The Flight to Alaska, Our Night in Anchorage, and Cell Phone Problems

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.

Cell Phone Problems in Alaska - an Easy Solution

If you read the previous post, you realize that neither my wife's cell phone nor mine were working in Alaska.  However, my daughter's was working just fine.  We're not the type of people who have to be "connected" all the time, but we did want to stay in touch with friends and relatives back home if needed.  And as you know, there aren't a lot of pay phones around anymore!

My wife and I use Straight Talk cell phone service, which is a month-to-month Tracfone service sold by Wal-Mart.  We have used it for several months in "the States" and have had absolutely no problem.  Before leaving home, I wanted to make sure that the phones would work in Alaska, so I called the Wal-mart in Anchorage from here in Florida.  They assured me that Tracfones work in Alaska, and that they sell them there at Wal-mart.

We enjoyed a fine free breakfast at the Quality Suites.  I walked a few blocks to pick-up our rental car (see previous post "Reserving a Rental Car.")  And on a bright beautiful summer morning - our first morning in Anchorage - we were in .... Wal-mart!  I started explaining my phone problem to the sales clerk, and I could tell she knew what I was going to say before I said it.  She walked me over to the Tracfone aisle, and pulled a Samsung phone complete with wall charger, and car charger for $8.  The phone came with 10 minutes of talk time, and 60 days service.  The phone also included double minutes for life.  She also pulled a 60-minute recharge card (120 minutes for me) for another $20.  She activated the phone for me while I waited, added the extra time, and wrote my new phone number on a little slip of paper for me.

So, within 20 minutes I had a new, basic cell phone with 130 minutes and 5 months of service for only $28.  Glad I didn't lose any sleep over that!

Some of you have probably already figured-out the problem with our Straight Talk phones.  We don't use SIM cards.  Our phones are CDMA, and they don't work in Alaska (you can follow the links for Wikipedia explanations.)  My daughter's Verizon phone uses a SIM card.

By the way, I still have my Alaska phone with the Alaska phone number.  I think I'll keep it active ($20 every 3 months) just for fun.  I wonder what my local Domino's will say when "Anchorage" comes up on their caller I.D.     :-)