Here's more of my two cents. I think Masaki is correct that the Park tour could not include sufficient time in the Park. If you are going to the trouble to travel to Denali, you really need to devote about 8 hours (total) in the Park. The two main reasons to go are for viewing wildlife, and if you are lucky as we were, to see McKinley. We did not consider Fairbanks because there were many fires in that area last year, and it also would have added a lot of time to our pre-cruise. Is Fairbanks preferable to the Kenai Peninsula? Also, as I mentioned before Talkeetna was worthwhile. That's where we flew from for the awesome flight over McKinley (using Talkeetna Aero Services). Also, we took an interesting river excursion from there. We were on either (or both) the Susitna or Chulitna Rivers (using Mahay's Riverboat Service). Both the flight and the river excursion were 2-for-1, using the toursaver coupon booklet. With regard to getting from Whittier to Anchorage, does Radisson not have special train cars for that trip, as they did for getting between Seward and Anchorage?

Dreps