We just wanted to add our quick reviews for those who travel next year.
Skagway--Glacier Lake Kayak and White Pass Rail Adventure
This was our favorite of the three excursions. In our case, we took a bus over to Fraser, Canada, which is the turnaround point for most the White Pass RR trips. There is a lake right there (Lake Bernard) with some gorgeous views. The guides (we had three for about 13 people) already have the kayaks ready. There is a short orientation on how to use the spray skirt, rudder, and basic paddling techniques. We had brought our own raingear, but they provide that (along with hats) if you don't have it. The paddling was fairly easy over the lake (we did not have much wind) and lasted about an hour. The lake was beautiful with a couple of streams coming in and some nice coves. They challenged us to stand up in the kayak and the most fun part was watching my 9 year old daughter pull that off. At the end of the paddling, we were offered light snack and warm drinks. The ride back on the RR was the scenic trip, with the added advantage of being in a private car that the outfitter (Packer Expeditions) had on the train. No rushing for the seats on the "good side" since we had the car to ourselves for most of the trip. The conductor even opened up the cupola on top so some people could sit up there.
Juneau--Exclusive Whale Encounter and Mendenhall Glacier
This was a very disappointing excursion in just about all aspects. There was absolutely nothing exclusive about it. This was a typical cruise excursion. About three dozen of us were loaded on a bus. The bus drove to a harbor about 15 minutes away. We then boarded a medium size boat (Did I mention there were nearly 40 people on this excursion?) There were two "naturalists" on board who gave "talks" which you couldn't hear while the boat went out from the harbor. After about a 30 minute ride, we stopped to look at one whale. You could go outside on and stand on the deck fore and aft, but there wasn't much to see. We were there maybe 15 minutes. We then drove to another location, which had a lot of boats , and more whales. We never got close to the boats or the whales and left after about 10 minutes. Quite honestly, we saw more whales from the Wonder. After about 30 minutes, we went back to the dock. The description said we were to be offered salmon, chocolate, and fudge along with an assortment of drinks, but all they really had was one brand of soda, smoked salmon, and hot water to make powdered hot chocolate. We reboarded the bus and went to the glacier. Total time at the glacier was only 60 minutes, so there is not enough time to do much except take a few pictures and touch a piece of glacier ice. We did see a bear. Quite honestly, you need at least 2 hours at the glacier to really do anything. If we were going to go again,we would do what others did and just take the bus there on our own. When we got back to the ship, we filled out a comment form expressing our disappointment and
DCL refunded 25% of the cost, which was appreciated.
In Ketchikan, we did the Back Country Jeep and Canoe Adventure. This was reported on by Cyclenut earlier (we had the first red jeep) and was, as my DD kept saying on the jeep's cb radio, "Awesome". Aside from recommending you not try and break paddles for free souvenirs, the only thing I want to point is that this excursion uses the same canoes and nature trails as the Rain Forest Canoe Adventure and Nature Trail excursion. The differences are that you take a bus to the lake for the other excursion instead of a jeep and you paddle for about an hour instead of the 15-30 minutes you do on the jeep excursion. The nature trail and camp were fine, with some nice snacks, including a good clam chowder cooked over an open fire.
Overall, our only regret was not trying one of the flight seeing excursions. We had decided not to do those because we did not want to risk cancellations in case of bad weather. However, on our cruise, that wasn't really an issue.
