Okay, I'll try to keep this section from being as boring as the flight! It took us about 12 clock hours to get from Florida to Alaska. If you think about it, that's pretty remarkable. However, it is a long time for someone (especially me) to sit still.
As I wrote earlier, we had three plane rides (home airport to Atlanta, Atlanta to Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Minneapolis-St. Paul to Anchorage) on our itinerary. All of the flights were packed to 100% or near. And a few of the flights were oversold.
Here's my only tip for this section... if you're flying to Alaska, and they attempt to "bump" you to a later flight, make sure the airline is aware that you have another flight to connect to, and that your destination is Alaska (which the airlines consider an "international" location.) When the airline attempted to "bump" us, I informed them of our final destination, and they quickly withdrew their request. I don't know if it was because they were being nice, or they realized that it would cause a ripple-effect with the schedule. But, it worked.
Finally, let me tell you that we were not prepared for the absolute beauty that we would encounter as we approached Alaska by air. I've included a brief video clip, so you can judge for yourself.
As soon as we got off the plane, I turned my cell phone on. I got the dreaded "No Service." So did my wife. My daughter got a full row of bars. This is something that I need to take care of. More on that in a later post.
We had a reservation for one night at the Quality Suites Near Convention Center in downtown Anchorage. (My TripAdvisor review of this hotel.) We called their airport shuttle, and were in the hotel room within the hour. Our room rate was about $220, which was comparable with other downtown hotels. The room had two double beds and a sofa-bed, which met our needs.
At this time, it was around 7:30 PM, and it was still broad daylight. This is something that we had to get used to -- sunset was at about 10:40 PM, and it didn't really get dark until well after midnight. Really, it seemed like it never really got DARK, just dusk. The sun was up by 3:30 AM each day.
Anchorage was clean and relatively quiet. We walked a few blocks and found a little restaurant that served sandwiches and Asian food. It was a good meal. We were tired, went back to the hotel, and went to sleep. The thick window-shades helped a lot!
I went to sleep with the cell phone problem on my mind.
As I wrote earlier, we had three plane rides (home airport to Atlanta, Atlanta to Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Minneapolis-St. Paul to Anchorage) on our itinerary. All of the flights were packed to 100% or near. And a few of the flights were oversold.
Here's my only tip for this section... if you're flying to Alaska, and they attempt to "bump" you to a later flight, make sure the airline is aware that you have another flight to connect to, and that your destination is Alaska (which the airlines consider an "international" location.) When the airline attempted to "bump" us, I informed them of our final destination, and they quickly withdrew their request. I don't know if it was because they were being nice, or they realized that it would cause a ripple-effect with the schedule. But, it worked.
Finally, let me tell you that we were not prepared for the absolute beauty that we would encounter as we approached Alaska by air. I've included a brief video clip, so you can judge for yourself.
As soon as we got off the plane, I turned my cell phone on. I got the dreaded "No Service." So did my wife. My daughter got a full row of bars. This is something that I need to take care of. More on that in a later post.
We had a reservation for one night at the Quality Suites Near Convention Center in downtown Anchorage. (My TripAdvisor review of this hotel.) We called their airport shuttle, and were in the hotel room within the hour. Our room rate was about $220, which was comparable with other downtown hotels. The room had two double beds and a sofa-bed, which met our needs.
At this time, it was around 7:30 PM, and it was still broad daylight. This is something that we had to get used to -- sunset was at about 10:40 PM, and it didn't really get dark until well after midnight. Really, it seemed like it never really got DARK, just dusk. The sun was up by 3:30 AM each day.
Anchorage was clean and relatively quiet. We walked a few blocks and found a little restaurant that served sandwiches and Asian food. It was a good meal. We were tired, went back to the hotel, and went to sleep. The thick window-shades helped a lot!
I went to sleep with the cell phone problem on my mind.
