Trip Report: May 21, 2018 7 Night Alaska Cruise – Day 4

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Day 4:  Skagway

You can start this trip report from the beginning by clicking here.

You can see this day’s Navigator by clicking here.

If I had to pick a favorite day of the cruise, this would be the one.  About a year ago, a reader emailed me and told me that when they were in Skagway, they rented a Jeep from DIY Jeep Tours (formerly Alaska Green Jeep Tours) and loved it.  I looked into it and decided to do the same thing on our day in Skagway.  I am so, so glad that she shared this with me because it was a fantastic day!

I set my alarm for 5:30 am so that I wouldn’t be rushed.  The fact that it had already been light for about 2 hours made it easier to get up so early.  We were already docked in Skagway (all ashore was 7:15 am), and this was the view from our verandah:

I was so happy to see blue sky as there had been a forecast of rain for the last several days.

After a bit, the Emerald Princess pulled up next to us and blocked the view.

I got everyone up and we went to Cabanas for breakfast at 7:00 am.  At 7:40 am, we disembarked the ship because we wanted to pick up the Jeep right when they opened at 8:00 (more on this later) and I wasn’t sure how long it would take to walk there, although I knew it was fairly close.

We were all bundled up for the day.  The high was forecast to be 48 degrees, but we ended up driving so high into the mountains that we experienced colder temperatures then that.  It was also very windy.

Let me take a minute and share about what we packed for this cruise.  I have written a detailed post here about what we packed, but here are the basics.  In all 3 of our ports, we each wore jeans, waterproof boots (not needed in Skagway but definitely needed in Juneau and Ketchikan), long sleeve shirt, fleece pullover (me) or sweatshirt hoodie (everyone else), thin down-filled coat, hat and gloves.  In addition, in Juneau and Ketchikan we all wore rain jackets over our coats.  It was a lot of layers, but we needed them and stayed comfortably warm and dry.  Granted, we sailed early in the season so our temperatures were almost certainly colder than you would encounter later in the summer.  We experienced 30s/40s each port day and were glad for all of the layers.

We began our walk toward the Jeep headquarters.  I was using Google Maps on my phone.

Downtown Skagway is literally steps away from the ship.

It was early, so downtown was pretty much deserted.  When we returned later in the afternoon, it was warmer and sunny and this street was packed.

We walked up to the headquarters right at 8:00 am and checked in.  We got to pick our Jeep color, were given instructions and this self-guided tour book (which included a CD), and were on our way. The guide book was excellent!  We tried to listen to the CD but kept getting off with the timing so eventually gave up.  But, the guide book had all of the information we needed and told us exactly where to go, and what we were seeing.

We picked a red Jeep.

We chose the most popular route, which is a single road (the Klondike Highway) that takes you all the way up into Yukon Territory, Canada to Emerald Lake and the town of Carcross, then back down again.  It’s impossible to get lost.  The route is about 73 miles each way and takes about 1.5 hours to drive each way, without stops.  But, we made lots of stops so the whole trip took us about 7.5 hours.  For the most part, this route (green line on the map below) parallels the White Pass Railway (solid black line on the map below), which is the most popular port adventure in Skagway.  So, we saw a lot of the same stuff as the folks on the train, but were able to go at our own pace and stop whenever we wanted.  Here is the page from the guidebook that shows the route:

The guidebook also had detailed, mile-by-mile descriptions of everything we were seeing.  Just pay attention to the mile markers on the highway (actually km markers once in Canada) and you will be able to easily follow along in the book.  Also, note on the picture above that you do cross into Canada and thus must have your passports.  The Customs buildings are not on the actual border because that spot has terrible weather in the winter.  So, they are several miles inside of each country.

Our plan was to drive straight to Emerald Lake with only one stop on the way (Tutshi Sled Dog Tours), and then make all of our stops to enjoy the scenery and take photos on the way back.  The reason for this is that I had read that Tutshi Sled Dog Tours gets crowded and it’s best to get there early and beat the tour buses.  We really wanted to hold the puppies, so beating the crowds was a necessity.  This is why, despite hating early mornings while on vacation, I insisted that we pick the Jeep up right at 8:00 am.

Just a few minutes after leaving Skagway, the scenery became spectacular.  This was one of the few pictures I took on the drive up, since we didn’t make any stops and pictures from a moving car usually don’t turn out well.

Here we are approaching the Canadian Customs building.  We drove up, and a guy came out to our car and got our passports and asked a few questions.  Then, he took the passports inside for a few minutes and then came back out to return them.  It only took a few minutes.

Our first stop was Tutshi Sled Dog Tours.  I don’t remember exactly what time we arrived, but it is in Yukon Territory so looking at the map, it was probably about 2/3 of the way to Emerald Lake. When we pulled in, there was only one other car there and no buses so our plan had worked!

If you just want to play with the puppies, you have to pay the general admission fee of $5 CAD per person (kids under 5 are free), which is what we did.  You can also do a sled dog ride on a wheeled cart if you like (prices are here on their website).

There were four puppies, and I think I heard someone say that they were 4 weeks old.  But, they seemed older than that to me so I’m not sure.  We had them all to ourselves for almost our entire visit (probably 30 minutes).  While we were there, I started talking to the one other family that was there and I figured out that it was Wendy, the blog reader who had emailed me a few months earlier and offered to take us on a city tour the day we were in San Francisco (she lives there).  We already had plans to visit Alcatraz so unfortunately had to decline, but it was so crazy that I finally met her in person in the middle of nowhere in the Yukon Territory!  They had rented a car and were doing pretty much the same thing as us.

This was the mom of the puppies.  She was walking around making sure they were okay and keeping an eye on them.

The scenery was beautiful:

After a while, more people started to arrive and were wanting to hold the puppies so we surrendered them and went on our way.  I was very glad we arrived as early as we did.  As we were leaving, a couple of buses were pulling in.  You can see videos of the puppies on my Instagram highlights under “Alaska Part 1”.

We kept driving towards Emerald Lake.

We got there and were treated to a spectacular sight!  There is a large area to pull over and park.  It was very cold and windy so the girls stayed in the Jeep most of the time, though we did make them get out for a few minutes.  Some of these photos were taken with my Olympus TG-1, and some with my iPhone 8.

There was a sign explaining why the lake is the color it is:

There was also a large map on display.  I love maps so I spent some time looking at this and getting my bearings.

It was so cold that we just spent a few minutes there and then headed to the town of Carcross to eat lunch.  There are only a few restaurants in the area, so plan accordingly.  I found one online prior to the cruise that was in downtown Carcross and had great reviews.

On the way to Carcross, we made a stop at the Carcross Desert.

It is known by many people as the smallest desert in the world.

There was a sign that explained that it is not really a desert at all, but sand dunes.

It was still very cold and windy, but the girls wanted to play for a bit.

We were all hungry for lunch so we drove a few more minutes to Carcross (population 450).  The restaurant is called the Bistro, and it is the only restaurant in town.

Carcross is tiny, and you can look around and see pretty much all of it.  The main area is called Carcross Commons:

This is what it looked like from where we parked near the Bistro:

The Bistro had a neat atmosphere and great food.

The fish and chips were outstanding.  The cole slaw was different and delicious.

My husband got the burger and it was great as well:

I didn’t photograph the girls’ chicken tenders, but they looked fresh, not frozen.

During lunch, we talked to a young man that worked there.  He was from France and had traveled the world, living in many countries, but chose Carcross as his home and had been there for several years.  We asked him about things like grocery shopping (an hour away) and what it’s like there during the winter.  He was very nice and fun to talk to.

After a delicious meal we decided to explore Carcross on foot.  I was hoping to find a magnet (I collect them) and I had read about a bakery online that had good reviews.  On our way out, we saw Wendy and her family again.  They were heading into the Bistro for lunch.

This store was mentioned in the Jeep guide, so we went there first.  They did have magnets so I bought one.  They also had a lot of animal skins which my kids found fascinating.  It was a neat store to walk through.  There is an ice cream shop next door, but it was so cold that the girls didn’t even ask.

A White Pass train came through while we were there.

Next, we tried to find the bakery.  I didn’t know where it was, but there was only one street to walk down so we decided to go that way.

I think this is the only street in Carcross:

Still looking……

Found it!  Only, it had a padlock on the door.  I guess it wasn’t open for the season yet.

We headed back to Carcross Commons, where our car was parked, and walked around for a bit.

There was a really neat playground right next to the Bistro.

Next, we started the drive back and this time, made lots of stops for photographs.

Let me take a minute and talk about wildlife.  According to the Jeep guide, you can sometimes see a lot of wildlife on this drive but we were not so lucky.  We saw a few mountain goats from very far away (they looked like specks), my husband saw a beaver near the road, and one of the girls thinks she saw a bear next to the road but we turned around to look for it and didn’t find it.  So, that one was a maybe.  I think perhaps later in the summer you would see more animals.

When we were about halfway back to Skagway, the adults were getting sleepy, so we were delighted when we stopped here at the Yukon Suspension Bridge and saw that they have a coffee shop.  We were cold and sleepy and needed some coffee!

It was really cold outside, so the girls opted to stay in the car.  The entire facility includes the bridge, walking trails, an outdoor museum, a coffee shop, a gift shop, and a restaurant.  To access everything, you have to pay the full admission price.  But, we just wanted to go to the coffee shop so the woman at the ticket booth told us that for a reduced rate (which I can’t remember), we could access the very front part which included the gift shop, coffee shop, and restrooms.  We did not pay to walk across the bridge or look at the outdoor museum.  It was way too cold.

This is the coffee shop:

And the gift shop:

Next to the gift ship there was a map for people to mark their hometowns:

Not sure about that pin in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska……

This is looking towards the outdoor museum:

As we were leaving, they told us we could have our passports stamped so we went to the car to get them.

We got back to the car and found this one asleep.  She falls asleep on pretty much every boat or car excursion that we do.

As we got lower in elevation, the temperature did get warmer which was nice.

At this spot, the White Pass Railway went right below us:

When we saw this sign, we knew we were getting close to Skagway:

At this sign, we noticed a van pulling a trailer full of bikes and realized that people were taking a bike ride down this road back to Skagway.  The road is steep and winding and it looked terrifying.

At some point along here, we stopped at the U.S. Customs building to show our passports but I didn’t take a picture.

We caught up with a group of bike riders when we stopped at this waterfall:

We drove back into Skagway at about 3:30 and wanted to check out the downtown area.  We parked our Jeep on a side street and walked around.

Our server, Lito, had told us about this ice cream shop.  It was warmer now so the girls got some ice cream.

We are from Texas so we thought this shirt was funny:

This is the famous Arctic Brotherhood Hall.  Its facade is made from thousands of pieces of driftwood collected from Skagway Bay.

This was just too cute to not take a picture.

We ran into Harry & Meghan on the street and asked them about their day.  Today was their anniversary, as well as Meghan’s birthday, so their CM relative had surprised them with the Dog Sledding and Glacier Flightseeing (SW20) port adventure.  This is one of the most expensive port adventures, so it was quite a treat and they were so excited!  They showed us their pictures and it looked incredible.  They could not have asked for better weather.

At about 4:30, we went back to the Jeep.  We drove back to the headquarters, and filled it with gas first at the gas station across the street.  We were a bit worried because in the binder, it said that they would charge a cleaning fee if the Jeep was dirty or we had gone “off-roading”.  We hadn’t gone off-roading, but the outside of the Jeep had still gotten very muddy.  We think it was probably from some road construction that we had encountered.  When we dropped it off, they didn’t say anything and they were pressure-washing the outside of Jeeps that had already been returned so it appeared that everyone’s Jeep was dirty and it ended up being a non-issue.

It was a 5-10 minute walk back to the ship.

This is a great place to get photos of the bow:

It was still windy so this is the best I got:

We were back onboard by about 4:45 and had one hour before dinner, so we just relaxed in our rooms.

Dinner was at Triton’s and it was the Frozen menu.  Even though the previous night had been the “Freezing the Night Away” deck party, the Frozen show was shown both nights in the Walt Disney Theater (last night and tonight), and tonight was the Frozen menu.  They also showed Disney Dreams on 2 nights as well.  I know a lot of people are complaining about these double showings that DCL has started experimenting with (in place of a variety act), but I kind of like it because it makes one of the evenings more relaxing, since we don’t feel like we have to go to the show or we will miss it.  So, on this night, we didn’t go see Frozen (we had seen it the night before), which meant that we had a relaxing evening after a long excursion where we could just chill out in the room for a while and not be on a schedule (I did some laundry).

Okay, back to the Frozen menu.  I forgot to photograph it, but this is the one from last year on the Panama Canal cruise and I’m pretty sure it’s the same:

Elsa’s Coronation Scallops (excellent and one of my favorites):

Duke of Weselton’s Favorites (I didn’t taste it):

Jarlsberg Tart (very good):

Anna’s Honey-Mustard Marinated Salmon (very good):

Okay, there must have been a variation from last year’s menu because I’m not sure what this is and I can’t find it on the menu above.  It looks like the lobster ravioli, which I know we did have one of the nights we were in Triton’s, so maybe that’s it. I do remember that the lobster ravioli (whatever night it was) was not very good at all.  I’ve had it in the past and thought it was good, but this time something was off and it wasn’t good.  Something was wrong with the sauce.

The dessert menu:

Elsa’s Chocolate and Raspberry Tart (excellent):

Citron’s Mousse (good):

Norwegian Pancake (didn’t taste):

Olaf’s White Chocolate Floro Dome (didn’t taste):

Oaken Warm Apple Pudding Cake (didn’t taste):

After dinner, the girls wandered around a bit while my husband, Pat, Rita and I went to the Cadillac Lounge to listen to “Acoustic Sounds with Ed Harvey”.  It seems like Ed is on every cruise that we go on, and I enjoy his music.

Family karaoke was early tonight, at 8:30, so we met the girls there.  Afterwards, I went outside for a minute to check out the scenery.  I took this photo at 9:30 pm:

Next, it was time for bed.  We had another early morning the next morning in Juneau.

Up Next: Day 5 – Juneau

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