Alaska travelogue, Part 1: The plan and what went wrong

We had 6 full days in Alaska. To maximize our time spent in Alaska, we decided to take red eye flights to in and out of Alaska. The plan looked like this on paper.

The plan

Day 0

Fly to Anchorage on a red eye flight, arrive at anchorage by 1 am, stay in Anchorage. Rent a car and drive to hotel.

Day 1

Spend time in Anchorage. Return rental car. Continue stay in Anchorage.

Day 2

Take train to Denali. Stay in Denali.

Day 3

Take the 11 hour tour shuttle inside Denali. Stay in Denali.

Day 4

Take train back to Anchorage. Stay in Anchorage. Rent a car.

Day 5

Drive to Seward. Take cruise in Seward. Stay in Seward.

Day 6

Spend more time in Seward, drive leisurely back to Anchorage, take plenty of photos.

Day 7

Red eye flight back to California.

So, basically Day 5 and Day 6 were reserved for the Seward drive and time for photography.

You can’t stop airlines from losing your bags!

Alaska airlines decided to lose one of our checked in bags. And of all the bags they could lose, they lost our Toddler Car Seat. There can be nothing more devastating to a family that travels with a baby to have their car seat lost in transit.

We landed at 1 am. By the time we realized that Alaska Airlines had lost the carseat, it was 2:15 am. By the time, we filed a complaint, it was 3 am. And of course, my rental car agency did not have any car seats in hand. Take your own car seat if you are travelling to Alaska and plan to drive.

Most rental car companies do not have toddler car seats available. And then pray that your airline does not lose the car seat. If possible, try to avoid red-eye flights when flying with babies. It removes a lot of uncertainty.

Basically, that put a dampener on the plans for that day. By 3 am, the sun was fully out. I had checked out the rental car, but I could not drive it since I had no car seat. We finally hired a cab which had a car seat and reached the hotel. By then, the sun was fully out and very
bright and we could hardly sleep.

To cut the long story short, by the time we woke up, got ready, Alaska Airlines found and got the car seat for us, it was 11 am. By the time, I got the rental car, it was 11:30 am.

Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. We reconsidered our plans and decided to drive along Hwy 1 towards Seward instead of spending the time in Anchorage Zoo or Botanical Garden as we had planned earlier. With the benefit of hindsight, that was a great move. It brought us to Portage and to Whittier, by sheer chance.

Void Pointer

10mm and be there.