What do to in Skagway with Kids?

[Amy5000]

Soo....

 

I'll be traveling to AK this summer with my parents, husband and kids (ages 8 and 10). We'll be doing most things together but probably my parents will do some excursion involving the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Skagway and it does not interest me. (Not active enough. We'll be doing a lot of rail travel later in the trip (basically, Seward to Fairbanks) and I'd like to give the kids a chance to stretch their legs and not spend hours on a bus or train.

 

It's hard for me to tell but it seems many Skagway excursions focus on traveling into the Yukon by bus and/or train. I don't have a great sense of the timing of this. We'll be in Skagway from 7 am to 9 am on July 4th.

 

Do you have any suggestions for things to do with kids that are local-ish and easy. (I'm willing to splurge for an excursion if that's what works). Thanks in advance for any input. Best, Amy

[Suzanne123]

Something different that we did last summer was the Ocean Raft in Skagway.

 

http://oceanraftalaska.com/

 

We had a couple kids on our tour and they loved it. Lots of fun.

[dyeadave]

Amy,

You could not pick a better day in summer, to be in Skagway!

The whole town gets involved in the festivites of the 4th.

If you can get to the National Park Service early you should at least see the short video about the gold rush that created this town. The kids can check out becoming junior rangers if they wish and then you will have a better idea about the themes of some of the floats in the parade, later that morning.

There will be numerous contests for the kids to take part in after the parade, like the egg toss or the slow bike race....

There will be several places to buy food along Broadway after the parade to support the local volunteer Fire dept. and other charitable causes.

Do not miss the dessert auction which can be its own entertainment;), but expensive, if you happen to take a fancy to certain creations by our local cooks.....

Tell the older folks to wait and take the afternoon train, or they will miss out on our time warp which we have every year on this date and it just might bring back some memories of our youth, so long ago:)

DD

[mapleleaves]

Check the town web site ... the Visitor section provides information on sights and activites, and maps for hikes. http://skagway.com/

Rent a car for the day and drive to the Yukon, stop whereever you like for the kids to stretch their legs or throw rocks in the river/lake. Visit the Goldrush Museum, then walk about a mile out of town to the Goldrush Cemetary.

[ToUtahNow]

Soo....

 

I'll be traveling to AK this summer with my parents, husband and kids (ages 8 and 10). We'll be doing most things together but probably my parents will do some excursion involving the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Skagway and it does not interest me. (Not active enough. We'll be doing a lot of rail travel later in the trip (basically, Seward to Fairbanks) and I'd like to give the kids a chance to stretch their legs and not spend hours on a bus or train.

 

It's hard for me to tell but it seems many Skagway excursions focus on traveling into the Yukon by bus and/or train. I don't have a great sense of the timing of this. We'll be in Skagway from 7 am to 9 am on July 4th.

 

Do you have any suggestions for things to do with kids that are local-ish and easy. (I'm willing to splurge for an excursion if that's what works). Thanks in advance for any input. Best, Amy

 

Is it possible this is a typo? That is hardly worth leaving the ship.

 

Mark

[Amy5000]

Is it possible this is a typo? That is hardly worth leaving the ship.

 

Mark

 

Lol. Mark. When I first read your post I thought you were making a derisive remark about Skagway. Then I saw you highlighted the times. And yes it was a typo. We will be there until 9 pm.

 

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[firstalaskatrip]

Do your kids like dogs? We did a land based dogcart trip in Skagway that we really enjoyed, and it had a lot of kids on it who seemed to have a blast. We booked it through our ship, but they did a nice job of not having it seem to overcrowded.

 

They drove us out to the dog place in the mountainside- a short but pretty drive. Then we were put in four wheel drive unimogs to drive up the hill, got pulled around on a modified golf cart by a team of dogs, were brought back down the hill on the unimog, listened to a short lecture on the dogs, and then everyone got to hold the puppies. To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to the excursion (my friend really wanted to go, so I said ok), but I really enjoyed it!

[Amy5000]

Thank you all for the feedback. Dave: Your post actually made me psyched to stick around an spend some time in Skagway and not rush off for an excursion! Right now we are planning on spending the day in Skagway, checking out the festivities, doing some walking tours and possibly a hike or two. In the afternoon we are going to check out Ocean Raft Alaska!

 

The dogcart trip sounds great but I think we are either going to do something similar in Juneau or wait until my folks can join us.

 

I've spent so much time looking at things to do in Skagway and there did seem to be many great excursions ...but I love a good old fashioned 4th of July! Just too bad we'll miss the fireworks.

[Woodduck45]

Hi,

 

In 2011, we had our two girls (age 10 and 13 then) there in Skagway on 4th of July. Wow, what a beautiful town to be in on a holiday. The town is decorated, as well as the train. We loved being there for this holiday. The small parade is quaint and comes through twice, the cake auction is fun to listen to, or just hang on their main st and watch people play basketball. We are coming again this summer, but not on the holiday, so I will be looking for something fun for them to do. I might just drag them on a hike.

 

I learned that in Alaska they launch fire works on the 3rd of July b/c it doesn't get dark until real late and that way people can sleep in on the actual holiday. So on the 3rd, while pulling out of the previous port, we watch the coast line where people were launching their own fire works while having bonfires at the beach.

If you stop in Juneau, my kids loved the zipline adventures. We booked it ourselves directly through their site.