Millenium Hotel Anchorage Alaska
The Millenium Hotel in Anchorage Alaska is the official hotel of the Iditarod Race, and is located right on the shores of a large float plane lake. How you enjoy it will depend on your point of view and the time of year.
I stayed here for six days in April, 2007. This was 'off season', so the rates were well under $100/night. In busy season, rates can be over $200/night. In the quiet season, the hotel can be peaceful and relaxing. In the summer, you get the advantage of the patio on the lake - and the constant noise and movement of planes constantly arriving and leaving on the lake. If you love planes, this is pretty much the ideal location for you. If you're not fond of planes, or need quiet to sleep, you can see what the issue might be.This is a very long, stretched out hotel. You can walk quite a distance to your room. Also, even though there are only 4 floors, there is only wireless available in the lobby, and only the 3rd floor has wired connections. Make sure you get that third floor room if you want internet. They do provide cables, but your laptop will need a regular network port to plug them into.
The room itself was relatively large and quite comfortable. There was one sink in the bathroom area and another in the main room area. I had both a single bed and double bed during my stay, and both rooms were well sized.
The reason I had to switch rooms was that apparently the previous tenant of my room had tossed a washcloth into the toilet. I just thought the toilet was very slow to flush! The bathtub was the same slow-draining way, so I didn't think twice about the toilet going slowly. I came back to my room about halfway through my trip and found the toilet literally pulled out of the ground and laying in the bathtub! I had to call down to the front desk to find out what was going on.
The team had been nice and moved all of my stuff into the next room over, including hanging my dresses up in the closet. So this was the good side of the staff.
On the downside, when I arrived, they told me there was one box waiting for me, and gave it to me. It took quite a lot of asking on my part before they revealed that there were actually two MORE boxes in there for me too! The room itself was so cold that I had to wear a jacket one time while catching up on email, and was still chilly with the jacket on. When I moved to the second room, the warmth was much better. The new tub was still very slow to drain though - it was so slow that while taking a shower, the water was quickly up over my ankles. One morning I could only get lukewarm water out of the shower head, while other mornings it would be scalding hot.
Most mornings our waitress was wonderful and prompt, but one morning we had a waiter who brought the wrong food, did not check up on us, did not bring juice, and simply did not seem to care much about how we were doing. It really made a big difference, what staff was on call.
The night before we checked out, the front desk left a message for me. When I called down, they wanted me to give them my credit card over the phone. I did - but I've never had a hotel ask me to do that! They always settle the final bill in person at the desk on the final morning. It felt very odd to me.
Read on for more details about the lobby, the room, the bar and the restaurant.
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