Alaska Dog Sledding excursion

[fumipappa]

hi! We are trying to book Dog Sledding Excursions at Either Juneau or Skagway.

I appreciate if someone can answer these.

1. We are Silver Castaway Cay members, so we have slight advantage to start reservation of these excursions. We have 3 options as

Dog Sledding and Glacier Flightseeing (SW20) Skagway
Dog Sled Adventure by Helicopter (JU30) Juneau
Dog Sledding on the Mendenhall Glacier (JU01) Juneau

I know they are popular excursions, but do we have chance to get one of them as Silver CC members? or is there good chance these are gone before going to silver CC's turn?

2. Among 3 of them above, which one is the best? or do we know any significant difference?

3. Any of the 3 above, do they also brief tour of glacier? It sounds weird, but I am wondering we have chance to touch and feel of glacier ice or water during these excursion.

4. if these 3 do not have any part to touch and feel glacier ice/water, is there any other excursion we can do?

 

[Luvmypetz]

This was my experience with a dog sledding excursion years ago but on Carnival, not Disney. I booked a tour from an outside vendor that included helicopter and sled experience. We met the tour people at the meetup point, boarded a bus, then proceeded to swing back towards the ship to pick up the cruise ship participants! I’d have to say for each of us, it was at least $100 less than what was listed for the ship guests. It was one of the best days of my life!

 

[jldcherry]

We booked dog sledding in Skagway through Alaska Shore excursions last summer. It was way cheaper per person than Disney (at least $150 cheaper each) and the Disney guests were on the same tour as we were. We were also able to book whenever we wanted, no waiting for Disney's windows. It was the highlight of our trip.

The helicopter did a longer scenic flight over the glacier on the way to dog sledding, then we got to meet the dogs, and ride the sled. We booked all but one of our excursions outside of Disney and had great experiences and saved a lot of money. In Skagway you can walk to the helicopter tour place, so you don't even need transportation.

 

[mlayman7]

We booked through alaska shore excursions for our upcoming trip this summer for our juneau Port. It was nice having all available times and not stressing about what disney would have available when our time opened up. The biggest plus was the savings since there are 5 of us, it adds up quickly. Like others stated, they run through same companies as disney books through so that made me feel more comfortable booking it outside of Disney.

 

[fumipappa]

Thank you I just booked through Alaska shore and hew! this morning, plenty was available but now only 12:45PM slot only at Juneau. I reserved it. Thank you so much! Now Juneau port is till 4:45PM.. Do you guys think we have plenty of time to go back to the ship?

 

[Keyser]

I'd repeat all the stuff others said, but to add one more thing: if you want, you can go to the Mendenhall glacier in Juneau with a variety of tours or even just on your own. You can even take a public bus, which is really cheap. On our Juneau trip, we did a whale watch in the morning, then they dropped us at Mendenhall instead of back at the cruise ship afterward. We took the bus back from there (I imagine Uber or something is also an option?). Note that this is the visitor's center, and you still have to walk a ways from there to get up to the glacier itself, but we really enjoyed it, and it was both easy and super-cheap.

 

[BruinEd03]

Thank you I just booked through Alaska shore and hew! this morning, plenty was available but now only 12:45PM slot only at Juneau. I reserved it. Thank you so much! Now Juneau port is till 4:45PM.. Do you guys think we have plenty of time to go back to the ship?

You'll have lots of fun. However, I would set your expectations just a little bit on two things:
1.) The trip will be more focused on dog sledding than on glacier walking. You don't want to drink anywhere near where the dogs are for obvious reasons. If you want to walk around the glacier and drink glacier water - do the separate glacier tour. The two tours are very different, but both are well worth it.
2.) Have the numbers for other tour companies on standby, or backup excursions that you would want to do. Helicopter tours are one of the most cancelled tours in Alaska. It depends on the wind, cloud level, etc. It could also look really crappy up until 30 minutes beforehand and you could still go. Or it could look great up until 30 minutes beforehand, and you could get cancelled. It could also be cancelled in the morning and run in the afternoon, or vice versa. It also won't really matter if you're in Skagway or Juneau, both can get cancelled. That was one of the benefits of booking through DCL. If it wasn't running, I could pivot quickly through Port Adventures. For example, the last time we had one dog sledding tour that went to one glacier that kept getting cancelled - and we kept getting pushed back for our time slot. However, we were able to snag a different tour to a different glacier. People that didn't pivot - well they never ran that day.

 

[jldcherry]

Thank you I just booked through Alaska shore and hew! this morning, plenty was available but now only 12:45PM slot only at Juneau. I reserved it. Thank you so much! Now Juneau port is till 4:45PM.. Do you guys think we have plenty of time to go back to the ship?

For our trip last summer I mapped everything on Google to time how long we'd need from one place to the next. I'd recommend mapping from wherever you'll be to the helicopter place, then back to port. If I remember correctly in Juneau it's about 20 minutes of travel time from the port to the middle of Juneau, but we easily got an Uber back to port.

I had a Google doc with each day planned out with notes on how long from one place to the next etc and back up plans for every port.

Our only cancelled port adventure (whale watching) was the only one we scheduled through Disney and it was cancelled because of mechanical issues with a boat. We easily switched to something else (not similar to what we had originally booked) and booked something extra through an outside vendor. As soon as you are close to port you're going to get a cell signal and can call people directly yourself. Remember you're in the US, it's all very easy, and the independent vendors were fantastic.

There are other glacier experiences that we would've loved (ice caves, glacier hikes) but we were restricted by the ages of our kids. Those are all available on Alaska Shore Excursions too.

 

[ofcabbagesandkings]

Our glacier dog sled tour was canceled in Skagway because of cloud cover, we booked in the late afternoon for the best chance of it clearing up but it just wasn't clear that day. We could have rebooked the next day for Juneau, but we didn't because we had a private whale watching tour booked for Juneau. But in Juneau there is a lower glacier, the Norris glacier, where you have a better chance of being able to land even if it's cloudy, and some people on my cruise were able to dogsled that way. I wasn't made aware that it was an option and I assumed all the heli tours in Juneau would be canceled too (and they were, except for the Norris ones). Instead we did a glacier walkabout on a lower glacier in Skagway. It was still a cool experience and my kids got to drink glacier water directly from the source, but I was bummed to miss the dog sledding over snow. We did get to do the musher camp on land in Skagway, though, and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking.