Northern Light Show!
Secretly I got up in the middle of the night and look what I saw! It is a good thing I cannot sleep through the night sometimes…
Anchorage Port
We have had a VERY lucky experience! Very rarely do cruise ships DOCK in Anchorage! For the Don Young Port of Alaska, which is just north of downtown Anchorage, due to the extreme tidal fluctuations and heavy commercial freight traffic, only specialized ships (some Holland America and exploration vessels) can dock at the port. The mega-cruise ships stop instead at the deep water ports of Seward or Whittier and then bus or use the train to transfer passengers to Anchorage. These mega-cruise ship ports are also easier for the cruise ships to get to from the glacier areas of Alaska as they are on the east side of the peninsula where Anchorage is at the end on the other side. Also, cruise ships offer “land” components when the cruise ends in Alaska such as to the Denali National Park.
At the Don Young Port of Alaska, we were able to get off at Anchorage and either be bussed into the city (on Princess busses!) or to get onto an Excursion bus. We were on the Anchorage Highlights and Alaskan Air Museum tour.
Alaska Aviation History Overview
I was really interested in this tour as it included the Alaskan Air Museum and I have watched some shows on the history of aviation in Alaska along with spending A LOT of time in airports to get from Vancouver to Dutch Harbour, which took 2 days each way, via Seattle and Anchorage. In Alaska, there are communities that are fairly remote and frozen a good percentage of the year! For most of these places, the only way to reach them is by air – similar to northern Canada. Food, medical supplies, people, basically EVERYTHING need to be flown in. Most have a gravel runway or in the winter, ice packed runways where planes can land on wheels. For towns near the water, there are float planes that can fly in which land on their pontoons (or skis depending on the season) to deliver goods too. The “bush” pilots who fly these routes are a rare bunch but they know Alaska well and the challenges that come with flying up here.
The next interesting fact about Anchorage Airport, which I did not know about until my trip to Dutch Harbour in February, 1995, is the sheer number of cargo planes that land in Anchorage for a fuel stop. Flights from Asia to New York carrying cargo – such as a 747 freighter, cannot make the trip without touching down for fuel. If you look at the great circle mapper, the flight patch from Asia to Toronto/Chicago and the eastern USA makes an arch over Alaska and down over Canada to the destination. Guess what airport is on the way? Anchorage! Great stop to pick up some fuel! Only issue – the airport can have some very “interesting” conditions when it comes to snow! I have been to a lot of airports around the world, however back in 1995 I do not think I had been at any airport, including Frankfurt and Heathrow, that had more 747’s (aka Queen of the Skies) taxiing around than I saw in Anchorage the days I spent at ANC airport!
I am not going to bore you with stats or anything – you can look them up yourself…. LOTS of 747’s! In fact we saw one land and taxi in while we were on the bus heading to the Alaska Air Museum!
The bus did drive quickly through downtown Anchorage on the way to the Anchorage Airport. The Anchorage Airport looks to have grown up in the last 30 years since I was last hear as that seems to be a new control tower! Needless to say, we did not end up at the airport (sad) but instead at the Alaska Air Museum, which funny enough was accessed from an active “taxiway” which I thought the bus driver was kidding when he said that (security is a bit different in the USA than in Canada it seems) but no, we were crossing the taxiway for all the float planes at Lake Hood which is right next to the Anchorage Airport!
Lake Hood Float Plane Aerodrome
We arrived safely the Alaska Air Museum which is on the edge of Lake Hood. The Lake Hood Float Plane Base has the largest number of Sea Planes in North America at over 1500 registered to this base. They THINK they are the busiest float plane base, however knowing Vancouver and the Coal Harbour Aerodrome along with Harbour Air being the largest seaplane operation in the world, I can confirm that Vancouver, with 200-300 seaplane flights a day on average, is a bit busier than Lake Hood at 190 flights on average.
We were dropped off at the Alaska Aviation Museum where the majority of the bus tour was able to enter and to hear the docent talk about the history of Alaskan Aviation. Unfortunately, the slow people like myself getting off the bus and needing our mobility devices too a bit more time to get into the building and we missed half the presentation! That was frustrating – someone even asked him to start over and he would not as he said the “tour was all there”.
Now we are outside of the museum, however still in museum grounds and they have one of the Alaska Airlines 737-200 Combi cargo and passenger planes that used to fly around Alaska and what I took from Anchorage to Dutch Harbour on a flight I will never forget! Unfortunately, it was not accessible, so Andrew went up and took pictures for me while I sat on my walker and explained to another lady in a wheelchair what was inside as I remember it and what it was like to fly in the plane. Too bad for a tour that Holland America sold as Accessible, it was not fully accessible! So easy to do!
Here are Andrew’s pictures from my phone of the interior! In the first picture, where the docent is talking on the left and people are standing at the back, that is where the cargo flew on the plane (behind the pilots). It was secured to the floor and then there was a net covering the cargo and then the seats you see in the picture on the right (ignore the tables and lights – no idea why they are there!) were secured to the floor, depending on the cargo/passenger ratio.
Test
This plane is similar to the flying water bombers (but much smaller) that used to live on Sproat Lake!
Now we have walked around the compound of planes, and can see the Lake Hood Control Tower which is staffed during summer, we entered into the “workshop” for the volunteers at the Aviation Museum.
After hanging out in the Alaska Air Museum store to acquire a shirt, we were back on the bus to be dropped in downtown Anchorage! Lynda was on a mission – Walmart – for a couple of items that she needs for the cruise! We went into an office building and were given a number for Yellow Cabs in Anchorage, however after 2 calls no one showed up so we switched to Uber! Arriving at Walmart, I was able to pick up my online order and then for a couple of items that were “not in stock” I was able to purchase similar items that were suitable. I had wanted some pens, however they were in a locked case and after calling for customer service three times for assistance and waiting for a total of 30 minutes, we gave up – no purple pens for Lynda today! Back in the Uber we asked the gentleman to take us to the port where the Noordam was docked. I saw no need to go back into downtown to get on one of the busses (they did have wheelchair lifts) just to be driven to the port. I was wrong. The only people allowed to drop passengers from the Noordam were the Princess busses! The Uber then took us back to downtown (which we had already passed) and to the waiting busses! Shortly soon after we were at the Don Young Port and getting ready to board the Noordam… but wait!
We were back at the ship in good time so we could get ready for dinner as tonight we were going to the Pinnacle Grill which had been turned into Morimoto’s Restaurant for the evening. I LOVE Morimoto’s Restaurant as it has my favourite dish Angry Lobster!
As we got to the Pinnacle Grill, there was a bit of a commotion as we were lead to our table by the window and we soon found out why…
Celiac Saga ends with a Surprise Visit!
The waiter whispered to me that Chef Willem wants to meet with me. I thought oh no, what have I done now! I know I sent in the feedback a few days earlier and Patricia told me that it made her job easier, so I thought the goal was accomplished. The ship had also delivered a bag of Tate’s GF Chocolate Chip cookies to my room already which was really nice. Perhaps Chef Willem does not like how I order my gluten free food? I am sure Andrew had some thoughts of what had I gotten up to also, but I will leave his thoughts to him! Chef Willem appeared and he was SO EXCITED to tell me that he had gone shopping at Walmart in Anchorage! I thought that was interesting as I had seen some HAL staff in the store, but thought they were just there on personal shopping missions… Then the truth came out…
He thanked me for writing what I did and apologized as he got onto the Noordam in Vancouver and found that the stock of gluten free food was almost non-existent! He said that is why I was having so many problems finding gluten free snacks (cookies) on the ship along with GF muffins in the morning. We talked about the following points:
- The “vegan” issue from the Seattle to Sydney cruise last year (so many vegans on board that the Chef had to buy all the milk alternatives he could find in Honolulu and Kahului, Maui!
- There are “just under 20 Celiac” on the ship (makes sense with 2000 passengers) however only 5 preregistered in advance (including me)
- The whole “gluten free lifestyle” vs people who need gluten free food for medical reasons such as Celiac Disease and predicting what a diverse group of passengers are going to request on a cruise.
- How his daughter is gluten free and he knows what she likes and he hopes I like the same snack foods!
Fascinating discussion! He was still pretty excited and he then got out his cell phone and started showing me what he had bought which were all gluten free – Chips Ahoy, Oreo, muffin mixes, cookie mixes etc. He then said that if I did like any of this food, he could send it to his daughter! I told them that we did not have Chips Ahoy in Canada – either version but we do have the Oreo’s! I thanked him for helping me out and going shopping however it did not completely register until we got back to our room after dinner and we saw this on our bed! The cookies that he showed me on his phone! I am impressed!
As both of us were full from the dinner, we just put the care packages aside and went to bed! I have 3 more weeks to delve into these lovely packages! We are now off to sea for the day and will be in Dutch Harbour on Sept 17th!