Hi everyone - the 2019 member cruises are in the past, time to look forward to 2020 and our member cruise to Alaska!
Not sure if anyone has started researching port adventures and third party companies. I thought I’d share our experience with a local tour company in Skagway from when we were on the first MC to Alaska in 2015 - Chilkoot Charters. They offer bus and bus/train tours on the White Pass railroad up to Canada and the Yukon.
https://chilkootcharters.com/
They are an awesome tour company!! Several of us separately booked a tour in Skagway through them, and none of us were disappointed. I’d book with them again in a heartbeat if they offered other tours in the Skagway area. They offer full and half day tour options to Canada and the Yukon, either bus only or bus/rail combos with a choice of bus first or train first. We booked their 7:30 all day trip to the Yukon, rail/bus combo with the train portion first.
Reasons why we went with them over the similar excursions offered thru
DCL -
1-lower cost. While DCL does not yet have their 2020 pricing posted, we found that Chilkoot was cheaper than Disney for essentially the same basic tour content.
2-smaller groups. The Disney tour used the large busses that hold maybe 100 people or so per bus. Chilkoot uses smaller busses, think hotel shuttle size, that hold around 20-25 people. Also made it much easier to ask the driver questions as we went along.
3-smaller busses resulted in more tour stops. We made several more stops along the way both up and back for the bus portions of the tour than the Disney tour and larger busses, so got to see more things. We could also stay long enough so everyone could get their photos. Most of the “extra” stops had no other busses there.
4-tour flexibility. With the smaller bus and private company, the driver had options to change things up to make for a better tour. As an example, rather than hit the Welcome to the Yukon sign on the way up, as the larger busses will do due to the side of the road with the sign, we hit it on the way back when there were no other busses stopped so we could get great photos without a lot of crowds. Smaller busses can make the u-turn to the other side of the road. The driver knew the train schedules, so we were able to stop at a spot again on the other side of the road where we could wait for the afternoon train in the canyon on its way back to Skagway and get some great pictures. We also made a couple of unexpected stops when we spotted wildlife along the road, something the larger busses cannot do.
5-an unexpected bonus with the trains. Chilkoot being a local company got the last car on the train for their tour group people. Disney groups started with the second to last car. What is great about the last car? For those that wanted to do so, we could stand out on the back outside platform to get photos as we chugged along. The unobstructed views were amazing! This made for some fantastic photos looking back to the harbor (if you do the train portion first) including seeing the ship, as well as pictures of the engine and train on the tracks when we’d go along a curve.
In looking at the 2020 cruise ship schedule, there will be three other ships in port with us when we are in Skagway. Chilkoot opened up their 2020 season bookings today. I’d encourage anyone interested to check out the website and give them a call with any questions.
Happy planning!
