En Route to Fairbanks, Alaska

Thursday, 16 Aug 2018 – We have embarked on our second Alaskan Cruise.  We took an Alaskan Cruise previously in 2008, but this time we’re combining the cruise with a land tour.  The land tour was not scheduled to begin until 18 Aug 2018, but we started the trip a couple of days early to give us time to recover from our flight and adjust to the time change.  We will be joined by our friends, Ed and Val on 18 Aug 2018.

With so much going during the last few days, we had to stay up very late for Sally to do a little last-minute packing, and for Jesse to start his!  Although we had an early afternoon flight, we set our alarm for 5:30 AM in order to finish packing.  We left home at about 10:30 AM for the Peoria airport, arriving in plenty of time for our 50-minute United Airlines flight to Chicago, O’Hare.  The flight from O’Hare to Fairbanks was on a relatively small plane, but we had purchased Economy Plus seats this time, which were on the front row of the regular seating.  Only soft drinks and pretzels were served (twice) on this 6-hour flight, but on the second time around, we purchased barbecue chicken sandwiches – which were hard and dry, but washed down satisfactorily with tomato juice.  There were no TV screens on the plane for movies, etc., so the flight was very boring and seemed a lot longer than 6 hours.  Free entertainment was available on personal devices, but we hadn’t bothered to download the required software, as recommended by United Airlines.

At about 7:25 PM our plane landed in Fairbanks.  We had come to realize that Fairbanks time was even one hour earlier than Pacific (or 3 hours earlier than our time at home).  We were met by Princess Cruise personnel and given our cruise tour packets containing schedules, luggage tags, hotel room key cards, etc.  Soon we claimed our checked bags, attached the provided luggage tags, and boarded a shuttle to the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge.  Since Fairbanks is a relatively small city, the drive to the lodge was very short.

Upon arrival at the lodge, we went directly to our assigned room since Princess had already checked us in.  Soon afterwards, our checked bags were delivered.  By then, we were both hungry and exhausted.  After nibbling on nuts and granola bars from home, we turned in for our first night in Alaska.