Thread: Skagway Excursion Ideas

here was our helicopter

a view of Skagway Harbor with 4 ships in town

I just can't get over how beautiful Alaska is!

you'll be blown away by it Dale. Every turn is a new and amazing scene. Every town is picturesque. Its absolutely amazing!

I am really looking forward to this rail ride! Does it pretty much take up the whole day, Alisa?

Hey Mike!

Actually it depends on which train ride you're taking. I did the To the Summit trip and that was 3 hours, 1.5 hours up and 1.5 hours back.

There are some that take the whole day. There are some that don't take the whole day but take a little longer than the one I went on. You can ride the train beyond the Summit and cross the Canadian Border. You stop at a little town called Carcross and they feed you lunch there and you get like an hour free time to shop and explore before riding the train back. So that definitely takes longer.

Or you can do other combinations, like take the train up and a bus back down, get a different perspective and a little different view. Because if you take the train up and back you're looking at the same exact thing twice. Or you can take the bus up and the train down. Or you can take the train up and bike back down, theres so many different combinations.

I hope we get some opinions on which is better. What would you suggest, Alisa?

It really depends on what you have in store the rest of the day. On the Serenade your longest port stop will be in Skagway. We were there from 7:00 am - 8:00 pm. So 13 hours is a lot of time. Skagway is small small town. Its really like 10 squre blocks, with half of them being residential. So unless you take a tour, you can only shop for so long in time before you've seen everythign there is to see.

Obviously the longer tours also cost more. Most people who spend this much time in Skagway generally take two tours. I took two tours. The morning train and the afternoon helicopter trip. I still had plenty of time to shop in town and then come back and relax on the ship before we left port. If you aren't going to take a second tour in Skagway, then I would recommend a longer train tour. I've heard that Carcross is really nice. The other thing you could do in Skagway that I hear is equally as nice as the train, and what I'm planning to do the next time I'm in Skagway, is rent a car. The roads are well labeled. You can drive yourselves to Carcross or Emerald Lake which is supposed to be gorgeous.

You might want to ask Brooke about Carcross and Emerald Lake. I beleive he said he's been to both. He's been on the train before as well

Thanks Alisa! I really don't like renting cars in ports. I don't much like to drive at home and I sure don't like to drive while on vacation! I like the idea of the train. I don't like to jam up the day with too much to do, so the full trip to the summit and a little sightseeing in town sounds perfect for me.