2006 Alaska Shore Excursions

[quantum]

There are so many choices of shore excursions to choose from! We are taking the Ms Ryndam July 2006, and we will be visiting Ketchican, Juneau, and Skagway. Can anybody give us recomendations of which shore excursions we should or should not take? Thanks in advance

[RuthC]

I see this is your first post---welcome to the board! Pull up a keyboard and join right in---the natives are (mostly) friendly.

As to your question---it will help a lot if we knew something about your likes/dislikes, interests, physical abilities---things like that.

I'll start out blindly with a few things I like:

Ketchikan: You must walk on Creek Street, look for salmon in the creek, and visit Dolly's House.

Juneau: Go out to Mendenhall Glacier---either on a HAL Shore Excursion or the bus.

The Alaska Museum is a wonderful visit.

Stop in the Red Dog Saloon for a drink and to watch the show.

Go to the top of Mt. Roberts---but only if it's a good day. Nice hiking trails at the top. Good view.

Skagway: Take the White Pass Railroad. Before you go stop at the Park office to see the exhibits.

Check out the Arctic Brotherhood Lodge.

Take a flight over the glaciers---but only if it's a good day.

Whatever you decide to do you will enjoy it. Alaska is truly "The Great Land" and is worth many visits. I'll be taking my fourth next summer.

[quantum]

Thanks for the welcome! :)

 

We are in our early 40's and about a medium level of fitness. Not really in to the cookie cutter tourist routine. Prefer more of a personable, small group actvity. But, we are up to most any thing. Hope this helps some.

[swannie]

Did the Alaska cruise in August 04, our first cruise and first time to Alaska. Amazing! I spent a lot of time on the Alaska board on this forum to research shore excursions and booked all of them independently based on posters' advice and reviews. Be sure and buy an Alaskan Toursaver (I think that was the name of it) a two for one coupon book for Alaskan Tours you can buy online for $99 (at a website with the same name). The website gives a complete list of what coupons are in the book so you can figure out ahead of time whether it's worth the investment for you. We bought it and used a 2 for one coupon for a flightseeing tour over Misty Fjords National Monument. That was in Ketchikan. Amazing. Then in Juneau we did Capt. Larry's whale watch (hope I don't have the name wrong, my memory's getting hazy. But he's mentioned regularly on the Alaska board.) From Skagway, we rented a car and drove into the Yukon to see the amazing scenery along the way. Here's a link to our pics from that cruise.

http://friishill.tripod.com/id111.htm And if you'd like to read a verbal description of our experience to go with the pictures, you can do a search for Volendam 8/11 Cruise Diary on this board.

Hope this helps!

[Budget Queen]

Toursaver is rarely worthwhile for Inside Passage visitors, far more useful for independent interior Alaska travelers. The Misty Fjord flightseeing coupon has been gone 2 years.

 

As already mentioned head over to the Alaska board. As you have found out there is a wide range of tour offers. It will be a great help to you if you narrow down your interests, make a list of your top 5 interests in each port. Then look for specific details on those tours. The most popular will get the most write ups, but there are plenty more to consider. I've been on over 100 Alaska tours and there are few I would not repeat. For me flights are an always- with at least 2/trip. Wildlife requires tours, and hiking is easy in every port.

 

Cpt. Larry is with Orca Enterprises, a top recommended vender by me, for years, so much so, I went on 4 trips with him this year. :)

[jimbug]

I definitely recommend a Misty Fjords flightseeing trip in Ketchikan. We booked independently with Michelle, a Nebraska native, who runs Island Wings Aviation. I think their website is http://www.islandwings.com. They give you the most time in the sky for the price, and also land on a remote mountain lake to stop for a bit--just breathtaking.

 

As awesome as that was, my absolute favorite was going whale-watching in Juneau. We saw SO many whales--humpbacks and orcas. Many recommend Captain Larry's, but when we were out there they had about 25 people crammed on a tiny boat. We took the Mendenhall Glacier and Wildlife Expedition through Princess; pretty sure HAL offers the same tour. We had a couple of hours at the glacier, then we took a large, roomy catamaran out to see the whales. It wasn't crowded at all--very comfortable--and they had smoked salmon, kolacky (the Czech fruit dessert pastry things), and drinks to snack on. No matter which company you go with, you'll see the same thing as far as the whales go--the boats all communicate with each other and there may be 5-10 wildlife viewing vessels in the same area at any given time.

 

If you are into active excursions, we did an excursion out of Skagway called Haines Sea Kayaking, booked through the cruiseline, and operated by SeaKayaks.com. You take the fast ferry over to Haines (30 min. ride - 800 miles by land, can you believe it?!?), then get a short tour of Haines & Fort Seward...then you kayak in a beautiful inlet. Although we didn't see any while we were there, whales are frequently spotted during the kayak trip. It was a ton of fun - we didn't really want to spend our day on the White Pass Train, and found the actual town of Skagway to be too touristy and not much to see if you didn't want a Del Sol shirt or a "genuine" Alaskan artifact...lol.

[quantum]

WOW, Thanks for all the great responses. Looks like I need to go over to the Alaska post and check-out what everybody is saying. I like the idea of Kayaks at Skagway but I also like the sound of White Pass RR. Thanks for the link jimbug. Looks like flight seeing at Misty Fjords is a must.

[Budget Queen]

If you are into active excursions, we did an excursion out of Skagway called Haines Sea Kayaking, booked through the cruiseline, and operated by SeaKayaks.com. You take the fast ferry over to Haines (30 min. ride - 800 miles by land, can you believe it?!?), then get a short tour of Haines & Fort Seward...then you kayak in a beautiful inlet. Although we didn't see any while we were there, whales are frequently spotted during the kayak trip. It was a ton of fun - we didn't really want to spend our day on the White Pass Train, and found the actual town of Skagway to be too touristy and not much to see if you didn't want a Del Sol shirt or a "genuine" Alaskan artifact...lol.

 

 

Actually, it's 359 road miles between Skagway and Haines. Kayaking is also excellent in Ketchikan.