Skagway...Bus or Train?

[goblue]

rented a car from Avis and followed Yukon's mini milepost all the way to Emerald Lake - great experience !

this was what we encountered :

1. cloudyy when arriving at skagway

2. heavy FOG/mist (or whatever) rolled in as soon as we left Skagway and passed the US customs - visibility was no more than 5 feet - horrible, almsot gave up - no cars in front nor behind us for quite a while.

3. cleared up when we reached Frasier (sp??) the Canadian Customs.

4. Sunny and bright as we drove toward Carcross

5. gorgeous and warm when arrived at Emerald lake

6. back to Cloudy/overcast as soon as we approached US Customs

 

this happened on June 15, 2004 !

 

what a trip !

 

Yukon, many thx to your great guide .. the ladies at the Carcross visitor center were great !

[Mparis184]

Is it possible to book the rail one way and bus for the return ande book this type of tour at the dock?

 

Did not book anything through the ship and would like to try to see as much as possible.

 

How long is the ride one way on the rail? How about the return by bus?

 

Many thanks, we leave in the AM for San Francisco and leave on the Regal Monday.

[nekolover]

Did you know that Canadians cannot rent a car in Skagway and take it across the border into Canada and bring it back into the US. That blew our car rental idea. Deirdre

[snoopy_leogirl]

But if you don't book the White Pass, will it get sold out when you arrive in port or can you still book it independently in port? But our problem is that we have like 4 or 5 other ships in port with us (both small ones and large) so I am afraid that it will get sold out if we book upon arriving in Skagway. *sigh*

[gailann]

hi Everyone,

We are Canadian so because of some Silly Canadian law could not rent a car a drive Back into Canada and the Yukon which was our first choice, so instead we did a private tour which we booked as soon as we got off the ship as there are several tour booths on the dock as you disembark. We choose the yukon explorer as it went to Carcross. We had fantastic trip on a small mini bus, our driver was a young man with a wonderful knowledge of the Yukon and it's history, he even entertained us with a couple of Robert Service's poems, (eg. the Cremation of Sam Magee) anyway it was a wonderful tour, the scenery is so beautiful and he made a few stops on the way. We had a barbeque lunch in Carcross and those of of us who wanted went on a dry land dog sledding excursion which was so much fun and we got to cuddle with the sled dog puppies too! We got back to Skagway with some time to check out the shops as well, so it was a great day.

[edYYZ]

Did you know that Canadians cannot rent a car in Skagway and take it across the border into Canada and bring it back into the US. That blew our car rental idea. Deirdre

Wow I did not know that.

 

Anyways, on our cruise, we took Princess' SGY-G tour which was bus up to Caribou Crossing and Carcross then train back. I think it was the best of both worlds. The train offers a lot of scenery you can't get by bus alone, but the bus also took us farther to scenery the train couldn't get to. So this is probably the trip I'd recommend! Problem was the excursion was quite expensive and took basically the entire day (I think it runs around 8 hours).