MinnesotaMouseketeers
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 25, 1999
- Messages
- 2,700
A while back I mentioned that this would be my wife and my FIRST non-DCL cruise and I would report on it. So here it is; Part One of not sure how many but my guess is Two.
And this one may only be of interest to those that are thinking of taking or are taking this cruise vs. Disney. And haven't yet decided on how to get from Anchorage to Seward, because it is about the Transportation we took from Anchorage to Seward.
There was a total of six of us, one of my sisters and her husband and another couple that are very good friends of my wife and mine. We flew into Anchorage and stayed one night at the Captain Cook's Hotel, a very nice place to stay I might add. We were deciding between two modes of transportation, bus or train. We decided on train so I have no idea how this works for the bus; but this is how it worked for us for the train ride south to Seward. Both would be set up with Celebrity Cruise Line.
We had a change in instructions on our sign-in/pickup location. We were made aware of this by email through Celebrity, so pay attention to your emails for any potential changes to your site. Our new site was the Egan Center about five blocks up from Captain Cook's which was slightly further than the original. We had to be there no earlier than 9:00 and no later than 10:45. We got there at nine and were pretty much the only ones there so we were quickly shown to the tables with the staff for the check-in procedure. We got our vouchers for the time we had to return to get onto the bus that would take us to the train station. Went back to our hotel, had breakfast and returned to Egan Center and went to the tables and chairs waiting for our turn to be called to get on our bus.
When we got to the train station located by the International Airport we got in line to what we thought would get us our car number that would take us to Seward. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that they also checked us onto the Millennium so when we got to Seward, we pretty much just walked off the car and onto the ship
.
Each car has its own little gift shop, and set up for drink and food orders. One person is the barkeep/order taker/expert on all things about the train and surrounding as you chug along and one other person to put together all food orders.
You can walk the entire length of the train if you want and each car has a small area to stand out on to see the surrounding without the windows. But it is very small and gets crowded with just two people standing at each open window.
And the car in the middle is a bar/snack car that has a few tables and stools but with very small windows making it very hard to see the scenery.
If time is important to you the bus ride is about three hours long and the train is 4-4.5 hours long. I must admit that I did not pay attention to the time we left so I don't know exactly how long it took us. Once you get out of the Anchorage city limits it is a beautiful ride and I am glad we took the train. Getting up a walking around is really nice too!
And this one may only be of interest to those that are thinking of taking or are taking this cruise vs. Disney. And haven't yet decided on how to get from Anchorage to Seward, because it is about the Transportation we took from Anchorage to Seward.
There was a total of six of us, one of my sisters and her husband and another couple that are very good friends of my wife and mine. We flew into Anchorage and stayed one night at the Captain Cook's Hotel, a very nice place to stay I might add. We were deciding between two modes of transportation, bus or train. We decided on train so I have no idea how this works for the bus; but this is how it worked for us for the train ride south to Seward. Both would be set up with Celebrity Cruise Line.
We had a change in instructions on our sign-in/pickup location. We were made aware of this by email through Celebrity, so pay attention to your emails for any potential changes to your site. Our new site was the Egan Center about five blocks up from Captain Cook's which was slightly further than the original. We had to be there no earlier than 9:00 and no later than 10:45. We got there at nine and were pretty much the only ones there so we were quickly shown to the tables with the staff for the check-in procedure. We got our vouchers for the time we had to return to get onto the bus that would take us to the train station. Went back to our hotel, had breakfast and returned to Egan Center and went to the tables and chairs waiting for our turn to be called to get on our bus.
When we got to the train station located by the International Airport we got in line to what we thought would get us our car number that would take us to Seward. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that they also checked us onto the Millennium so when we got to Seward, we pretty much just walked off the car and onto the ship
.Each car has its own little gift shop, and set up for drink and food orders. One person is the barkeep/order taker/expert on all things about the train and surrounding as you chug along and one other person to put together all food orders.
You can walk the entire length of the train if you want and each car has a small area to stand out on to see the surrounding without the windows. But it is very small and gets crowded with just two people standing at each open window.
And the car in the middle is a bar/snack car that has a few tables and stools but with very small windows making it very hard to see the scenery.
If time is important to you the bus ride is about three hours long and the train is 4-4.5 hours long. I must admit that I did not pay attention to the time we left so I don't know exactly how long it took us. Once you get out of the Anchorage city limits it is a beautiful ride and I am glad we took the train. Getting up a walking around is really nice too!
