Breakfast at your Denali Hotel before transfering to the Denali Depot via bus.  One of the many highlights of this day is the opportunity to take in the breathtaking scenery aboard your luxury domed railcar. This segment of the Alaska Railway is considered by far the most scenic portion of the trip and takes travelers farther away from the Parks Highway and deeper into the virtually untouched wilderness. Moose, bears and bald eagles can often be sighted along the route and at certain times of the summer the salmon can be seen spawning in the streams. Of the many spectacular sights along the way, perhaps the most magnificent is Hurricane Gulch, where a bridge spans 914 feet and rises 296 feet above the creek below.

Arrive in Anchorage, the largest city in the largest state in the union. Choose between four of Anchorage’s finest dining establishments or the Sheraton Hotel for dinner and overnight at the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel.

Breakfast at the Sheraton Hotel.  Take a tour of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Board a motorcoach in Anchorage to travel to Whittier. This 2-hour scenic drive follows a significant portion of Turnagain Arm, named by Captain Cook in 1778, because his crew, exploring up the fjord in a small boat was forced to turn back. Watch for Dall’s sheep clinging to the rocky precipices. The marsh flats are the perfect habitat for a variety of birds and grazing moose. Look for lurking coyote and lumbering bears on the perimeters of the marshes and forests. In mid to late summer, the small beluga whales with bulbous foreheads are sometimes seen feeding on spawning salmon making their way up the arm.

Sail from Whittier, located at the northern end of Passage Canal in Prince William Sound. The Sound is about 100 miles wide with an amazingly intricate coastline deeply cleaved by fjords and inlets. Prince William Sound is about the same size as Puget Sound in Washington and three times larger than San Francisco Bay. The steep, jagged Chugach Mountains crown this coastline. The snowy peaks capture much of the significant rainfall that occurs here, creating one of the larger ice fields in the world. Prince William Sound contains one of the largest concentrations of tidewater glaciers in Alaska and we visit most of them. Continue down Passage Canal, lined with hanging and valley glaciers and fringed by the verdant rainforest. Enter Blackstone Bay with its glacially carved valley lined with eight glaciers of various types, hanging, valley, or tidewater. Keep an eye out for sea otters, harbor seals and the occasional river otter.

Travel through Holkham Bay, the mouth of two spectacular, glacier-fed fjords. Crossing the bar, look for signs of the strong currents tugging at the red and green navigational markers and for the many birds that feed on the rich nutrients stirred by these currents. Travel up Tracy Arm, a glacially carved fjord filled with deep, emerald-green seawater, bordered by steep cliffs. The fjord twists and turns for 25 miles.

We’ll come as close as safely possible to the face of a glacier and hope for a show of thundering ice splashing seawater hundreds of feet high. Arctic terns may buzz close to the bow, their shrill call warning us to stay away from their nests. We’ll exit Holkham Bay and enter Frederick Sound, the body of water that hosts a world-renowned humpback whale population. Nutrient-rich waters compel large numbers of humpbacks to return from Hawaii every summer to feed and frolic in this region. Look for these magnificent creatures as well as Steller’s sea lions and harbor seals.