In Homer, don't stay or eat here, and a lot of other advice for vacationing in Alaska

THUMBS DOWN: We paid $233.16 for a room with two queen-size beds at the Best Western Bidarka Inn on Sterling Highway in Homer, Alaska, on Aug. 10. I'm not sure why this roadside motel is named after a bidarka, a canoe covered by animal skins like those used by Native Alaskans.

THUMBS DOWN: One of the electric radiators in our room was broken, the beds were much too soft, the floor sloped and the TV remote barely worked.

BEST WESTERN IS WORST CHOICE

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Even if you don't want to fish for halibut, Homer, Alaska, offers a colorful farmers market, a nature center, scenic drives and four volcanoes across the bay.

But if you stay overnight, as we did on our vacation last month, the Best Western Bidarka Inn is far from the best choice.

In fact, the place is little more than a roadside motel with a faux log-cabin exterior and the worst complimentary breakfast I've ever had.

Our room had two electric radiators, but the smaller one in the bathroom didn't work. The two queen beds were much too soft, and the floor between them sloped down toward the wall.

The TV remote barely worked, and buttons had to be pushed two or three times to change a channel or perform another function.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the next day's free buffet breakfast didn't offer cut-up fresh fruit, nuts or raisins for the granola or egg whites for the mediocre made-to-order omelet, and the coffee was dispensed by a machine.

THUMBS UP: The Homer Farmers Market operates on Saturdays and Wednesdays until Sept. 30, and reopens next May.

Eating out in Homer

We drove a rental car 225 miles to Homer from Anchorage, mostly on two-lane roads clogged with motor homes and other recreational vehicles, arriving in early afternoon.

I loved my lunch special of the day at Cosmic Kitchen, a juicy Thai Wild Salmon Slider and Blackened Rockfish Slider, served with Sweet Potato Fries and Coleslaw ($10.25).

But my wife complained her Seafood Ramen Bowl ($14.29), though tasty, had hardly any broth.

The tables were turned at dinner at Pho & Thai Restaurant, where she enjoyed a bowl of Vietnamese Pho Combo ($12.50), but I hated my Pad Thai ($10), which was made with the wrong noodles and overcooked, dry tofu.

I was hoping to order wild Alaskan shrimp, but the restaurant served only low-quality farmed shrimp from Thailand.

We finally agreed over lunch the next day at Happy Face, a Korean-owned restaurant on the 4.5-mile-long Homer Spit with a menu of sushi, fresh seafood, Chinese and Korean food.

I liked my battered-dipped, deep-fried fresh Halibut with French Fries ($19.95), and she loved her stone-bowl Bibimbap, a Korean comfort dish of rice, shredded vegetables and beef, topped with a fried egg (also $19.95). 

THUMBS UP: The deep-fried fresh Halibut at Happy Face Restaurant in Homer, Alaska, called the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. Gochujang, a Korean red chili paste, was available for the fries.

THUMBS UP: The Dolsot Bibimbap at Happy Face Restaurant was everything this Korean comfort dish is supposed to be and more.

THUMBS DOWN: The spicy cabbage kimchi was some of the best we've ever had, but Happy Face Restaurant charges $4.95 for a small bowl, and doesn't offer seconds at no charge, as does every other Korean restaurant I've patronized in the past 20 years.

HIT AND MISS: I enjoyed this Seared Alaskan Halibut with Warm Crab Salad and Vine-Ripe Heirloom Tomatoes ($41) in the Gold Rush Restaurant at the Denali Park Village Hotel. But my wife found her Red King Crab Legs to be much too salty ($39). With two a la carte salads, a soda and a 15% tip, our dinner totaled $118.50.

Tours and Wi-Fi

Each glass-dome railcar on the Gray Line Alaska tour to Denali National Park from Anchorage has a bartender, tables in front of every seat have brackets to hold your smartphone or tablet, and there are outlets to charge those devices.

But there is no Wi-Fi on any train or tourist bus, so if you try to post on Instagram and other social media or just want to connect to the Internet, it's hit or miss -- mostly miss.

You also won't find any Wi-Fi on board the high-speed catamaran used for the 26 Glacier Cruise with Phillips Cruises & Tours from Whittier, Alaska.

Adults pay $178.95 each, including a light lunch, but if you choose the Salmon Chowder, you'll find it's thickened with too much corn starch. Narration is by the captain and a Chugach National Forest ranger, and you'll definitely need a warm jacket, if you go out on deck to take photos.

We paid another $100 each to take the Alaska Railroad Glacier Discovery Train to Whittier from Anchorage, instead of driving our rental car there, and enjoyed the narration, sightings of Beluga Whales on the return trip and the guide's corny jokes:

"Bear tracks are tracks with no train on them" and "Silent dogwoods have no bark."

In Anchorage, we somehow missed the money saving Alaska Culture Pass, a total of $32 for admission to the Anchorage Museum and Alaska Native Heritage Center, plus a free shuttle that operates 7 days a week from May to September.

Princess Lodges

On our Gray Line tour, we stayed at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and the Mount McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, two luxury hotels owned by Princess Cruises, but we found the rooms and food service weren't consistent.

We were supposed to stay at the lodge outside Denali National Park and Preserve for 2 nights, but at the last moment, Gray Line demoted us to the Denali Park Village, a less desirable hotel where the power was out when we arrived and stayed out for more than 2 hours, delaying dinner service in the restaurant.

I called the Denali Princess Lodge and managed to get a large, king-bedded room and bathroom with a walk-in shower for the 2nd night.

The following night, our smaller room at the McKinley lodge had a cramped, motel-like bathroom, with a discolored shower curtain and one of those one-piece plastic makeovers for the bathtub/shower that was starting to chip.

BIG HIT: I've never been a big fan of cauliflower, but one of the best dishes I had on our 15-day vacation was this starter of Roasted Cauliflower with Yogurt, Feta, Mint and Toasted Sesame Seeds ($9) in the North Fork Dining Room of the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. Our entrees were Crab-Stuffed Halibut with Cheddar Chive Mashed Potatoes ($45) and Short Rib Pappardelle ($28), we drank 3 glasses of red wine and our bill totaled $123.50, including a 20% tip.

BIG MISS: At the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, we paid $17.99 each for an awful buffet breakfast, especially if you don't eat Reindeer Sausage and Hickory Smoked Bacon. No egg whites were available, and premium berries were missing from the fruit salad. For some crazy reason, the breakfast is served in a darkened hall used as a music theater in the evening.

ANOTHER BIG MISS: After that disappointing buffet breakfast at the Denali Princess, we decided  to have an a la carte breakfast the next morning in the North Fork Dining Room of the Mt. McKinley Princess Lodge. But my Smoked Salmon Benedict, above, skimped on the smoked wild salmon lox and the English muffin wasn't even toasted ($14.99).

BIG HIT: If you want to see this caribou and a wide variety of other wildlife in Denali National Park and Preserve, book the Tundra Wilderness Tour, an 8-hour guided bus ride, with frequent stops, that operates from June 1 to Sept. 13 ($173.20 for adults from the Denali Park Village Hotel, including a snack box and water). 

ELUSIVE DENALI: The highest peak in North America, Denali usually has its head in the clouds, but one day we saw the mountain from the deck of the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge -- 43 miles away. Denali's original name was Mt. McKinley.

SPLASHES OF BEAUTY: We saw beautiful wildflowers in Anchorage, above, and just about everywhere else we traveled in Alaska during our vacation Aug. 1-15, including the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, below. We found seeds to take home to New Jersey at Grizzly's Gifts on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage. 

More hits and misses

I didn't give a second thought to the many guest workers from Eastern Europe, Asia and other parts of the United States we saw working at the Denali Park Village Hotel and the Princess Wilderness Lodges.

After all, foreign guest workers have been a fixture on the Jersey shore for decades.

But when I got home, I read that Alaska, at 7.1%, has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, so why weren't Alaskans hired for these jobs during the 4-month tourist season (May to September)?

Hanan, our server for dinner in the King Salmon Restaurant at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, volunteered she was an Arab-American woman from Florida.

But she spoke almost robotically, and tried to upsell me to a more expensive glass of red wine, claiming it would "pair better" with the food I ordered. 

However, when she agreed to split two entrees, Asiago and Pine Nut Linguine ($25.50) and Sea Salt King Salmon over risotto ($49.50), she didn't mention surcharges I saw on the check later.

About those guest workers. We were told by our American driver-guide on the Tundra Wilderness Tour that a doctor from Bulgaria was washing tour buses for $20 an hour.

His American co-workers said he probably won't be returning next year, but the guest worker said he intends to return, because he was being paid more in Alaska than he is as a doctor in Bulgaria.

$45-plus for wild salmon? 

As someone who eats only seafood, I soon got used to paying more than $40 for a fillet of Halibut or wild King Salmon in a fine-dining restaurant in Alaska, where those fish are caught.

A Connecticut tourist we met on a train suggested that restaurants and other businesses charge as much as they can during the abbreviated, 4-month tourist season.

Unless you're a really big eater, skip Bridge Seafood Restaurant in Anchorage, where entrees are priced higher than at other fine-dining restaurants, because they include a free, all-you-can-eat salad bar.

And don't be surprised when the "signature" or "famous" salmon spread at Bridge Seafood and other restaurants contains 95% cream cheese and hardly tastes of the state's greatest wild fish.

The smoked seafood at Alaska Sausage and Seafood in Anchorage was another disappointment. 

We paid nearly $25 a pound for Kippered Halibut and nearly $24 a pound for smoked Salmon Strips, but I didn't read the ingredients label until I got home, and was shocked to see brown sugar, corn syrup solids, sodium lactate and sodium ascorbate had been added to the fish. 

AT THE RED CHAIR CAFE: The gluten-free Kale Bake Skillet ($15.50) at The Red Chair Cafe included asparagus, cremini mushrooms, grape tomato, zucchini, sliced almonds and a light mustard vinaigrette finished with aged white-cheddar cheese. A sprinkling of ground cumin or crushed red Aleppo pepper over the eggs would have added some needed eye appeal.

ARTISTRY: The Red Chair Cafe is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

Korean food, breakfast

If you're a fan of Korean food, steer clear of VIP Restaurant in a strip mall at 555 W. Northern Lights Boulevard in Anchorage, where we had the worst Soft Tofu Stew ever ($14.49 each).

We liked our Veggie Omelets ($13 each) at the White Spot Cafe, 109 W. 4th Ave. in downtown Anchorage, but the place is so popular we had to sit at the counter and wait about 30 minutes for them.

A better choice for breakfast is The Red Chair Cafe, if only to see the art-filled interior, but here, too, we had long waits for our food, and on two visits, I wasn't able to order the signature Tustumena Smokehouse Salmon Benedict, because they had run out of the "seared salmon bacon" ($15.75). 

On most mornings, we were happy with the free buffet breakfast at our hotel, Hyatt House  in Anchorage -- fruit salad with premium berries; granola topped with slivered almonds, dried raisins and cranberries; an omelet of the day or a made-to-order omelet with or without egg whites; pancakes,  premium teas and more. 

And when we were too tired to go out to dinner, we found some appealing dishes on the bar menu, and washed them down with wine or Alaskan beer on tap.

AT HYATT HOUSE: My wife was very happy with her grass-fed All-American Cheeseburger topped with hardwood-smoked bacon ($13.75) from the H Bar menu at Hyatt House in Anchorage. I chose the Mediterranean Bowl ($12.50), below, an ancient grain and kale blend with pumpkin seeds and an Italian herb vinaigrette, and asked the kitchen to hold the chicken. 

If you think N.J. is weird and expensive, spend a couple of weeks in the 49th state

The sun didn't set until after 10 p.m. in Anchorage during our Alaska vacation, Aug. 1-15. We came out of the movies in an Anchorage mall at 10 minutes to 10 p.m. on Aug. 12 to see this mountain aglow -- and a landscaping crew working nearby.

Alaska likely offers more natural beauty than any other state -- panoramas of mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, rivers, lakes and wildlife that make you feel as if you are part of a PBS "Nature" program as it is being filmed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Just about everything costs more in Alaska.

A gallon of regular gasoline for our rental car was selling for $3.19.9 cents, and outside Anchorage, you'd have to pay $3.49.9 cents -- this in a state with billions of barrels in oil reserves.

Yet, we saw more big, gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups than any other vehicle.

Although Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrids and 4-wheel-drive Subarus also are popular, Anchorage, the biggest city with about 298,000 people, has only two electric-charging stations, one of them at a Ford dealer. 

I saw only one all-electric car, a Tesla Model X, and no homes or buildings with solar panels.

Meanwhile, officials in the city and borough of Juneau, the state capital, announced they will use $1.5 million in federal funds to buy an electric bus, but it won't replace a polluting diesel-powered transit bus until 2022.

That's what I call a glacial pace.

Eating out 

When we wanted to take a break from the complimentary buffet breakfast at our hotel, the Hyatt House in Anchorage, my wife and I spent $30 to $45 for that first big meal of the day, plus a tip (we don't eat fast food). 

Lunches for 2 cost about $50, and in fine-dining restaurants, 2-course dinners of wild Alaskan salmon, halibut, rockfish, shrimp or crab with wine or beer easily topped $100, again before the tip.

Low taxes

The port city of Anchorage doesn't have a sales tax, and Alaskans don't pay any income or statewide sales tax, so we wondered what essential services they forgo. 

For example, I hardly ever saw recycling bins in public places outside Denali National Park and Preserve, home of North America's highest peak.

Large junk yards filled with rusting vehicles, tractors and machinery aren't shielded from the road, and one Alaskan we met said homeowners can't get rid of their old cars, which is why we saw so many of them left to rot away in front yards. 

Costco, Sam's Club

And prices have always been high, according to our driver/guide on the Anchorage Trolley Tour who noted the opening of the first Costco Wholesale in 1984 lowered the cost of living in the city. 

In fact, the closing of another discount bulk retailer,  Sam's Club, in Fairbanks, Alaska, "was a thunderclap and a symbol of an anxious new economic chapter for the state," The New York Times reported this month.

"What comes next?" said Christina Wright, who runs a business, Cakes by Christina, from her Fairbanks home and saw the price of ingredients increase by 30 percent" after the store closed at the end January, The Times said. 

Luckily for Fairbanks residents, Costco will move into the space left vacant by Sam's Club, a competitor, later this year, adding a third Costco warehouse and gas station to the two in Anchorage.

Losing population

The most startling statistic I saw about Alaska as I was planning our vacation is how few people live in a state that is 2.5 times bigger than Texas.

In fact, more people live in insanely congested Bergen County, N.J. (about 948,000) than in Alaska (about 740,000), which shares a border not with Washington State but with Canada.

Of course, that's why residents of the 49th state refer to the continental U.S. as the "lower 48."

Unemployment, at 7.1%, is the highest in the nation, according to The Times, and more people have moved out in the last 5 years than have moved in -- for the first time since World War II.

That certainly explains all the Alaskans we saw trying to catch wild salmon in rivers and streams, including Ship's Creek in Anchorage, where it would be so much easier to buy beautifully trimmed fillets of fresh Sockeye or Red Salmon at Costco for $9.99 a pound, and pick up a can of Bear Repellent while you're there.

'That's Alaska'

Every time our guides offered a gee-whiz fact about Alaska they usually ended with, "That's Alaska" or "It's the Alaska Way."

For example, we were told repeatedly as we passed lakes filled with single-engine planes on floats that many Alaskans have pilot's licenses to reach towns and villages, including Juneau, that are off the road system and accessible only by air or ferry. 

We even saw one section of Anchorage, which sprawls over 1,706 square miles, with single-engine planes tied up behind houses on a large grassy strip residents use as their runway.

Now, that's Alaska.

See: Don't forget your cholesterol meds

See: Don't take American Airlines to Alaska

We took an Alaska Railroad sightseeing train to the port of Whittier, where we boarded a 26-glacier cruise. This blue iceberg was one of the eye openers. But don't forget a warm jacket, if you go out on deck to snap photos. On the way back to Anchorage, the train crew alerted us to a pod of Beluga Whales that seemed to be keeping pace with us.

We saw the most wildlife on an 8-hour Tundra Wilderness Tour in Denali National Park, but got closest to this moose and her calf (not shown) while walking in Kincaid Park in Anchorage.

A caribou framed by a wild flower called fireweed, above, and a red fox, below, in Denali National Park.

One of the views from an Alaska Railroad sightseeing train with dome cars that took us to a rail station near the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, a luxury hotel outside the national park. Each dome car has a bartender, and tasty lunches are served on the lower dining level, photos below.

I asked for a Seafood Salad Sandwich with the bread on the side ($14.95), and drank Kodiak Brown Ale from the Midnight Sun Brewing Co. in Alaska ($7.25), below.

Our sightseeing train crossing a trestle bridge.

3-hour airline delay, dog pooping in busy hotel lobby mar first days of visit to Alaska

After the Gray Line tour company bounced us from the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge in Alaska at the last moment, we were taken to the Denali Park Village Resort, but the cheaper hotel lost power just before we arrived, and a dog ran into the darkened lobby not long after that. 

Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series of posts on our 15-day vacation in Alaska, which is often called "The Last Frontier." 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- If you're planning a vacation in Alaska, American Airlines is absolutely the wrong airline to use.

No. I'm not talking about how a malfunctioning gauge in the cockpit of our American Airlines plane in Phoenix delayed our arrival by more than 3 hours, so we staggered into the lobby of our Anchorage hotel long past midnight.

You're probably wondering what we were doing in Phoenix, Ariz., catching a connecting flight to Alaska instead of in San Francisco, Seattle or some other northern city?

That's the problem with American, which has hubs in Dallas, Texas, and Phoenix, Ariz., and routes its connecting flights to Alaska through those southern cities.

I chose American because I'm a member of its rewards program, but my wife and I ended up enduring four of the longest, noisiest and most uncomfortable flights we've ever experienced, despite spending more than $500 to purchase extra legroom on all four segments.

14+ hours to Alaska

Flying time between Newark and Phoenix on July 31 was listed on my itinerary as 5 hours 33 minutes. Then, the connecting Phoenix to Anchorage flight was to be another 5 hours and 41 minutes.

The layover was listed as only 50 minutes or so, but once we were aboard the flight to Alaska, that cockpit gauge started acting up, and the maintenance crew contacted their counterparts at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

Here is how the pilot stated our dilemma:

Was the low hydraulic pressure real or was it only the gauge that was malfunctioning?

After 90 minutes, cabin attendants gave passengers a chance to return to the terminal, but warned the flight might leave without them.

The exodus began, mostly from steerage -- those cramped seats, six across, in the back half of the aircraft. 

Later, all of us were told to deplane. The aircraft wasn't going anywhere.

Back in the terminal, airline employees apologized and said sandwiches were being prepared. 

Then, another aircraft materialized, and we were told there wasn't enough time to prepare sandwiches, but we'd get snacks.

In the end, we left more than 3 hours late, arrived in Anchorage well after midnight and called for our Hyatt House shuttle to pick us up at the airport.

Old and new aircraft

The return flights on Aug. 15-16 were listed as 6 hours 20 minutes to Dallas from Anchorage, and 3 hours 31 minutes to Newark from Dallas, but we beat those times on each segment.

Still, we had four flights on newer and older aircraft -- all of them packed -- with free entertainment on some, but not on others.

I foolishly followed the advice of a travel writer, who said if we book the aisle and window seats, the airline wouldn't sell the seat between us.

That never happened. 

And sitting behind the bulkhead separating you from first class has only one advantage; you can use the first-class lavatory, but will have to bring your own sandwiches, and then endure salivating over all of the premium food and drinks served to those passengers.

When the lights finally went back on at the Denali Park Village Resort, a cheer went up from guests waiting in the lobby.

Bounced from hotel 

We had our first day at leisure in Anchorage, but on Aug. 2, we boarded a rail tour that I had booked through Gray Line Alaska, a division of Holland America and Princess Cruises.

The total price for travel in dome rail sightseeing cars to and from Denali National Park and Preserve, two nights in the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and one night in the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge was $1,940.14 for two.

Meals and ground tours were extra. But we weren't told that Gray Line routinely overbooks this tour.

As our sightseeing train approached the rail depot near Denali on Aug. 2, the Gray Line representative announced our lodgings weren't guaranteed, and we would not be staying in the Denali Princess, a luxury property outside the national park. 

Instead, we were bused to a cheaper hotel, the Denali Park Village, where the lights and air conditioning had gone out just before our arrival.

Our room was in another building, and we had to schlepp our heavy suitcases up to the second floor.

The toilet in the cramped bathroom didn't flush and the TV showed only static, so we beat a hasty retreat to the hotel lobby to wait for restoration of power.

We could have had dinner in the hotel dining room, but were told the kitchen couldn't cook anything; we didn't eat until more than 2 hours later.

While we were sitting in the lobby, a dog ran in and pooped on the floor, but I'll resist saying how appropriate that was after American Airlines and Gray Line let us down during the first days of our vacation.

Postscript

I called the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge myself, but was told they were fully booked that first night.

An assistant night manager, a woman named Michelle, eventually was able to find us a large king-bedded room and bathroom with a walk-in shower for the second night.

The Gray Line Alaska rep didn't lift a hand for us, and never apologized.

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