Alaska Train to Denali

Decided to go with Alaska Tour & Travel to book our train ride and hotel in Denali. They were easy to work with, and we decided to do the Wilderness Express Dome Train to Denali and on the way back to Anchorage we choose the Adventure Class, the Wilderness Express Dome was unavailable. At the train station in Anchorage, we went to the Wilderness Express check in where they took our luggage and then we followed the person in charge of showing the passengers which train car to get on. The Wilderness Express offers first-class service aboard deluxe double-deck dome rail cars. The dome was fully hosted with a bartender and dining car on the first deck of the rail car and a tour guide that narrated the trip. We had the French dips for lunch and they were pretty good. The drinks and food were not included in the ticket and cost extra.

Before Denali the train stops in Talkeetna to unload passengers and pick up passengers.

Once the train arrives in Denali passengers unload and walk to designated areas for the shuttle/bus that is assigned to their hotel. Your luggage will be taken care of you should see it outside your room within a couple hours of arriving at the hotel. We stayed at the Grande Denali Lodge, which was an okay room we stayed on the first floor and could hear the footsteps of the people in the room above us. We had dinner at the lodge restaurant, the Alpenglow, which was fine, there aren't many choices of restaurants in Denali, and this one was the closest.

The next day we had coffee at Peak Espresso which is in the lobby area of the lodge. Then we took the shuttle into town and walked around the shops and then ended up at the Princess Lodge Restaurant for breakfast of blueberry pancakes. We then took the shuttle to the Denali National Park Visitor Center where we did a hike to Horseshoe Lake Trail. After the hike we went back to the lodge and then went to dinner in town at Prospectors Pizza, it was really good pizza. We then grabbed caramel corn and cinnamon rolls, for the next day's breakfast from Denali Sugar Shack. The caramel corn was good but, the cinnamon rolls were not that great.

The next morning, we woke up to rain and our shuttle/bus back to the train station came at 10:30 AM for a 12:00 PM train ride back to Anchorage. We had coffee again at Peak Espresso with our cinnamon rolls. We had to have our luggage outside our room by 9:00 AM to be picked up. We hung out in the lobby area until the shuttle/bus pick up. Then at the train station we had to go inside and get out tickets and then wait for the train. The Adventure Class on the train was ok nothing fancy. If I had to do it over again, I would have paid for the upgraded car the gold class. There were kids running around even being told at least 3 times no running on the train. I know 7 1/2 hours on a train is a long time but, not sure why they needed to run not going to get to Anchorage any faster if you run or walk on the train. Instead of a dining car they had a counter with premade soggy sandwiches, chips, and drinks. Wish I had picked up sandwiches at Subway in Denali and brought them onboard to eat.

Once we got to Anchorage and got off the train we had to wait for our luggage to be taken off the train. Which took at least 15 minutes and of course our 2 pieces of luggage was the last off the train. After we grabbed our luggage, we called an Uber and went to our hotel for the night, the Hyatt House Anchorage. It was a lot nicer than the hotel we stayed in the first 2 nights in Anchorage; it was not close to town so you would need a vehicle or Uber if you wanted to go downtown. It was after 9 PM when we settled into our room and nothing in the area was open for dinner so, we grab hot pockets from the little store area by the reception desk in the lobby.