Alaska Rail to Whittier

I’m happy to report that I’m feeling less claustrophobic on the ship as I write this on the 4^th of July. When this post is scheduled to go live, I’ll have just 2 days left to my vacation but still plenty of things to share on here so hopefully you aren’t sick of hearing about Alaska! Once I’m home I do have some other things to write about though so at least it won’t be post after post about my trip but more spread out. I also plan to put together a 3-part series on my YouTube channel of all the little videos I’ve been taking so I will be sure to share those once each part is up.

So today I’m writing about the scenic train ride I took from McKinley to Whittier to board the cruise ship – a 5-hour trip. If you’re driving, it’s not that long but we were on a scenic train ride so it takes you in a less direct way. The train ride was through Alaska Rail. Each car is made up of tables and the train is glass enclosed so you can get marvelous views of both sides of the journey. While relaxing and watching the scenery go by, we learned some more about the area and ate lunch. which we ordered from the lunch menu. I also walked over to the bistro car to get a snack. I took a lot of photos and videos throughout the train ride so I’m going to share a few of those with you now. You know, the non-glare from the window ones.

During the trip, I was really looking at the window trying to spot any wildlife. I was adamant that I would spot a moose or doll sheep. They even said we might see beluga whales. But I wasn’t so lucky. The closest thing to wildlife that I spotted was an Osprey nest on top of a telephone or power line poll.

The last bit of our train journey was through one of the mountains via a tunnel and arrived in Whittier when we got through and immediately saw our cruise ship, the Coral Princess.

If you find yourself in Alaska, Alaska Rail was very comfortable, has great views, and is chock full of amenities. It was a nice way to end the official land portion of my vacation (though I will be on land for some cruise excursions but you know what I mean) although by the end of the 5 hours I was ready to get off the train.

The next 2 days of my trip were spent cruising before we got to our first port so I will be back this weekend to share pictures of the views from the ship through the Gulf of Alaska and Glacier Bay as well as some other pictures from the ship. If you follow me on Instagram you may have already seen some of my pictures and got a sneak peek of my post!