DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. -- Tours operators, like all travel suppliers,
have been rethinking their product offerings to attract customers
wary of flying since Sept. 11.
Among those that came up with a workable plan was Mayflower
Tours, which devised a 30-day trip to Alaska using only ground and
cruise transportation.
"We were having trouble getting people to fly, so we began
thinking outside the box. We started looking around for other
ideas, tours outside the normal duration," said Mayflower president
John Stachnik.
The result was Mayflower's Alaska, Canadian Rockies and the
Yukon tour, which Stachnik said was put together in two months --
blinding speed for a tour operator.
"It was successful," he said. "We had a couple of departures in
2002; this year, we're at about twice the levels."
The tour was designed for Mayflower's core clientele in the
Chicago area, for whom Mayflower prints a separate brochure and
offers a pick-up service from their homes.
Departing from Chicago, the motorcoach itinerary stops in
Minneapolis the first night and reaches Winnipeg, Canada, on the
second day.
The tour travels cross-country in Canada, through Saskatchewan,
Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon Territory.
It enters Alaska at Tok, a community of about 1,300 people that
calls itself "the gateway to Alaska." There the group spends the
night before heading west to Anchorage for a two-night stay.
Anchorage is the state's most cosmopolitan city, a place to
dine, visit museums and theaters and plan excursions. On this tour,
it also serves as a jumping-off point for a cruise of Prince
William Sound.
The coach takes the Seward Highway south to Whittier, one of
three major Prince William Sound communities (the others are
Cordova and Valdez) for a whale-watching, seal-watching cruise
aboard the high-speed Klondike Express catamaran. The cruise
provides views of the 26 glaciers that line the College and
Harriman fjords.
From Anchorage, it's on to Denali National Park, with a brief
stopover in Talkeetna.
The village of Talkeetna is located in the shadow of Denali, at
the junction of three glacier-fed rivers. It offers views of the
Alaska Range, including Mount McKinley on a clear day, and is a hub
for a variety of excursions.
Any trip to the Alaskan interior calls for a tour of the 6
million-acre Denali National Park -- an area larger than the state
of Massachusetts that's home to grizzly bears, moose, caribou,
wolves and Dall sheep. A local guide will conduct a
wildlife-viewing tour from a park bus.
Next comes a ride on the Alaska Railroad from Denali to
Fairbanks, where a two-night stay features a cruise on the Chena
and Tenana rivers aboard the Riverboat Discovery. The sternwheeler
is wheelchair accessible and has an open sun deck and heated
glass-enclosed decks.
Passengers leave the boat to visit the riverfront home and
kennels of Iditarod champion Susan Butcher and to tour an
authentic-looking Athabascan village.
Departing Fairbanks, the itinerary hops back across the border
to the Yukon Territory, where guests board the Yukon and Whitepass
Railroad bound for Skagway, home of the Gold Rush and a frontier
port on Alaska's Inside Passage.
From Skagway, the group boards the Kendicott ferry, the largest
and newest of the Alaska Marine Highway fleet, for a one-day,
one-night cruise through the Inside Passage and the Lynn Canal.
The $80 million ferry, which began service in 1998, has nine
decks and an enclosed, heated solarium. It carries 748 passengers
and has 312 berths.
Cabin accommodations on the vessel are modest, arranged in
either two- or four-berth configurations. The four-berth cabins
have full facilities; two-berth cabins have a sink and a
vanity.
Hotel accommodations in Alaska are at Westmark hotels in Tok and
Skagway, the Holiday Inn in Anchorage, McKinley Village in Denali
and Wedgewood Resorts in Fairbanks.
The tour price is $4,699 per person, double. The next departure
date is July 8.
For more information, call Mayflower at (800) 323-7604 or visit
the Web at www.mayflowertours.com.