Seward, Alaska: The Town and Their Lodging
It seems that it is fair to say that there are two types of Alaskan cruises. There is the cruise that is a round trip out of either Seattle or Vancouver. And, there is the cruise that either starts in Vancouver and travels north toward Seward, Alaska or starts in Seward and heads south to Vancouver. The pros to the round trip cruises are that you can go on the bigger and therefore newer cruise ships and you can arrange for a round trip plane ticket, which might be more convenient and cheaper. But, if you are wanting to do a land tour of Alaska whether it is through the cruise line or on your own, then you will need to opt for the one way cruises and therefore probably be spending some time in Seward.
We originally had booked a cruise tour through Royal Caribbean but opted to do the land tour on our own. Seward is a small town and depends heavily on the cruise tour industry for their well-being. They have the Alaska Sealife Center that many cruise lines include in their cruise tours, but often the cruise tours through the cruise lines have their clients travel to Anchorage to stay for the night, instead of staying in Seward. We decided to stay in Seward for the night before getting to the ship, so we were able to see more of the town than most might.
Since we have a lot of Marriott points thanks to Chris’ job, we first looked to see if there were any Marriott hotels in Seward. There are not and, in fact, the options for lodging are rather unique. Your options range from a 2-story building turned into an inn to a yurt to a log cabin to a lodge to a cottage to a bed and breakfast and more. While I was excited about the idea of staying in a yurt for a night, I was outvoted by our travel group who wanted something a bit more upscale. We decided to stay at the Hotel Seward because the prices seemed reasonable. Even though the hotel had the option of a regular hotel room, they also had small homes that you can stay in for the night, which is what we opted for.
The hotel had a few amenities that we were happy to take advantage of. First, they had a large van that met us at the train station, loaded up our luggage and brought us to the hotel. They held onto our luggage for us until our rooms (house in our case) were ready. And, they had laundry machines that we could use for a couple of dollars, which knowing how pricey the laundry service is on the ship we very much appreciated. Also, they provided us with transportation from the hotel to the port, which saved us the hassle and money that comes with hiring an Uber.
The house that we stayed in was really cute and right across the street from the main hotel. It had 3 bedrooms, a bathroom that it looks like they had expanded, a full kitchen and living room with a couch for watching TV. It was definitely a unique experience and a nice change of pace from the hotel rooms we had been staying in. One funny thing is that when we checked in, we were told that we were not to clean fish inside the house. We could cook it and eat in but not clean it and prepare it. This made us chuckle as we imagined what could have gone down to cause this to become a rule. All in all we had a really nice experience staying at Hotel Seward.
While we were waiting for our room to be ready and for our helicopter ride to take place (this deserves its own article), we wandered around Seward. Everything in Seward was priced fairly high but we found some places to eat that we thought were good and reasonable. We ate lunch at The Highliner Restaurant, which was pretty decent. We found the community library that looked really cool and walked down to the riverfront where we got some great views. When asking locals where we should eat, we were told that most places in Seward are pretty good, becase if they aren’t so good then they don’t make it. The Cookery was recommended to us by multiple locals but we felt that it was too expensive. We got some tasty bites with some delicious beer at Seward Brewery and we were delighted to find a tasty taco truck close by our hotel. Because we had a kitchen table in our house, we were able to get our dinner and bring it back to our house to eat. It was nice to have this privacy and we could drink cans of beer that we had purchased.
Seward was a really cool town and I am glad that we opted to build our own cruise tour so that we could spend extra time there. Everyone that we met there was really nice and welcoming. We booked a great adventure in Seward, which we felt was totally worth the money. You can also visit Kenai Fjords National Forest, which has some great hiking, beautiful views and the cost is free, which is really nice. You can also go whale watching, kayaking, rafting, hiking, fishing and more. If I went back, I definitely would want to spend some more time in Seward and highly recommend this cute little town.
