Alaska to Texas - Final Thoughts, and Souvenirs

We woke up the next morning feeling pretty rough. The hotel store had COVID tests and we bought a couple, and sure enough we both tested positive. 

The cruise portion of our trip wasn't scheduled to leave for a couple more days, so we contacted UnCruise and cancelled our cruise. We extended our hotel stay in Anchorage a few more days and stayed in the room (thank goodness for Uber Eats!). 

We flew Alaska Air back to Texas.  We had one stop in Seattle then straight through to San Antonio. It was a lot easier flying back to Texas than flying to Alaska. 

Final thoughts: 

Don’t go to Alaska in the middle of the summer!!!

It is the peak of tourist season and the towns and popular parks are packed. The weather is warm and it is pretty much daylight 24 hours.  

We had a wonderful group of people on our tour but it reminded us that we really like being able to go at our own pace.  We prefer to get up early and avoid the crowds. 

While UnCruise does an excellent job of creating a unique small-boat cruise experience which is much different than the larger cruise lines, their land tour package was pretty typical. 

This trip also reminded us that National Parks have become some of the worst places to find either solitude or nature. While the adjacent Denali State Park was delightful, Denali National Park was a zoo. 

Finally, we learned that Alaska in July 2022 was a great place to catch COVID. With tens of thousands of people arriving from all over the world, crowding into airports, buses, trains and restaurants, there was a lot of COVID being transmitted. We learned that 19 of 65 people on the cruise that we missed ended up with COVID. We've also talked to a couple of folks back in Texas with friends that went to Alaska and contracted COVID this summer either on cruises or land tours. 

Souvenirs:

We bought t-shirts when we kayaked.  I bought a hat because I only brought warm hats and I certainly didn’t need them!  The little pin in the shape of Alaska was given to everyone from Andrew (our driver).

We had tried this syrup made from birch.  It's good (not as good as maple syrup from Maine) but we enjoyed it.

I bought a few magnets:

On the train I bought this magnet:

People that see Denali are said to be in the 30% club.  Since we saw Denali several different days, we joked that we were in the 10% club.

I mistakenly bought 2 of these magnets! One just says Denali National Park but the image is the same.

I really liked this one. We saw everything on this magnet.

This little stuffed bear has magnets in his feet.

A very wiggly moose. I like the action type magnets.

It was a nice birthday trip even though it didn't turn out quite like we expected. Alaska is a beautiful state. 

We have a credit for the cruise portion of our trip, and we'll plan to take it early next year, in the off-season!!

Never miss out on future posts by following us