Skagway Excursions/Any suggestions??

[TweedleDee/Dum]

I have a 13 year old daughter and a 10 year old son. My family loves the outdoors. I am currently looking at the "Adventure Park and Ziplne" or the Liarsville Gold Rush Trail Camp and Salmon Bake. Has anyone been on these excursions? Your comments are greatly appreciated. My son would love to pan for gold but in the description it mentions a puppet show!! I don't think he would like that much at all!!

 

[nzdisneymom]

We did this one in Skagway which included a stop at Liarsville which was fun to see but not a highlight of the day - we did get to pan for gold but it's pretty contrived.

White Pass Railway and Trail Camp
Location: Skagway, Alaska At a Glance
Duration: 4.5-5 Hours
On this tour you will:
Board a vintage rail car for an approximate 95-minute, fully narrated trip aboard the historic White Pass & Yukon Route. Against all odds, the iron trail was carved through some of the North's most rugged terrain in 1898. This engineering wonder climbs nearly 3,000 feet over 20 miles of steep grades and cliff-hanging turns. Note: Passports are required for all Guests, since this tour will cross the border into Canada.
Arrive in Fraser, British Columbia, where you'll embark a deluxe motor coach and travel down the spectacular Klondike Highway, taking in the sights of Tormented Valley and Pitchfork Falls during the approximate 30-minute trip.
Discover Liarsville Gold Rush Trail Camp, nestled beside a waterfall at the foot of the White Pass and so named for the journalists dispatched to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush who fabricated tall-tales from this location. Enjoy the waterfall and the authentic exhibits of Liarsville or browse for souvenirs in the Fancy Goods Gift Shop.
Learn the art of gold panning, and then be set free in the Liarsville gold fields, where you are guaranteed to find the precious metal that drove men and women wild with gold fever! You are guaranteed to find gold in every pan!
Gather at the Liarsville Hippodrome, where a cast of sourdoughs and dance hall girls will entertain you with a hilarious melodrama and a poem by the "Bard of the North," Robert Service. Take time to enjoy hot cider and cookies or wander through the camp and visit the general store, saloon and laundry tents to view the antiques and vintage clothing left behind by the miners and dance hall girls concluding your approximate 75-minute visit.
Re-board the motor coach and travel back to the pier.
Important Additional Information
Passports are required for all Guests, since this tour will cross the border into Canada.

 

[sabrecmc]

We did gold panning in Juneau and you actually went to the creek where gold was first found, got a pan and got to sit down and get your feet wet. This is actually a public park, so there were just regular people there panning for gold at the same time. They did make sure that each person on the tour found some flakes in the first pan, which they give you. For the rest, you were on your own. The kids had a blast! Felt way more authentic.

In Skagway, we used Chilikoot Charters (sp?). Great excursion on the White Pass and then the dog sled camp, with some other stops along the way. Perhaps not as adventuresome as zip-lining though.

 

[TweedleDee/Dum]

We did gold panning in Juneau and you actually went to the creek where gold was first found, got a pan and got to sit down and get your feet wet. This is actually a public park, so there were just regular people there panning for gold at the same time. They did make sure that each person on the tour found some flakes in the first pan, which they give you. For the rest, you were on your own. The kids had a blast! Felt way more authentic.

In Skagway, we used Chilikoot Charters (sp?). Great excursion on the White Pass and then the dog sled camp, with some other stops along the way. Perhaps not as adventuresome as zip-lining though.

So in Juneau you just went to the public park and there were people panning for gold in the creek? Where you able to rent some equipment?

 

[nordkin]

We did this one in Skagway which included a stop at Liarsville which was fun to see but not a highlight of the day - we did get to pan for gold but it's pretty contrived.

White Pass Railway and Trail Camp
Location: Skagway, Alaska At a Glance
Duration: 4.5-5 Hours
On this tour you will:
Board a vintage rail car for an approximate 95-minute, fully narrated trip aboard the historic White Pass & Yukon Route. Against all odds, the iron trail was carved through some of the North's most rugged terrain in 1898. This engineering wonder climbs nearly 3,000 feet over 20 miles of steep grades and cliff-hanging turns. Note: Passports are required for all Guests, since this tour will cross the border into Canada.
Arrive in Fraser, British Columbia, where you'll embark a deluxe motor coach and travel down the spectacular Klondike Highway, taking in the sights of Tormented Valley and Pitchfork Falls during the approximate 30-minute trip.
Discover Liarsville Gold Rush Trail Camp, nestled beside a waterfall at the foot of the White Pass and so named for the journalists dispatched to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush who fabricated tall-tales from this location. Enjoy the waterfall and the authentic exhibits of Liarsville or browse for souvenirs in the Fancy Goods Gift Shop.
Learn the art of gold panning, and then be set free in the Liarsville gold fields, where you are guaranteed to find the precious metal that drove men and women wild with gold fever! You are guaranteed to find gold in every pan!
Gather at the Liarsville Hippodrome, where a cast of sourdoughs and dance hall girls will entertain you with a hilarious melodrama and a poem by the "Bard of the North," Robert Service. Take time to enjoy hot cider and cookies or wander through the camp and visit the general store, saloon and laundry tents to view the antiques and vintage clothing left behind by the miners and dance hall girls concluding your approximate 75-minute visit.
Re-board the motor coach and travel back to the pier.
Important Additional Information
Passports are required for all Guests, since this tour will cross the border into Canada.

We did this one as well and I agree with you about Liarsville. The panning for gold was pretty lame, but we still enjoyed doing it. The highlight for us was the train.

 

[sabrecmc]

So in Juneau you just went to the public park and there were people panning for gold in the creek? Where you able to rent some equipment?

Hee, yes, the tour provided us with the pan, showed us how it was done and helped get the flakes into little tubes for take-home. I just meant that it felt more authentic than the typical set-up b/c it was still a place where actual local people showed up to really pan for gold. They were serious about it, too! The DCL tour was great though. Didn't last too long, so the kids weren't bored, and the grown-ups...well, I think we got into it as much as some of the kids! If we'd had some adult beverages along, we'd have been dangerous! It was really neat getting to splash around, literally roll my pants up and actually pan for gold. DD loved the panning and then had a blast with some of the other kids just setting rocks up in the creek and building a sort of make-shift dam. So, really, what I was saying was that if you want to do gold panning, I'd suggest this excursion. We actually did the whale watching and Mendenhall glacier in the morning and this in the afternoon, so we did 2 tours in one day. The gold panning was offered in conjunction with other things as a separate tour as well, I believe. I want to say with a clam bake or something. Anyhow, it was really neat.