This was an excellent trip and I enjoyed almost every minute of it (not the mild case of the trots for two days). There were 18 in our group and I worried that this might be too many, but with two buses and a team of two drivers and a mechanic, plus our tour leader, we were well served. There were a few last-minute changes to our itinerary--I was sorry to miss staying at the eco-hotel in the Sierra Maestre where we had lunch one day.
We had a great trip, with a fun group of people, including our informative, multi-talented and hard working guide. We saw a great range of landscapes and wildlife and enjoyed the range of activities and not being stuck in the van most of the time. Particularly enjoyed the energetic hike to the Bonanza Mine and the view from the tops. Staying at the same accommodation for several nights made things more relaxed. The flight into Wrangell-St.Elias was good, despite the poor weather, and probably would have been great with better weather. We were disappointed that our request for twin beds had not been passed on to the accommodation providers, which resulted in a couple of poor nights sleep. We raised this with the guide the first evening, who contacted the company owner who was going to try to sort it out for the rest of the trip. Put at one of the later accommodations I was told that they had had no contact from the company about providing twin beds for us and when they contacted the company got a reply along the lines of "Oh, I thought I'd contacted you about it". We were also disappointed with the rooms at the Inlet Tower Hotel. The first room we were shown when we arrived had no working blind on the largest window, which would have made it very difficult to sleep with the long daylight hours. The blind was sitting on the window sill and had dirt and fly droppings on it, which suggests it had been like that for some time. We were given an alternative room which had two leaking taps, one in the same room as the beds, and one of the set of taps only had hot water. The room we had at the end of the trip also had a leaking tap in the room with the beds and only had a venetian blind on the largest window, which still let in a considerable amount of light.
Wild and wonderful US adventure Travel from Salt Lake City to Seattle, visiting some of the best US National Parks on the way! An adventure from start to finish. During our time in the impressive Grand Tetons, we had some great walks amongst mountain and lakeside scenery, even spotting moose on the trails. The cosy town of Jackson Hole makes a great base for this part of the tour. We should have had 4 days in Yellowstone but some serious flooding put a very unfortunate stop to that - a last minute itinerary change was handled incredibly well by the experienced team and our wonderful leader Mike. This meant extra time in the Tetons and Glacier, along with some other really interesting stops added along the way. Glacier was a real favourite for me, for the epic landscapes and great walks in 'bear country'. We saw 3 bears here - a great sighting near the entrance to the park! Can't wait to come back and see Yellowstone one day..