Alaska Railroad land tours

[no1racefan1]

Has anybody done a land tour through Alaska Railroad? There are several options on their website with most highlighted by a visit to Denali. MIL wants to do one of these with the family in 2025, and I can't find any reviews or way to research it--so I'm coming to my favorite travel peeps, even though it's not a cruise!

[oaktreerb]

There is a lot of information online.  You can order a travel brochure from the Alaska visitor centers and the Alaska Railroad will probably send you a brochure.  It’s easier if you have a hard copy to look at.  The railroad runs from Seward to Fairbanks and side trips.  Do you know a trusted travel advisor or the auto club travel agency.  Gather some information, decide what you want to do, how many and what ages will participate and let an agency do the work for you and relieve the stress of keeping everybody happy.

 

Alaska has an amazing tourist industry and the different parts…train, bus, hotels, etc will work together for your trip.  I have traveled by train, bus, ship, car in Alaska and there is always someone to help if you need assistance.  Alaska Railroad has a variety of tours and they are well organized.

 

When we signed up for our first trip to Alaska we went to a TA and she said, “What do you want to see?”

She found an itinerary for us and we keep going back to see more.

 

Ask your MIL what she wants to see and what she wants the family to experience.  

[AKStafford]

The problem with using the train or a bus to get to Denali is that it typically leaves you stuck with a more expensive hotel in "Glitter Gulch" and on the more expensive "Tundra Wilderness Tour". If you use a rental car to get to Denali, lodging is cheaper in Healy and you can book on the Transit Bus, which travels the same park road with the same views.

The Alaska Railroad trips going south of Anchorage, either the Coastal Classic to Seward or the Glacier Discovery train are very scenic and highly recommended.

[no1racefan1]

13 hours ago, oaktreerb said:

There is a lot of information online.  You can order a travel brochure from the Alaska visitor centers and the Alaska Railroad will probably send you a brochure.  It’s easier if you have a hard copy to look at.  The railroad runs from Seward to Fairbanks and side trips.  Do you know a trusted travel advisor or the auto club travel agency.  Gather some information, decide what you want to do, how many and what ages will participate and let an agency do the work for you and relieve the stress of keeping everybody happy.

 

Alaska has an amazing tourist industry and the different parts…train, bus, hotels, etc will work together for your trip.  I have traveled by train, bus, ship, car in Alaska and there is always someone to help if you need assistance.  Alaska Railroad has a variety of tours and they are well organized.

 

When we signed up for our first trip to Alaska we went to a TA and she said, “What do you want to see?”

She found an itinerary for us and we keep going back to see more.

 

Ask your MIL what she wants to see and what she wants the family to experience.  

Thank you, I appreciate your feedback. DH and I and MIL and her husband have all been to Alaska on a cruise, but DH's siblings have never been. DH and I are actually going to AK next year for a cruise/DIY land tour and will take the train from Anchorage to Whittier to board the ship. 

 

I did find information on the Alaska Railroad website about routes and such, and they list tour options, but they just give a very brief overview of what each tour consists of. You are correct, a brochure might help, I'm going to request one. For example, hotels are included? I think? Are tours/transportation/etc. included? What do they take care of, and what do we have to arrange ourselves? I'm still hoping somebody might have first-hand experience doing a multi-day tour via the railroad.

 

MIL most definitely wants to experience Alaska via train since she's already done a cruise and her husband is a retired railroader.

[GTJ]

14 hours ago, AKStafford said:

The problem with using the train or a bus to get to Denali is that it typically leaves you stuck with a more expensive hotel in "Glitter Gulch" and on the more expensive "Tundra Wilderness Tour". If you use a rental car to get to Denali, lodging is cheaper in Healy and you can book on the Transit Bus, which travels the same park road with the same views.

I think that is at least partially true. Railroad stations are usually centrally located--not just at Denali but throughout the United States--and nearby hotels are also both centrally located and typically expensive. Motorists, in their vehicles, have greater access to less expensive lodgings. (There's a certain irony in that less affluent people more often will travel by train and bus, yet it is the more affluent who travel by car that have this benefit of access to less expensive lodging.) I do note that the former year-round AuRoRa used to make a stop in Healy as well, but with its summer replacement by the Denali Star no longer do trains have a passenger stop at Healy in the summer. I don't understand why the Denali Star does not have a passenger stop in Healy, both for ordinary passengers destined for Healy as well as the many HAP employees who, themselves, are lodged in Healy. The main independent scheduled motorcoach service, Park Connection, offers several stops at various hotels, all of which are in that category of expensive "Glitter Gulch" hotels. In most American cities one can use the local public transportation system to get from the centrally-located railroad or bus station to less expensive hotels located in the periphery, but at Denali there is no local public transportation system that provides that function . . . train and bus users have few options beyond the central but expensive lodgings. Smaller transportation services--that typically use vans, cutaways, and other smaller vehicles--might provide service to Healy and other less expensive lodgings, but at the cost of less comfortable small vehicles.

 

In any case, however, so long as one books arrangements independently, and not as part of a package or inclusive tour, there is no need to pay for an expensive Tundra Wilderness Tour. The transit bus is not restricted to automobile users, and can be utilized as well by people who make their own independent bus or train arrangements.

 

A rental car might alleviate some of these issues, but such a strategy would have its own issues. For example, to obtain a rental car one must be licensed, be of at least a specified age, and have both the ability to operate the rental car safely (many visitors to Alaska are elderly and can no longer drive as safely as motorists ought to be driving) and the intent to avoid taking in all the scenery so that one can be focused entirely on safe driving. I do not meet these requirements for a rental car.

 

Many years ago, in the late 1980s, I visited Denali independently by railroad. I stayed at the hotel that then-existed within the part, actually staying in one of the retired ARR sleeping cars that were parked outside the hotel. Easily walkable from the railroad station, not too expensive, and readily accessible to the then-free transit buses. All told, I visited the park economically.

 

In sum, I agree at least in part. It is a challenge visiting Denali economically.

 

15 hours ago, AKStafford said:

The Alaska Railroad trips going south of Anchorage, either the Coastal Classic to Seward or the Glacier Discovery train are very scenic and highly recommended.

Add to that list of named trains the chartered cruise train, sometimes also known as the Grandview Train, between the Anchorage airport and Seward. Same tracks, different train cars.