Alaska Railroad Denali Star GoldStar Service | Anchorage To Fairbanks

hello everyone thanks for joining us today as we hop on the denali star with alaska railroad will enjoy their gold star service which includes breakfast lunch and dinner on the train our journey begins in anchorage and ends in fairbanks we'll traverse the ever-changing landscape of alaska as we pass through the historic sites like wasilla and into denali national parks before arriving into fairbanks of course we all are on the lookout for a view of denali itself and we count ourselves lucky to be in the 30 of those who actually get to see it so stick around to enjoy the ride with us [Music] [Music] we start off in anchorage where we are allowed to board the train about 30 minutes early friendly staff is ready to greet us as we find our seats and we get ready for our journey there are two classes of service on board the denali star there's adventure class and gold star service so both have comfortable seats and great views but the gold star service which we are enjoying today includes your meals as well as two bar drinks per person you also get access to the outdoor upper level viewing platform as well as a seat in the glass dome car the seats are very comfortable in the glass dome car with a folding tray table a folding foot rest as well as reclining abilities if you want to lay back and relax as you enjoy your ride not long after we depart anchorage we are ushered down to the dining room which is on the lower level of the glass dome car you will have a choice of three breakfast options to choose from we also take a moment to note our lunch and dinner options of course so don't worry about missing views in the dining car as there are big windows to look out of as you enjoy your meal rob got the aurora breakfast and i got the biscuits and gravy breakfast with reindeer sausage [Music] how's the reindeer sausage it just tastes like sausage see how the bacon is it looks crispy very good crispy bacon got the aurora breakfast eggs bacon and potatoes okay by the time we are done with breakfast we decide to head out to the viewing platform to get a good look at wasilla as we stopped for a few minutes to pick up some passengers wasilla was established in 1917 it was the supply center for the willow creek gold district from wasilla we quickly follow along the beautiful lake shores and begin our hunt to spot denali right now i'm out here enjoying the outdoor viewing platform which is only available on the gold star service so if you're in the adventure class you can't access this but it is available to everyone with gold star service it is a little bit windy but not that cold today so you can stand out here for quite a while and not have any problem at all time to check out the bathrooms here on the gold star carriage and this one of the bigger bathrooms i've ever been in a train i have been in a lot of train bathrooms so we have a nice full-size sink here and uh soap dispenser actual air dryer which is rare but rose toilet paper a real looking toilet like you'd find in a hotel more toilet paper up here and quite a big door there so i think this is the uh wheelchair accessible room there are some bars drowning in but yeah this is quite an impressive bathroom we are here currently on a great day they've told us you can only see denali from this distance uh mountain killian about 30 of the time today is one of those days so that's good that's it right there you can't see the tip of it right right over the horizon see a little bit but the taps in the card there it is you see the base right now so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we are about to go over hurricane gold so right now there's nobody out here with me but this place is gonna fill up pretty good well there's not that many people on the train but we'll have four or five people out here so they say that it's 300 feet straight down from the bridge and there's nothing on the side so the statue of liberty uh they said if it was at the bottom you'd be looking right at the torch so this is going to be quite a bridge and quite a gulch we go over allie is inside because she does not want to see this okay i can see on the map that we're almost to the bridge and i don't know if it's gonna be scary or not i'm not afraid of heights but it feels like this could be a little scary how they were describing it so we'll see how this goes just a minute [Music] uh [Music] [Music] you may be wondering what happened to my expos hat which i usually wear it is gone it flew off the train a few miles back and we were going so fast the wind was so great i just lifted it off my head and into the woods so if you're out hiking in the woods and i'm asking you to see that hat let me know uh but i do have this one on now and this beanie it almost flew off too that's how windy it is up here so if you're gonna come out here now i have it pulled down really tight just to keep my glasses on i'm a little afraid they'll fly so you're gonna be out here secure everything [Music] so [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] so [Music] kettle ponds or kettle lakes there's reminders that glaciers once came through this area as the glacier started to recede about 12 000 years ago big chunks would break off and fall onto the ground if it wasn't going into it [Music] um [Music] thank you [Music] okay as they just told us welcome to denali national park we are officially inside the boundaries because the train station here is inside the national park so this is a new one for us so we're pretty excited about it yeah so hopefully you guys have enjoyed the views so far but we do have some more views coming up and some animal sightings so don't go anywhere it's getting much colder wait a second i think it's gonna start snowing too [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] as you can see that was one of the most spectacular sections of this train route it happens right after you leave denali national park get outside here to the observation deck and get on the right hand side for some spectacular views [Music] are incredible i'm the only one out here which is crazy to me it is a little cold i will admit that but it's crazy no one else is [Music] i have another recommendation for you if you're gonna come on this trip and do videos or pictures outside bring a wrist strap for your camera or phone because you're going to want to lean over the railing it's the only way you can get the train in the picture but it is so cold and windy that your fingers will lose feeling uh after just a little bit so bring a strap i don't have one my hands are freezing right now but is it worth it i'd say definitely it is [Music] all right so just figured out why our seats are way in the back and everyone else's heat's away in the front when i made the reservations the conductor just showed me the comments and you can put a seat request in and i requested to be in the back of the railcar i didn't remember that because we made them six months ago and i was thinking at the time that everyone else would want to be in the front would be in the back maybe we'd have more room and that did work out because there's nobody within six or seven rows of us right now so literally every other person is the very front of the car we have the entire back of the car to ourselves so if you want a chance that privacy and your your car is empty request to be in the back [Music] [Music] comes from the banana ice classic which is a statewide event as well so you may notice we have quite a bit of room to move around on this train and there's only 47 people on this particular train today normally there's about 400 but we are here just before cruise season so it's empty because it's only really people that flew up so yeah if you want to have a pretty empty train you got to go the first couple weeks of may it is may 16th i think today so anytime before that you probably have a pretty empty train too

Channel: Grounded Life Travel

Views: 38,656

Keywords: alaska railroad denali star, alaska railroad, denali star, denali star alaska railroad, alaska railroad goldstar, alaska railroad goldstar service, denali star goldstar, alaska railroad gold star, denali star gold star, train to denali, train to denali national park, alaska train, train in alaska, trains in alaska, train to alaska, alaska railroad goldstar vs adventure class, goldstar vs adventure class, goldstar service vs adventure class, alaska by train, denali by train

Id: Z3tklYi6e6E

Length: 22min 36sec (1356 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2022