When Alaska’s Sun Appears for One Last Fling

ANCHORAGE, Alaska —  Anyone who has ever lived in a beach town knows the feeling of looking forward to Labor Day: School starts, the summer people go home and you can have the sand and sea to yourself again.

Well, even Alaskans look forward to September, when the crowds leave, the sun comes out for one last fling and the mosquitoes disappear.

Many of the cruise ships, however, stay on for the golden days of Indian summer before heading south, and reduce prices accordingly as high season shifts back into low.

But “low season” may be a misnomer. During our many visits to Alaska, September has been the only month we’ve ever gotten a good look at Mt. McKinley, when it was visible from Anchorage.

Northern Lights

In Denali National Park, the moose start coming down from the high country into the meadows in September, and the bald eagles gather in council in Haines, near Skagway. The likeliest time to get a glimpse of the aurora borealis is during September and October.

And this year for the first time, the new private, luxurious dome cars attached to the Alaska Railroad are available for exclusive bird’s-eye views of autumn foliage in the Alaska wilderness for cruise tour travelers.

Introduced at the beginning of this season, they’ve already proved enormously popular on the rail excursions between Fairbanks, Denali and Anchorage. Holland America Westours operates six McKinley Explorer cars for its passengers, and Princess Tours runs four similar Midnight Sun cars for passengers from Princess ships, Cunard/NAC’s Sagafjord and Cunard Princess, and Royal’s Golden Odyssey.

We boarded one of the McKinley Explorer cars at Denali for the scenic seven-hour ride south to Anchorage and were delighted with the comfortable seats with tables on the upper level, the dining tables with big windows on the lower.

Each rail car carries its own chef, who prepares fresh foods on board from scratch, as well as dining car stewards, a bar and bar steward, a conductor who narrates at intervals along the way, a small library of books about the area, and two toilets, one at each end of the car. There’s space to stand and move about, and the wraparound windows offer views of the magnificent Alaska scenery.

Smoking is not permitted in the dome car, only in the open vestibules outside. Northbound passengers on the McKinley Explorer and Midnight Sun cars can buy breakfast, brunch and a full tea with sandwiches, scones and pastries, while southbound travelers are offered a choice of three main dishes and three dinner sittings.

Season’s Last Cruises

Holland America’s Noordam has its last Alaska sailing from Vancouver on Sept. 15, the Nieuw Amsterdam on Sept. 20; fares for the seven-day cruises at low-season rate begin at $1,195 per person, double occupancy. The last cruise-tour package that includes a McKinley Explorer sojourn is the Noordam’s Sept. 8 sailing.

Princess’ Sun Princess embarks on its last seven-night Alaska sailing of the season on Sept. 9 (from $1,344 on value-season fares), the Island Princess on Sept. 12 (from $1,477 for seven nights). The last package that includes the Midnight Sun excursion to Denali departs Sept. 8 and boards the Royal Princess Sept. 12.

Veteran cruisers know that autumn is when ships in Alaska move to warmer waters, so a little shopping around can often produce a low-cost repositioning sailing south to San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Aboard Costa’s comfortable little Daphne, for example, you can combine a super value seven-day Alaska cruise beginning Sept. 18 with a four-day repositioning from Vancouver to Los Angeles to make an 11-day trip for as little as $1,460 per person, double occupancy, including air fare from West Coast gateways to Vancouver. That works out to about $133 a day for a roomy inside cabin, with two lower beds, a bathtub and a shower, and about $150 for an outside cabin.

If you’re looking for a mini-vacation getaway, check Princess Cruises’ low-priced “Love Boat Sampler” for four nights for $449 per person, double occupancy, for an inside twin-bed cabin. That price includes a flight to Vancouver from Los Angeles, overnight in a first-class hotel, a half-day city sightseeing tour and a relaxing three-night cruise back to Los Angeles. The Island Princess sampler ($529 for inside cabins, $629 for outsides) begins Sept. 18, the Sun Princess ($449 for inside twins, $549 for outsides) on Sept. 27.

Jazz Festival

The swingingest repositioning of all is Regency Cruises’ second-annual jazz cruise aboard the Regent Sea, starring Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Henderson, Harry (Sweets) Edison and many more top musicians, with host Leonard Feather. It sails from Vancouver on Sept. 20 and arrives in San Francisco Sept. 23 (from $575 per person, double occupancy) or Los Angeles Sept. 25 (from $818); prices include air fare to Vancouver from either city.

If the gathering for the annual Council of Eagles in Haines caught your attention, contact Exploration Cruise Lines at (800) 426-0600 for one of its special fall sailings through the Inside Passage. The 90-passenger Great Rivers Explorer departs Ketchikan Sept. 21 and arrives in Seattle Oct. 1, while the 158-passenger North Star sets out from Prince Rupert on Oct. 3 and arrives in Seattle on Oct. 12. Its elegant 150-passenger Explorer Starship sails from Whittier, near Anchorage, Sept. 20, and cruises the Columbia glacier, Sitka, Haines and Skagway and Glacier Bay before arriving in Vancouver on Sept. 29.

You can get a $350-per-person discount from Sitmar Cruises on the remaining Alaska sailings for 1987; the only catch here is to find one with some space. We’re told there are a few cabins available on the Fairsky departure on Sept. 11. The 12-day round-trip cruises from San Francisco begin at $2,445 per person, double occupancy, including air fare, on the value season price, so the discount brings it down to $2,095. See your travel agent for reservations.