AK Marine Hwy to Amtrak at Bellingham?

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me_little_me

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Next year for our 40th Anniversary, we'll be seeing Alaska on our own on a customized tour. We'll be returning on the AK Ferry aka the Alaska Marine Highway to Bellingham from Skagway. It is due in at 8AM and there is a train at 8:45 to Seattle. We'll probably spend the night in Seattle before flying home. Should I count on the connection or should I take a bus (ugh!) from the ferry? Suggestions?

This of course assumes ferry times are the same and trains still exist.

Note that the night in Seattle is to give us time to see my grandfather's new VA-provided grave marker nearly 100 years after he died.
 
me_little_me said:
Next year for our 40th Anniversary, we'll be seeing Alaska on our own on a customized tour. We'll be returning on the AK Ferry aka the Alaska Marine Highway to Bellingham from Skagway. It is due in at 8AM and there is a train at 8:45 to Seattle. We'll probably spend the night in Seattle before flying home. Should I count on the connection or should I take a bus (ugh!) from the ferry? Suggestions?

This of course assumes ferry times are the same and trains still exist.

Note that the night in Seattle is to give us time to see my grandfather's new VA-provided grave marker nearly 100 years after he died.
Click to expand...

I've looked into the Marine Highway & am considering it as a future trip to take the Alaska Rail Road to Denali. I'll definitely be interested in your planning & experience!!!

RF
 
I would not count on making that connection from ferry to train at Bellingham. I was on the ferry in September, 2009 from Ketchikan and it arrived about one hour late due to some rough water and fishing boats slowing us down the night before. As we were docking ( I had my car with me ) I saw the train arrive and depart across the road. I don't know the timekeeping record of the ferry, but if you made the train, good, but have a backup plan.
 
I'd rather take Amtrak to Alaska!
laugh.gif
 
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Seriously, I would rather take the ferry! Aside from constructing a railroad along the coast to be wildly impractical, I tell my tour bus passengers that the ride from Bellingham up through the Inside Passage is one of the world's greatest journeys through incredible country. I will be leaving here after next week, at the end of the cruise ship season, but will not take the ferry to Bellingham, not caring to pay the high cost of transporting my car. Instead, will go via Prince Rupert and drive to Vancouver, where on October 11 will be on the eastbound Canadian to Jasper and Toronto!
 
Hi, here is a suggestion, instead of trying to flee Bellingham as quickly as possible on that morning train to Seattle, why not plan on a day here, and take the evening train down instead?

You will dock in Fairhaven, a stone's throw from the Bellingham Amtrak station, and first of all, the ferry terminal itself is a really great building to spend a little time in, it is very comfortable with seating upstairs and downstairs by the cafe and outside on the big dock. There is a park a couple of blocks from there, Marine Park, with washrooms and a covered picnic area and a nice little pebble beach.

You could check your luggage at the Amtrak station and walk up to Fairhaven itself, a little shopping area with lots of character & places to eat, then you could catch a city bus downtown, a ten minute ride for one dollar along the scenic waterfront, and walk around, there are bookstores, record stores, thrift stores, galleries, everything you want right downtown, easy walking around and very friendly people.

You could even walk back to Fairhaven on a trail that goes all the way there, through the woods along the water and then the last mile or so is a boardwalk/dock that goes over the water and ends up in Fairhaven, there are two bookstores near each other in Fairhaven. Two bookstores down there, two downtown here.

I could go on but you get the idea. Bellingham is a great place, I've lived here 10 years. It's definitely worth spending one day here. I can give you all the specific tips and information you want if you decide to do it that way.

Winnie
 
What Winnie said. Yes!

I was just in Bellingham a few weeks ago. I took the morning Cascade up from Seattle and took the afternoon bus (2:50pm I think) back; I didn't want to wait for the evening train because I was on the Starlight next morning. The bus ride was comfortable and painless - well patronized but not full. Anyway I found B'ham to be a charming town and well worth the visit. I felt I could spend a lot more time there - even live there. But I feel that way about a lot of places Amtrak takes me - like Hudson NY, Charlottesville VA, Springfield IL, San Luis Obispo CA, Burlington VT and so on.
 
Cascadia said:
Hi, here is a suggestion, instead of trying to flee Bellingham as quickly as possible on that morning train to Seattle, why not plan on a day here, and take the evening train down instead?

You will dock in Fairhaven, a stone's throw from the Bellingham Amtrak station, and first of all, the ferry terminal itself is a really great building to spend a little time in, it is very comfortable with seating upstairs and downstairs by the cafe and outside on the big dock. There is a park a couple of blocks from there, Marine Park, with washrooms and a covered picnic area and a nice little pebble beach.

You could check your luggage at the Amtrak station and walk up to Fairhaven itself, a little shopping area with lots of character & places to eat, then you could catch a city bus downtown, a ten minute ride for one dollar along the scenic waterfront, and walk around, there are bookstores, record stores, thrift stores, galleries, everything you want right downtown, easy walking around and very friendly people.

You could even walk back to Fairhaven on a trail that goes all the way there, through the woods along the water and then the last mile or so is a boardwalk/dock that goes over the water and ends up in Fairhaven, there are two bookstores near each other in Fairhaven. Two bookstores down there, two downtown here.

I could go on but you get the idea. Bellingham is a great place, I've lived here 10 years. It's definitely worth spending one day here. I can give you all the specific tips and information you want if you decide to do it that way.

Winnie
Click to expand...

Thanks Winnie and me little me. I have been contemplating the same type of trip to ride the White Pass & Yukon. Skagway is hard to get into unless you are on a cruise ship. You have to fly into Whitehorse and take a bus to Carcross or fly into Juneau and take a little private plane into Skagway. Or the AK ferry. I was thinking about going in one way and out the other.
 
the_traveler said:
I'd rather take Amtrak to Alaska!
laugh.gif
Click to expand...
Now that would be something!

Have it leave SEA and travel on VIA lines all the way up (of course first they'd have to lay the tracks, since VIA only goes to Prince Rupert, BC, and if they could get it to Fairbanks or Anchorage then I'd be golden!)
 
These posts have stimulated my desires to do this, sooner rather than later. BUT I am not welcome in Canada. Is a passport required on any or all of these routes. A cursory look at the AMH website indicates maybe not unless you stop at Prince Rupert. Does anyone know for sure?
 
Cascadia said:
Hi, here is a suggestion, instead of trying to flee Bellingham as quickly as possible on that morning train to Seattle, why not plan on a day here, and take the evening train down instead?

Winnie
Click to expand...
I thought about that. But our trip is already 2 weeks long and we'd probably want to catch an early flight out to get a reasonable flight time connection to Asheville. When it comes time to make the final preps, we might consider doing that. However, the evening train would get us in too late to visit my grandfather's grave and I don't know if we'll have enough time the next morning before a flight home. We could possibly do the midday bus. We'll have to think about it. I hate buses so a midday train would be a lot better as it would give us time to go to the cemetery then go out to the airport and stay overnight for our flight.

Thanks for the suggestions. Last time in Seattle, we rented a car, took ferry to Vancouver Island and stayed in a home we exchanged with another couple. It was on that trip that I found where my lost grandfather was buried. He was a widower with 4 small children in orphanages in Brooklyn. He was in a band on a traveling chautauqua in 1916 when he caught pneumonia and died. His fellow band members were too poor to give him a headstone and scraped a few dollars together to send back to the kids for when they grew old enough to be on their own.
 
City of Miami said:
These posts have stimulated my desires to do this, sooner rather than later. BUT I am not welcome in Canada. Is a passport required on any or all of these routes. A cursory look at the AMH website indicates maybe not unless you stop at Prince Rupert. Does anyone know for sure?
Click to expand...

A passport is needed these days to enter Canada, which used to not be the case. If taking the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry to or from Bellingham, Washington, there is no stop at Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Northbound, the ferry from Bellingham goes right by Prince Rupert, not stopping in Canada, and the first stop is Ketchikan, so a passport is not necessary. The Bellingham run only operates once a week, leaving Bellingham on Fridays at 6pm. ( This summer has had an additional bi-weekly departure which goes across the Gulf of Alaska to Whittier.) While taking a car on the Alaska Ferry is expensive with a car, it is reasonable for passengers, as well as the cabins. It is not luxurious, but passable, with decent cafeteria food, but nothing to write home about. I will be making a tip via Juneau to Sitka next week without my car before returning to Ketchikan to then travel to Prince Rupert. I know, all this is a bit off topic.
 
greatcats said:
City of Miami said:
These posts have stimulated my desires to do this, sooner rather than later. BUT I am not welcome in Canada. Is a passport required on any or all of these routes. A cursory look at the AMH website indicates maybe not unless you stop at Prince Rupert. Does anyone know for sure?
Click to expand...
A passport is needed these days to enter Canada, which used to not be the case.
Click to expand...
However I believe there is a "mini" version of the passport that is cheaper and only allows travel to/from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. There's also Enhanced drivers license's, which are basically the same thing but they don't allow air travel if I remember right (they only allow ground and sea travel). I know Michigan has the enhanced drivers license because we're right there on the border, and many people from Detroit/Port Huron/Sault Ste. Marie probably travel to/from Windsor/Sarnia/Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario).
 
jdcnosse said:
greatcats said:
City of Miami said:
These posts have stimulated my desires to do this, sooner rather than later. BUT I am not welcome in Canada. Is a passport required on any or all of these routes. A cursory look at the AMH website indicates maybe not unless you stop at Prince Rupert. Does anyone know for sure?
Click to expand...
A passport is needed these days to enter Canada, which used to not be the case.
Click to expand...
However I believe there is a "mini" version of the passport that is cheaper and only allows travel to/from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. There's also Enhanced drivers license's, which are basically the same thing but they don't allow air travel if I remember right (they only allow ground and sea travel). I know Michigan has the enhanced drivers license because we're right there on the border, and many people from Detroit/Port Huron/Sault Ste. Marie probably travel to/from Windsor/Sarnia/Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario).
Click to expand...
It's called the Passport Card and just like the Enhanced Drivers License, it is only valid for land/sea crossings. One cannot fly with that card.

There are also a few other documents that can be used to cross the border with Canada, besides a passport.

However, thanks to the US, the days of crossing the border with just a photo ID and birth certificate are over. Technically you might well still get into Canada with just a photo & BC, but you will have a very hard time getting back into the US.
 
I got a Pass Port Card a couple of weeks ago &, as Allan said, is only good for land & sea. With photos the card cost me about $70, around half what the PASS Port costs.
 
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