled on a Norwegian cruise in early June. However, not long after, we discovered that Celebrity was offering pricing that was relatively competitive, and we have heard that it is a more upscale line with attention to service and quality. So, with the price being fairly close, we cancelled Norwegian and went with Celebrity. We were interested to discover how the Celebrity experience would differ from our other cruises.

We considered doing a cruisetour, but the tour portion of the trip seemed to jack the price up exorbitantly. I was convinced that I could plan our own tour more affordably, and this would also give us the freedom to set our own schedule.

In September 2016, we booked a southbound cruise for June 16, 2017. We reserved a balcony cabin for my husband and I, and an inside cabin for our kids. We wanted cabins near each other and that was a bit of a challenge. I wanted a balcony on the port side, and it was hard to find a location with a nearby inside cabin. We eventually settled on deck 7, reserving balcony cabin 7111 and inside cabin 7093 just a few doors down.

With the cruise booked, I began planning the land portion of our tour. This was a LOT of work!

I really enjoy planning our vacations so it wasn't a problem. But if you aren't detail-oriented, or just don't care for the research and planning required to put this together, you might prefer the ease of reserving a cruisetour through the ship.

I'm also budget minded, so I spent quite a lot of time trying to find affordable options for hotels in particular, and also researching the many options for activities and excursions.

The first thing I needed to do was decide what activities we wanted to do and develop an itinerary around that. We knew we wanted to go to Denali. Beyond that, we weren't sure what to do. I got a lot of help with itinerary planning on the Alaska forum at a popular travel website. We eventually settled on an itinerary including a couple of nights in the Denali area, and then most of the rest of the time on the Kenai Peninsula.

I promise – I have pictures coming!

Over the next nine months, I spent a great deal of time researching and reserving rental car, hotels, air travel, excursions and tours. We booked our hotels very early on, and even then we had trouble, especially finding rooms large enough to accommodate our family of 4. (We didn't want to have to book two rooms, given the very high price of rooms in Alaska.)

We could not find any rooms at all that could accommodate four of us at the nice hotels in Denali's "Glitter Gulch." They were already fully booked months in advance (at least for rooms that could accommodate 4 adults). We could have booked two rooms, but the cost would have been crazy.

We ended up going with some smaller motels, and a couple of condos rented from a vacation rental website, and we were very pleased with our choices. I'll tell you more about these as we go.

I joined our Cruise Critic roll call, but I'm sorry to say that it was a little disappointing. On our Mediterranean and Tahitian cruises, we met quite a few people on our roll calls. The Tahiti roll call was slower, because it was a small ship with fewer passengers, but we still met some great people and planned some wonderful private excursions with them.

Our Celebrity roll call, on the other hand, was very slow. Quite a few people joined, but nearly all of them just stopped in once to say hello and then rarely posted again. I tried to get some conversations going about excursion planning, but didn't get much response. There were a couple of very brief discussions about weather and what to pack, but overall it was a slow roll call. Most of us who joined did also sign up for a Celebrity Connections meet-and-greet, however.

So at this point in our planning is where we run into a problem with Celebrity. I had heard about their exemplary customer service and wasn't expecting the following issue to be such a problem. Sorry, this is going to be a long rant. Feel free to skip over it :)

About two months before our cruise, we learned that prices had taken a very substantial drop. An Aqua Class room was currently going for HALF what we had paid for our category 2A veranda. In fact, the Aqua balcony cabins were only about $100 more than our kids had paid for their inside cabins!

We had booked through Costco Travel, because at the time we booked they were offering a small dining credit and a Costco Cash Card worth a few hundred dollars. Neither the Costco nor Celebrity websites were offering any other perks. But now Celebrity was offering a MUCH lower price, plus your choice of two perks.

So I called our travel agent to see if we could get the lower price. We could not, because we had already paid in full. They did offer to upgrade my husband and I to Aqua class.

Well, even if we could not get a lower price, an upgrade to Aqua would be great! And Aqua was currently being offered at only about $100 more than our kids had paid for their inside stateroom. So this seemed like a no brainer! Upgrade the kids, at the current advertised price. And my husband and I could also upgrade -- we would not get the current much lower price or the perks, but at least we could enjoy a higher category cabin.

We did not want to upgrade without our kids. We had gone to some trouble to make sure we had cabins near each other. And what fun is it to upgrade to Aqua if our kids can't dine with us at Blu?

Our kids had paid about $2100 for their cabin (for the 2 of them). Aqua was currently being offered for about $2200 for 2 passengers. So, I reasoned that if they just paid the difference, they should be able to get an Aqua cabin at the current price.

Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. Celebrity refused to honor the current price. We weren't even asking for the additional perks that were being advertised in the current promotion. We just asked to be able to change cabins based on the currently advertised price. We had to go through our travel agent, who then tried to negotiate with Celebrity. But Celebrity refused.

They wanted to charge our kids more than $1000 to upgrade, even though the current price was only $100 more than what they had already paid!

The best I was able to do was finagle a drink package for my husband and I. We are happy about this!! But it seems small change, considering that if we had booked at the lower price, we could have gotten a higher (Aqua) class cabin for $2000 less, and with 2 perks included.

The kids got nothing after the price drop -- no added perks, no upgrade, nothing. So we were left feeling that we had grossly overpaid.

I posted about this here on CC. Some people suggested that I contact Celebrity directly, since my efforts through Costco Travel had been fruitless. So I emailed Celebrity One Touch. And this is where I began to seriously question the superior experience that Celebrity is supposed to offer.

I emailed and explained our dilemma in trying to navigate these lower prices and perks. All told, we had paid a bit over $6000 for the four of us to cruise with Celebrity, in an inside and balcony cabin. Had we waited to book, we could have had two aqua balcony cabins for only about $4000 -- and with perks! We felt cheated.

I explained all this in my email to OneTouch in late April. Ten days later, having had no response, I emailed again.

I finally received a response on June 1 -- more than *five weeks* after I had first emailed them! Really?? THIS is the amazing customer experience that an upscale line like Celebrity is supposed to offer? And guess what their email said? It said they cannot speak to me, because I booked through a travel agent. You could not have told me that five weeks ago, when I first emailed you?

Now you may blame the whole fiasco on Costco, which may be a fair point. But Celebrity could at least have sent a polite reply to my email in a timely manner. That is not so much to ask.

So we have not even boarded yet and I was at this point very disappointed in Celebrity. My experience with them so far is that they are happy to overcharge us, refuse to honor a lower advertised price, and don't even value us enough as customers to bother replying to our query in anything resembling a timely manner. They took weeks just to tell us that they would not help us in any way.

Well, rant over! Despite feeling that we had seriously overpaid, here we are. Our vacation was fast approaching and we could not wait to see Alaska! We put the bad customer service response behind us, swallowed our disappointment at having paid far too much, and got busy packing for our trip!

We were worried about packing enough warm clothing and clothes that would be dressy enough for the dining room on board. This was a challenge. The four of us were going to be away from home for 15 days. Four people times 15 days equals a lot of dirty laundry!

Should we try to pack bulky winter coats? Raincoats? We would need jeans and casual clothes for our active excursions, plus nicer clothes for dinner, swimsuits for the pool... I heard that layers are key so we need jackets and sweaters.

When booking our lodgings, I made a point to be sure we had access to laundry facilities toward the end of our land tour. I wanted to be able to wash everything before we boarded the ship.

Another concern was making sure we would have enough room in our rental car for all our luggage, plus we were planning to buy an inexpensive ice chest and some groceries in Anchorage, so we wanted to pack as light as possible to be sure we had room for everything.

So with all this in mind, we started packing several days in advance. It was a real challenge to pack adequately for all of us and keep our suitcases small enough to manage in our rental car.

Finally, after all these months of planning, it's time to go! And I’ll finally have some pictures for you!

Thursday June 8

We left San Antonio, flew to Dallas, then Seattle, and finally arrived in Anchorage around 10 pm. Of course it was full daylight. We took a cab to our hotel. By the time we all settled in and got ready for bed it was after midnight, or 3am on our time. We were beat!

Here we are at Sea-Tac excited to start our vacation!

We stayed at Quality Inn Historic Downtown. It was fine for an overnight stay. It's an older property but it was clean and the beds were comfortable. The room was quite large with a separate (small) living room. Breakfast was the typical thing you get at this kind of hotel. They offer an airport shuttle but we opted not to wait for that and just went with the convenience of a cab, which cost about $20 plus tip from the airport to the hotel.

Friday June 9

Next morning we left the kids at the hotel while we walked about 15 minutes to the downtown Hertz location. We almost always try to avoid renting cars at the airport. Airport locations almost universally charge much more than others and that proved to be the case here. We saved several hundred dollars on our rental.

We had booked a full size car months in advance. I wanted a minivan but could not find any that would allow us to drop off in Seward. We were given Kia Optima, which they said is a full size, but it sure seemed small to me.

Back at the hotel, it was a tight squeeze to fit all our luggage, but we managed. We made two quick stops at Costco and Wal-Mart to get groceries. We didn't buy as much as we had planned, because we literally could not fit hardly anything more in our car. But we did get some sodas, chips, lunch meat, cheese and bread for picnics. We bought a small collapsible ice chest.

Then we headed out of town to Palmer. We got there too early to check in to our hotel so we went to the Musk Ox Farm. It was just OK. We had a 45 minute tour. It was a lovely pastoral setting. You might enjoy it if you are in the area, but I wouldn't go out of my way just to go there. We did get to see some musk ox very up close that were lying right next to the fence. The staff was very friendly and our guide was good.

After we finished the Musk Ox tour, it was around 1:30 or so. We stopped by our motel to see if we could have an early check-in. Our room was ready so we unloaded the car.

We stayed at the Pioneer Inn which was charming. This is an old style motel, but has been completely updated and our room was perfect, large and had everything we needed. The proprietor and her staff were very nice and helpful. I highly recommend this motel. But it is not for you if you want a lot of glitz and fancy amenities.

I had spent quite a lot of time looking at lodging options for every step of our trip. We were spending 8 nights before boarding the ship, and needed rooms that could accommodate all 4 of us. Hotels in Alaska can be very expensive, and our lodging costs could easily run into a few thousand dollars (especially if we had to get 2 rooms to accommodate us). So I searched out some less expensive options and read many, many reviews on a large travel website before making our reservations. So far we've been happy with our choices.

We made some sandwiches and headed out for our first big adventure.

Nice review so far. :) Can't wait to read more as we are doing this same cruise next July.

We had a 4:30 reservation with MICA guides for a glacier trek on the Matanuska glacier. We got there early but that was OK because it gave us time to eat our sandwiches.

Our glacier trek was very cool! We've never done anything like that, or even seen a glacier before. However it was considerably more strenuous than we expected. The company has a video on their website in which they describe it as not too difficult, talking about how they have taken people of all ages and saying that if you can climb a flight of stairs without holding the handrail, then you can handle this trek. Well, we can do that! So off we went.

But what the video failed to elaborate was that you are going to be going up and down that uneven, slippery flight of stairs over and over again for 3 hours straight! That makes it a slightly different proposition. We had also seen someone on a travel forum describe this activity as "not too strenuous" so maybe it was just us. We aren't as fit as we would like to be, but neither are we couch potatoes. We enjoy a good hike and we exercise regularly.

At any rate, we strapped on our crampons and tackled the glacier. Thank goodness we had beautiful weather. It was not cold and we didn't have any rain, which would have made the glacier even more slippery. It was a good hike. Our guide was very good. We even got to drink some delicious glacier water! But we were all worn out when it was over!

We were back at the guide office at 8:30pm. Then we had an hour drive back to Palmer. We were tuckered out after our long day!

Here are a few more photos from our glacier trek. If you ever have a chance to do this, don't pass it up. It was extraordinary.

Nice review so far. :) Can't wait to read more as we are doing this same cruise next July.

Thank you! You'll love the cruise!

Saturday June 10

Today we headed to Denali! We had a fast food breakfast and set out. We had to stop at Starbucks for my daughter and we filled up with gas, finally got out of Palmer around 10:30. It was a gray and drizzly day.

I can't remember exactly how long it took us to get to the Denali area, maybe 4 hours? We didn't go to the park yet. We drove past it and went to Healy, where we had reserved a room at the Denali Lakeview Inn. We got there around 2:30 I think.

Be careful to share the road!

It was too early to check in so we went to the 49th State Brewing Company for a late lunch. It was good. My daughter tried a yak burger, which she said really tasted pretty much just like a regular burger to her, but it cost several dollars more.

By now it was almost 4pm, which was our check in time. So we went to our hotel, Denali Lakeview Inn, which is a B&B style place. They have about 10 rooms. We had a HUGE room with two king beds and a twin. Plus, a loveseat and recliner, a dining table with seating for four, and a private bath. The kitchenette was stocked with tons of food for breakfast: apples, oranges, raisin bread, muffins, several varieties of cereal, juice, milk, boiled eggs, peanut butter, jelly, oatmeal. Our room had many windows with a gorgeous view of a lake. It was so comfortable! We were happy to stay here for 2 nights.

After we unloaded our car, we drove the 15 minutes or so back to Denali. We had a look around the visitor center and spoke to a park ranger about our plans for the next day.

Then we headed back to town, where we had a little time to check out a few shops. We bought some t-shirts. Then we went to the McKinley Chalet where we were to be picked up for our pre-arranged 7pm tour of Husky Homestead.

Our bus arrived right on time. They picked up our large group and drove us the 15 minutes or so to Iditarod champion Jeff King's place.

As soon as we got off the bus, we had an opportunity to hold and pet Alaska husky puppies! They were so cute! They were about 6-8 weeks old. There weren't enough puppies for everyone, so we spent about 15 or 20 minutes passing them around, taking turns holding them and taking photos.

Look at this adorableness!!

Next, we sat in an outdoor area right in front of where they keep the dogs. Jeff King made some introductory remarks, then turned the show over to his daughter, who told us a lot about the way the dogs are raised and trained. They did a demo with the dogs running on a treadmill.

A group of about 8 dogs were harnessed up for the demo. As soon as they got out the harness, the dogs started going nuts, barking and straining at their tethers, seeming to shout "pick me! pick me!"

After this portion of the program, which lasted about 30 minutes, we moved inside where King himself talked about the race, how mushers prepare for it, care for the dogs, showed us the equipment, etc. This portion of the show also lasted around 30 minutes. King is very funny and gave a good presentation.

After the show there was a brief opportunity to browse the small bookstore area set up in the corner. You could buy an autographed book by King. Or you could go have one last opportunity to hold a puppy again, which we jumped at! Finally we boarded our bus to be returned to our pickup point. I believe it was around 9:30pm by this time and we went straight back to our hotel.

The show is very polished and touristy, but it was also entertaining and informative. I recommend it. There had been a light rain for most of the day, but fortunately the rain stopped before our show, which was a good thing because the puppy petting area is out in the open.

Here are a few more pictures from Husky Homestead.

By now it was getting late into evening (although still quite light outside) and the pups were sleepy!

Sunday June 11

Today was our day for Denali National Park! It was cold and rainy when we woke up. We dressed in layers and made a picnic lunch. There is no food or drink (other than water) available in the park. You have to bring whatever you want with you. We packed a couple of backpacks with rain ponchos, umbrellas, binoculars, cameras, extra water, and our lunch.

We had a reservation for the Eileson shuttle at 9:30am. It was scheduled to last until 6:30pm. The rain was light and eventually stopped but the sky remained overcast all day, as it had yesterday. So we still haven't seen the mountain. Nevertheless, the park was beautiful.

We saw a lot of wildlife. Early in the day, we saw a group of three bears right beside our bus on the edge of the road, literally just a few feet away from us.

We saw a huge herd of caribou at a distance, and a single caribou right beside the road, very near us.

We saw a grizzly who was eating a carcass of ... something. We couldn't tell what it was. A wolf was hovering nearby. Our guide theorized that the wolf had made the kill, which the bear had then appropriated. Several hours later, on our return trip, the standoff continued. Both the wolf and bear were still eyeing each other, with the bear still hogging the meal and not sharing. It may be hard to see in this photo, but the bear is protecting his meal, with the wolf hovering nearby.

We had at least 10 bear sightings, including at least 3 moms with cubs. We also saw dall sheep, marmots, magpies, ravens, ptarmigan, two foxes, snowshoe hares. You definitely will want binoculars!

The only way to see the park is by using their bus system. You can only drive a few miles into the park in your private vehicle. This park is unlike any other we have visited, in that there are very few marked trails of any kind. Just a few around the visitor center, and a very few at Eileson, maybe a few others.

You can hike anywhere you want, though. If you see an area that interests you, you just ask your driver to stop and let you out and you can head out into the forest or across the tundra. This kind of hiking did not appeal to us, especially since it was a cold and rainy day. And we aren't seasoned outdoorsmen, with the knowledge and equipment (such as a compass) for off trail hiking. We had no internet service in the park and I really didn't want to take a chance on getting lost. Plus, it was a long day already. We wanted to do some hiking, but if we had, our day would have been that much longer.

Our bus made a few stops on the way to the Eileson visitor center, including a spot with beautiful panoramic views. We ate our lunch on the bus. We arrived at Eileson around 2pm and had half an hour to look around. The mountain remained hidden in clouds. We did a short 20 minute hike on a little loop trail, had a bathroom break, and were back on the bus by 2:30. We did have the option to take a later bus back, but with only a few marked trails in the area, we decided to just go ahead and go back on our bus.

Hard to see here, but there is a whole herd of caribou in the middle of the picture.

We arrived back where we started around 6:30pm. It was still cold and drizzly, so we headed straight to our car and drove into town. We had supper at The Bake, a seafood restaurant. The food was good.

After supper we went back to our hotel. We did some laundry and hit the sack.

Thx for all the pics and details. Looking forward to reading the rest of your review!

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

This is my trip for next summer! Can't wait to see the rest!

Thanks so much for writing up this review! I loved reading your PG review, and found it very helpful in planning for my upcoming PG cruise (6 weeks to go!) I look forward to seeing Alaska through your eyes since it will likely be many years before I get up there myself! haha I hope you enjoyed your experience on Celebrity as much as I have always enjoyed mine :)

Thanks so much for writing up this review! I loved reading your PG review, and found it very helpful in planning for my upcoming PG cruise (6 weeks to go!) I look forward to seeing Alaska through your eyes since it will likely be many years before I get up there myself! haha I hope you enjoyed your experience on Celebrity as much as I have always enjoyed mine :)

Why thank you! It's nice of you to remember that! I'm so disappointed because the photo server I was using has changed their terms and all my pictures have disappeared from that review, and all my reviews. I hope that won't happen to this one! I'm using Shutterfly to post my pics here.

I'm sure you are counting the days until your PG cruise! Tahiti is truly the most beautiful place I've ever seen. It was the trip of a lifetime.

Here are a couple more pics from our time in Denali.

Here's mom with her two calves having a snack right beside the road. We pulled over and watched them for a few minutes.

Monday June 12

Today was a travel day. We left the Denali area and travelled to Girdwood. When we awoke it was another cold, rainy morning. The sky remained overcast, and Mt. Denali was still hidden. We never did see it.

We enjoyed the generous breakfast that was provided in our room. Loaded our car in the rain and we were off. We left our hotel at 10:15am. We arrived in Wasilla around 2pm and stopped for a fast food lunch.

Then we continued to Anchorage, where we stopped at Costco again. We had so little room in our car, we were not able to buy all the groceries needed on our first stop. So today we stopped again and picked up some prepared foods for meals during our next few days, plus some bottles of wine to take on the ship.

Leaving Anchorage, we stopped at Potter's Marsh. This is a nice place to spend a half hour or so. There's a very nice boardwalk with interpretive signs out over the marshland where you may see many varieties of birds and maybe other wildlife. We spotted a pair of geese with three adorable, fuzzy goslings. And we spied a bald eagle nest, with one eagle proudly perched in a tree nearby -- far off in the distance. Take your binoculars! This is a nice stop, and doesn't require a lot of time. It is right off the highway just south of Anchorage.

After half an hour or so here, we continued driving down Turnagain Arm, stopping at Beluga point to take a couple of photos. I really had wanted to see the bore tide, but our timing was off. It wouldn't happen for another week or two.

The drive was beautiful, but it remained a gray day and my pictures didn't turn out well.

We had reserved a condo in Girdwood at the base of Mt. Alyeska. I found it on a popular vacation rental website. I wasn't sure what to expect, but we were so happily surprised! It was a very well maintained 2 bedroom with a full kitchen and very comfortable living area. It cost about the same as a standard room at the Alyeska resort. Instead of all of us crowded into one room, we had the luxury of a 2 bedroom condo with full kitchen and living room, stocked with board games, wide selection of movies, everything we needed.

I wanted to hike Winner Trail but my family was pretty worn out. We had a lovely dinner of kale salad, flatbread pizza and wine for less than $25 for the four of us thanks to Costco and our kitchen. We spent the rest of the evening just relaxing, listening to music and reading.