Excursions with a four year old...

[Ashfry]

We are planning our cruise to Alaska for June 2013 and will have my parents, brothers and my dh and I and our four and a half year old with us.

 

Everyone is very active but I have noticed a lot of the adventurous excursions have an age limit of 5 years old:/. These are ones I have looked at through princess' website. I am sure the age limit is there for safety but do you think if we used an independent company it would be different?

 

I would have liked to have gone to a dog sledding thing but they all say five and older:(

 

We have mostly found things to do that have no age restrictions but that was something we were all kind of looking forward too.

 

Any suggestions?

[AkSusan]

We are planning our cruise to Alaska for June 2013 and will have my parents, brothers and my dh and I and our four and a half year old with us.

 

Everyone is very active but I have noticed a lot of the adventurous excursions have an age limit of 5 years old:/. These are ones I have looked at through princess' website. I am sure the age limit is there for safety but do you think if we used an independent company it would be different?

 

I would have liked to have gone to a dog sledding thing but they all say five and older:(

 

We have mostly found things to do that have no age restrictions but that was something we were all kind of looking forward too.

 

Any suggestions?

I know one of the independents out of Juneau is Era Helicopters. I found the Glacier Dog Sled tour out on their site. It doesn't say anything about age restriction, just weight. But their Juneau office is suppose to be open through tomorrow, so you might want to give their 800# a call today - toll-free: 1-800-843-1947

 

https://www.eraflightseeing.com/content/e1485/e1491/e1492/index_eng.html

 

Also, looking at their pricing, they only ask for the number of people, not age related, so it looks like if they allow your child, they would be $499 like everyone else.

 

Also, since this tour is cancelled quite a bit, never know about the weather, you may want to want and not and tell the 4 1/2 year old about it until for sure that the tour is going! Hate to have those big expectations and then say, sorry, we can't go!

 

Susan in Anchorage :)

[sherryf]

Were you hoping to specifically do a helicopter glacier landing with dog sledding on snow? Or would a dog cart ride and/or sled dog/puppy encounter be enough? I do not think there is an age limit for the dog cart rides at Caribou Crossing in the Yukon (out of Skagway) and the photo on their site shows young children so I'm sure yours would be fine on that. We had a great puppy encounter (but no ride) at the Klondike Gold Dredge in Skagway. Others have written about another dog cart ride out of Skagway which I have not done but seems to get good reviews.

 

I don't know your child, but I think all 3 of mine would have been terrified of getting on a helicopter at 4.5 years. Even now, as teenagers, they expressed no interest in helicopter rides when we took them last year! I think they all inherited my fear of heights. :eek:

[PennyAgain]

Read carefully as many excursions do not give a child's price for a ticket.

 

Many of the flight tours do not allow under 5 children because the majority of passengers wish to take photos. A very active young child or one who is throwing up would make that difficult.

[Ashfry]

Thank you all for responding!

 

We did not want to particularly want to do a helicopter/glacier dog sled. I was thinking more of the cart pull.

 

Thanks sherryf I will checkout the one at caribou crossing:)

 

Learning so much from these boards, I find myself obsessively reading them all day:o

[Krazy Kruizers]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

The cart pull sounds great for a young child.

 

Have fun planning.

[Budget Queen]

Thank you all for responding!

 

We did not want to particularly want to do a helicopter/glacier dog sled. I was thinking more of the cart pull.

 

Thanks sherryf I will checkout the one at caribou crossing:)

 

Learning so much from these boards, I find myself obsessively reading them all day:o

 

An excellent run, lower cost sled dog tour is with Seavey's out of Seward.

 

Caribou Crossing would be ideal with a rental car for your group. Everyone will need a passport. Allow 5++ hours for the drive. Murray's Guide is "necessary" in my opinion. :)

[sherryf]

Thank you all for responding!

 

We did not want to particularly want to do a helicopter/glacier dog sled. I was thinking more of the cart pull.

 

Thanks sherryf I will checkout the one at caribou crossing:)

 

Learning so much from these boards, I find myself obsessively reading them all day:o

 

If you choose to go to Caribou Crossing, I have 2 recommendations, depending on what you think would work best with your child.

 

1 - If your child likes trains and would enjoy a train ride, consider doing a rail/bus combo tour with Chilkoot Charters. Just google the name. They have much smaller buses than the cruise ship tours and make more stops along the way for photos, etc. It is an all day (7.5 hour) tour, but part of that is train, a long portion at Caribou Crossing, and many stops.

 

2 - If doing a group tour won't work well for you or if the train is not of interest, consider renting a car from Avis and driving yourself. That gives you the freedom to stop when you want/need to. If you choose to do this, be sure to download Murray's Guide (again, just google it) for $5. It's worth the price and can be printed or loaded onto your tablet/eReader. I put it on my Kindle, but it might have been nice to have a printed copy.

[AkSusan]

An excellent run, lower cost sled dog tour is with Seavey's out of Seward.

 

Caribou Crossing would be ideal with a rental car for your group. Everyone will need a passport. Allow 5++ hours for the drive. Murray's Guide is "necessary" in my opinion. :)

Just an update, as I'm sure that they'll be up and running by spring, but, with all the flooding we're having, they had a picture of the Seavey's place in Seward and the article mentioned that they had sustained substantial damage to their place.

 

It's just been something with the windstorms and all the rain (I mean poor Seward got something like 6 to 8 inches of rain in an hour last week), plus, there is another big storm moving in and they are in the path again.

Parts of town, completely, unaccessible!

 

Susan in Anchorage :)

[Budget Queen]

Just an update, as I'm sure that they'll be up and running by spring, but, with all the flooding we're having, they had a picture of the Seavey's place in Seward and the article mentioned that they had sustained substantial damage to their place.

 

It's just been something with the windstorms and all the rain (I mean poor Seward got something like 6 to 8 inches of rain in an hour last week), plus, there is another big storm moving in and they are in the path again.

Parts of town, completely, unaccessible!

 

Susan in Anchorage :)

 

We had a photo, in the local newspaper, of severe flooding in Talkeetna, with a person riding on a surf board with a retired sled dog. It was being pulled by someone. Just awful.

[AkSusan]

We had a photo, in the local newspaper, of severe flooding in Talkeetna, with a person riding on a surf board with a retired sled dog. It was being pulled by someone. Just awful.

The locals in Talkeetna really pitched in and helped save the historical business district.

 

Railroad got really impacted too.

 

And now Kenai Lake is up, parts of Cooper Landing affected, and it hasn't even hit the flood stage, that's expected maybe today or tomorrow with more rain on the way!

 

Susan in Anchorage :)