We were on the July 9 sailing. We had an awesome time with great weather! Here's a quick synopsis of the excursions we took.
Skagway: Yukon Bus Excursion (with 15-minute dog cart ride) and railway:
We booked this privately through Chilkoot tours. I highly reccomend this trip. We opted to take the bus up and the train down. Our driver met us at the pier. Our shuttle bus held approximatley 25 people. The driver headed up the highway into the moutains, making frequent stops along the way at various scenic places. We then headed into the Yukon territory of Canada, where we stopped at the world's smallest dessert in Carcross, Emerald Lake (simply stunning), and then had lunch at Caribou Crossing, a cheesy little tourst town. But this is where we did the 15-minute dog cart ride, which was awesome! My daughter then got to pet the husky puppies and see some of the various other animals they had. We headed back to the train station and then took the White Pass Railway down the mountain back to Skagway. This was beautiful. The whole thing lasted about 7 hours and we saw so many spectacular things! The kids did get a little antsy the last 45 minutes or so of the train ride, but it had been a long day so I don't blame them.
Juneau: Whale Watching with Harv & Marv: Juneau was the only day it rained on our whole cruise. And rain it did! But, that did not stop us from whale watching! Many of the flight-based excursions were cancelled this day so I was glad we had not booked those. Our driver took us by bus (about a 30 minute ride through Juneau) and then we arrived at the pier where our boat was waiting for us. We were a family of 6 and the boat fit us comfortably. We stayed in the inside section and we headed out right away and saw a pod of Orcas right off the bat, which is apparently unusual (they said they only see orcas once every 6 or 7 days). We also found humpbacks, and saw sea lions, eagles, salmon, a porpose, etc. It was very neat. My daughter loved it (she is 6). My 20-month-old fell asleep on the boat, but when she was awake she was excited too. We were out on the water about 3 hours, then the driver took us to Mendenhall Glacier. We were there about 30 minutes, then he picked us back up and took us into town. We wanted to eat at Tracy's Crab Shack, so we got dropped off in town and walked over to Tracy's (yum!!!!) then took a ship shuttle back to the boat. It was an awesome excursion!
Ketchikan: Rain Forest hike, wildlife and raptor center: This was a walk through the rain forest. It was sunny in Ketchikan, which was very unusual! The bus ride took about 20 minutes, then we broke up into small groups and our guide took us out into the rain forest. This was advertised on the Disney site as a stroller-friendly trail and was open to small children. Well, unfortunately, my 20-month-old decided to have a meltdown in the middle of the tour, which was mortifying....and the guide did not make it better by telling me she was going to have to ask us to leave the tour since my daughter was "disturbing the rain forest." I was so stressed out trying to calm her down that I couldn't enjoy the tour. She did calm down shortly after that and we then headed to the raptor center where we saw an owl, bald eagle, and a totem pole carver, before the bus took us back to town. We got back more like 12:45 instead of 12:30, but they told us the ship wasn't actually going to leave until 1 p.m. so all was fine.
Victoria: Butterfly House and Butchart Gardens: The bus ride took us through town on its way to the butterfly house. Took about 45 minutes to get there. The butterfly house is nice and we spent 45 minutes there, but I wish we could have just skipped it and gone straight to the gardens. We could have seen the whole butterfly house in 20 minutes so it seemed stupid to waste so much time there when the light was fading. We had about 1:15 minutes in the garden. It was simply amazing. Tip - head to the sunken gardens first, while there is still light. It was beautiful. Light started to fade pretty fast around 9:15, and it was pitch black by 10 p.m. when we left, but the gardens were lit up and it was pretty. It was a rush to get through them and I know we didn't see everything, but what we did see was so spectacular that I felt it was worth it. I'd rather be there for 1:15 vs. not get to see it at all, ya know?