Getting There - Flying to Alaska

Chance are, if you live in "the States" (what Alaskans call the lower-48,) you'll be flying to Alaska.  Yes, many people drive the Alaska highway through Canada, but that wasn't in our plans.  We live in Florida, so it would take several days just to get to Canada.  And then several days back.

We fly from a small regional airport in northwest Florida, so our reservations included a flight to Atlanta, then one to a mid-west city (Minneapolis on the way up, and Detroit on the way home,) then on to Anchorage.  Depending on where you live, you might be able to make two, or even one flight to Anchorage.

The saying is, "It takes all day to fly to Alaska, and all night to fly home."  That's basically true.  We left home around 9 AM, and got there around 6 PM.  Of course, we crossed three time zones (we live in the Central time zone.)

Our tickets were about $750 each, round-trip, which I thought was pretty good.  I wanted to set the schedule, so we bought directly from the airline.  I spent a little more and bought a direct Anchorage-to-Atlanta return flight, but the airline changed the schedule and the reservation.  You can expect that.  Our reservation changed three times in the six months between ticket purchase and the trip.  Once, the schedule allowed for only a 30-minute lay-over, so I had to call the airline on that.  (They were very friendly and accommodating.)

Our flights were packed all the way.  Buy your tickets (or at least start watching the fares) as soon as you know your vacation dates.  Being willing to alter your dates by a day or two can save you money.

So, my tips are...

• Set your date as soon as possible, and start watching ticket prices,
• After buying your tickets, make sure to check the reservations frequently for schedule changes,
• Plan to take the entire day getting to Alaska.
• Bring a good book, or maybe even a portable DVD player.  Also, most of our flights had Wi-Fi.

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.