Smith Alaska Trip 2008

Another pretty standard Best Western.

Clean and nice, also with a decent breakfast. breakfast is in the hotels now closed restaurant so it seems a little weird. But good choices and it is free…..

Don’t be surpised that most of your fellow guests are fishermen who leave very early in the morning.

Soldotna and the Aspen Hotel did not feel like the rest of Alaska.

Soldotna felt much more suburban than even the suburbs of Anchorage.

But after many nights of tourist type destinations it was nice to stay at a place that felt more like home. The Aspen also seemed like many other hotels we stayed at outside of Alaska. And that is not a bad thing.

Clean, extremely friendly and with a good free breakfast. It is located near a shopping center and fast food restaurants.

Centrally located in Valdez, this is your basic Best Western.

Clean with a great free breakfast (biscuits and gravy…).

Just your standard hotel, but in Valdez it is surely one of the best.

Intersting cabins that felt a little unfinished. But they are incredibly clean, have free wi-fi and satellite tv. Free food at the owners house.

Carrie was a great host. Not much to do in Tok, but if you are there this place is a great overnight stop.

I previously mentioned our wonderful stay at Gram’s Cabin. But since I am mentioning our other lodgings, I felt the need to add it in again.

Nora and Gerry are wonderful hosts. If you are in Fairbanks, do yourself a favor and stay here.

I had my doubts about this hotel. The last thing I wanted to do was stay at a hotel overrun by cruise boat tourists. But I was wrong.

This was a wonderful hotel. Very spread out with comfortable rooms.

Funny thing was that the parking lots were almost always empty. Most of the guests came by tour bus, so they had no need for the parking lot.

If we had not stayed here we would not have seen Mt. Denali. Staying here was closer than being at Denali National Park itself. And at midnight our last night the clouds broke in such an amazing way that the view was incredible.

I wanted to do a little review of the hotels we stayed at on our trip.

We stayed here for the first 4 nights and the last 1. It was a very nice hotel within walking distance of downtown. But there are other hotels located a little closer, but there certainly would be nothing wrong with this choice.

They were in the process of remodeling the lobby when we stayed. Amazing the difference between our initial stay and coming back a couple weeks later.

My only complaint was paying $10 to park. But since Anchorage is definately a city that wants you to park anywhere it is not that surprising.

A great chain that we had eaten at in Colorado. They have 3 Anchorage locations.

Think a nice Denny’s.

A big thank you to the Lenscarafters at the tiny Mall at Sears in Anchorage.

Jill had broke her glasses on the trip. They contacted our current doctor and got a prescription faxed to them. A few hours later Jill had a new set of glasses.

If you need glasses and you are in Anchorage, check them out.