Voice of Travel

Day 5 of the cruise brought us to Skagway, Alaska. One of the popular things to do here is to go on a Tour of the Yukon. There are 2 ways to do this – either by bus or train.

We decided to do the “Discover the Yukon Adventure Tour” by bus (both ways), and decided not to go with Princess. I had read a lot about Chilkoot Charters, and they had great reviews. They also guaranteed small groups, and cost less than the similar Princess tour.

I had no qualms about going with Chilkoot, as they guaranteed we would make it back in time for our departure. They even say on their website that if somehow they were late getting back (which has never happened to them before), they would pay to get you to the next port.

You might be wondering why I decided to do a tour that was just by bus, when there were nice things said about the train ride as well. I had a few different reasons that factored into it.

The first one is that I loved that Chilkoot was going to stop at different picturesque places so that we could take pictures. The train wouldn’t be able to do that for us! I also knew that with the train it would be more difficult to get good shots because I would prefer to be sitting comfortably inside the train, and therefore would have glass in the way.

Another reason was that it was a lot more expensive. To take the train ride it would cost an extra $75 per person. If you haven’t done much research yet, you’ll find that almost all of the shore excursions are already very expensive in Alaska, so it didn’t seem worth spending an extra $150 to see it by train when the road and train are parallel almost the whole time anyway.

I had a really great time on the tour. There were a few different lakes that we passed, and there were some amazing views to be had, as you can see below:

We made a lot of stops throughout the tour, and got a lot of great pictures. The first stop we made was just a short ride after we started, and it was so we could get a picture of our ship where it was docked.

As you’ll notice, there were 4 ships docked in Skagway that day. The ship we were on (the Coral Princess), 2 Norwegian ships, and 1 from Celebrity Cruises. The good news is that since we were on such a small tour (there were less than 25 of us), the only time we were with a bunch of people was during lunch. But I have to say that it made a great picture!

I am glad that we didn’t stay in Skagway for the whole day though, as I have a feeling it would have been very crowded with 4 ships in port. But this didn’t bother us one bit since we only walked around Skagway at the end of the day after our tour, and by that time at least one of the other ships was gone, and Skagway was a lot less crowded.

One of the neat things we were able to do was stop to get pictures of “Welcome to Alaska” and “Yukon” signs. Since everyone in the group was so nice, we all took turns taking pictures of everyone in front of them, so that was great!

Also, while we were there (as well as at most locations), we were the only ones there – with another small bus getting there just as we were leaving or leaving just as we were arriving, so it was never a problem getting a picture of exactly what you wanted, even if you wanted to be in the picture yourself! So that’s another reason I’m glad I went with Chilkoot. I have a feeling that if I went on a tour with Princess, first of all it would have been a much bigger bus, but also it would be a lot harder to get the kinds of pictures we did without having anyone else in them.

I can’t tell you how many pictures I took when we got to Emerald Lake. It was just so beautiful, that even the pictures don’t do it justice.

I love that there was a little bit of snow left on the mountain. In other pictures I had seen before the trip, some had snow and some had none – depending on the year and when the person went. I can say that going in early June was a great time to go, as we still got to see that little bit of snow on the tops of mountains, and it was just beautiful.

During the drive, we had our first bear spotting! Well, if you don’t count the bears in Vancouver at the top of Grouse Mountain. Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture since we were unable to pull over, so it was literally a split second sighting. At the time I was worried that it would be the only bear sighting I would have this vacation, but boy was I wrong! I’ll write more about that when I get to my review of Denali.

We had lunch at Caribou Crossing. I have to say that this is a very odd place, but you can tell it was definitely built for tourists! It just didn’t fit out in the middle of nowhere, and while you’re there you can guess that it was most likely built so that the tour buses had a place to take their passengers for lunch! It did keep us busy for a little while though, and served a good lunch, so it wasn’t a bad stop.

The lunch (which was included with our tour) was very good. It came with BBQ chicken, a baked potato, coleslaw, a homemade bun, coffee/tea, and donuts for dessert. It hit the spot, and we had plenty of time to walk around before it was time to leave.

First we went through the Yukon Wildlife Museum, which was just what you could guess. A bunch of large animals that were stuffed that were from the Yukon. Needless to say, I walked through that very quickly.

Afterwards, we walked over to the authentic dog musher camp, and we were able to see and pet the cute little puppies that were around.

They really loved people, and had no problems with people walking around trying to get their attention. They were loving it. For an extra fee, you could have a 15-minute dogcart ride, but that didn’t sound exciting to us, so we skipped it.

That was about it for Caribou Crossing. After that, I don’t think we made many stops. But I was still able to get some good shots looking out the window on the way back.

We still had plenty of time when we got back to walk around Skagway. There was one main street to walk on with a lot of stores, so we walked through a few of them. The highlight? We bought fudge from a fudge shop on that street, and it was really good. The amaretto fudge was the best…and we liked it so much that we finished it in just a few days. While in Denali a few days later, we saw another fudge shop, and kept checking it out each day hoping they would have the amaretto fudge…but unfortunately they never did.

After a little bit of walking, we were tired from the long day that started really early! So we walked back to the ship. It was our last day in port until the end of the cruise, as the rest of the days were at sea looking at glaciers. I’d go back to Skagway, and either do the same thing again, or something very similar. I was very happy with the tour, and with Chilkoot Charters.

I hope you enjoy the review,

P.S. If you’re ready to book your cruise to Alaska (or anywhere else for that matter), I strongly suggest using Cruise Compete. You’ll be sure to get the best price as different agencies will give you their best quote, and you can choose the lowest price!