Alaska Cruisetours- Which Hotels X Uses

[dabear]

We've booked tour # 19 for an Alaskan cruisetour next June southbound from Seward. Does anyone know which hotels X uses in Anchorage and Denali ?

[STEVE-O]

We've booked tour # 19 for an Alaskan cruisetour next June southbound from Seward. Does anyone know which hotels X uses in Anchorage and Denali ?

 

We were on a different cruise/tour with Celebrity earlier this year. We stayed at the Downtown Marriott in Anchorage ( just a typical Marriott) and at the Grand Denali Lodge in ...well...Denali.

 

The Grand is on the edge of a cliff overlooking the east (?) side of the park. They run free shuttle down the twisty, gravel road to the "Gultch" below where the restaurants and gift shops are.

 

The view is spectacular....the hotel is....just OK......

[2travelers2go]

We stayed at the Aleyeska, which was beautiful but very remote. As mentioned, the Grande Denali was located on a hill and there was nothing much on property. Restaurant food was expensive and sub-par and service was terrible. The Celebrity rep said Grand Denali had a program to bring in foreign "students" to learn the service trade at their hotel - so we were advised to be patient. I can understand that to a certain extent, but when you are paying premium prices I don't believe it's right to be a guinea pig for non-English speaking, inexperienced young people with zero service skills. The Pikes Waterfront in Fairbanks was very nice and we enjoyed it there. If I were to do it over again, i would NOT book a land package with Celebrity - it would be MUCH easier to just rent a car, book rooms yourself and see the land portion on your own - no need for Celebrity at all, IMO.

[CHEZMARYLOU]

We are cruising this August and staying at the Downtown Marriott in Anchorage and the McKinley Village Lodge in Denali.

 

Mary Lou

[negc]

Celebrity and Royal Caribbean pretty much use the same hotels for their Alaskan land tours. In Anchorage we also used the Downtown Marriott and found it more than satisfactory and very typical of most Marriott properties. I am disappointed to read that this year people are having the same less than satisfactory experiences with the Grande Denali Lodge that we had last year. View and location are spectacular, food and service are definitely substandard. Last year the manager's excuse was that they were under new management and that they had only been open a few weeks. Yet the very next day we stayed at the Talkeetna Lodge and everything about it was first-rate. I inquired of the staff just how long they had been open, thinking that it might explain why their staff and service was so much better and found that they, too had only reopened a few weeks earlier. Apparently complaints to Royal Caribbean and Celebrity about the Grande Denali Lodge have failed to move them to demand that the property improve its operations, which is really a shame.:( If anyone is on a southbound tour and is offered the opportunity to upgrade to the train for the final leg between Anchorage and Seward (for $25pp) I strongly recommend that you do so. It was a highlight of our trip.