For your 45th Birthday - you really are "Denali Bound" - Complete w/final thoughts - 2/17/2013 - Page 9 - PassPorter Community - Boards & Forums on Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel
For your 45th Birthday - you really are "Denali Bound" - Complete w/final thoughts - 2/17/2013
About This Page: This is a discussion on For your 45th Birthday - you really are "Denali Bound" - Complete w/final thoughts - 2/17/2013 within the Globetrotting: General Trip Reports, part of the PassPorter Community - Boards & Forums on Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel; The scenery is gorgeous! What a great service to not have to worry about your bags!...
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Beautiful! We are looking at doing a cruise tour next summer that includes this train ride. I can't wait to return to Alaska! It's exactly one year since we were there last summer and one year away from our trip next summer.
PassPorter Guide Community Rank: Legend Extraordinaire
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Concierge Level: 7
Posts: 31,155
None of the hotels are located within the park boundaries. There used to be a hotel in the park but it burned in the late 1990s or early 2000 and the park service decided against rebuilding to limit the amount of development pressure within the actual park. There is a 1-mile long strip of highway that has many of the hotels near the park – and the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge is located on this strip. I will admit, I had very high hopes for any hotel called “Wilderness Lodge” and while it was not to Disney standards – it was pretty good.
We got a BOGO for this hotel as well as the train tickets – otherwise I may have booked us into the Grand Denali Lodge (which is where Disney stays for their Adventures By Disney when they come to Denali).
Grand Denali Lodge - Where Adventures by Disney stays
Our rooms were not ready yet – we arrived at 1pm and they would not be ready until 3pm. SO – we sat by Nenana River at Base Camp Restaurant taking photos and talking – it rained.
Nenana River below the Lodge
Base camp restaurant's outside desk seating
Entrance to the Base Camp
Chris on the deck overlooking the river
We went underneath an overhang, a staffer from the restaurant (that was closed for another 30 minutes) came out to tell us to come inside and wait for the rain to pass – saying “wait 5 minutes, the weather will change”. It sort of did, but remained cloudy and cool – so we opted to stay inside and have a late lunch. Chris and I split the seafood (ok bad idea in the middle of Alaska.... not coastal) nachos and a Dr. Pepper.
Seafood nachos
I also discovered that brewed iced tea is a rarity in Alaska. Iced tea here comes from a soda machine... UCK!!! I would ask at each restaurant if the tea was brewed and get a headshake and a NO. So – needless to say – I didn’t drink much tea.
While we were at lunch I received a phone call from the rafting place asking if Chris and I could be ready to raft at 3pm. I told them I was waiting for a hotel room and thus didn’t have rafting appropriate clothing – so nope. We would be there at 6pm – and I was warned we might not have enough people to get a paddle raft, we might have to have an oar boat...
Our rooms were ready right at 3pm, we got our keys and went to our rooms and the bags quickly followed.
Grand Denali Lodge overlooking our lodge
Our room
Some of the businesses across the highway from the resort
Next - A Glacial Facial!!
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Meeting Jacques in January 1976!! My first WDW trip.
Loved the train ride! Lodge looks nice--I cracked up at the Subway sign across the street--the building looks like it should be a camping supply store!
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
PassPorter Guide Community Rank: Legend Extraordinaire
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Concierge Level: 7
Posts: 31,155
A Glacial Facial!
At 545pm, Chris and I headed up to the the main lodge to wait for our driver to come pick us up for our rafting trip. We had been told that if there were not 6 people on the raft, we would not be able to paddle and would have to have an oar paddled boat where on the guide would paddle. We were lucky that we ended up with 8 people in our boat. We were taken to Denali Raft Adventures headquarters and given our DRY-Suits... that's right - DRYSUITS! Because we were rafting in a glacier-fed river, we had to wear Drysuits.
You put them on over your every day clothes.
The neck has a rubber gasket and you have to squeeze your head through the gasket and then close the zipper. Needless to say - it was an interesting experience.
The after (please note there are no before pics of me...)
Then we loaded up with our helmets, life jackets and paddles in the van and were driven to the raft launch location and were given our briefing before our trip.
Our guide (who's name I can't remember)
Chris in all his gear
Heading down the river.
Chris in the front of the boat - after his "glacial facial" - a wave of COLD glacier fed river water right in the face!
Windy bridge
Coming up on the Train-wreck rapids
Me in the raft
The rapids in front of us!
In the heart of the Train Wreck Rapids
Think someone is having a good time??? Look at that GOOFY smile!!
Thankful for Dry suits (I stayed dry) and for the rubber dishwashing gloves I brought with me (the website recommended you bring them). My hands were cold, but not wet – and that made much of the difference. A very fun experience! Didn’t see much wildlife, except for Dall sheep high on a hill over the river – frankly I saw 3 white dots, I’ll take the guide’s word for it that they were Dall sheep.
After rafting was complete and we were back and out of all the gear, we got a ride back to the hotel and met George and Rachel at Lynx Pizza (the hotel’s resident pizza place) for dinner. Pretty good pizza – but can’t hold a candle to Mellow mushroom....
Rachel and George ordered sandwiches for the tundra bus tour - $13.00 person (sandwich, bottle of water and bag of potato chips). After pizza, we wandered back to our rooms and crashed... we had to be up very early tomorrow morning since our tour confirmation said it started at 5am!!
Next - Tundra tour!!!
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Meeting Jacques in January 1976!! My first WDW trip.
About This Page: This is a discussion on For your 45th Birthday - you really are "Denali Bound" - Complete w/final thoughts - 2/17/2013 within the Globetrotting: General Trip Reports, part of the PassPorter Community - Boards & Forums on Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel; The scenery is gorgeous! What a great service to not have to worry about your bags!...
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Great memories of Glitter Gulch! 
The "glacier facial" sounds interesing... 
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