Who would have thought that when I booked our excursion for an 8:30 start time that my early risers would need to be woken up to make it?!
I figured with the 2 hour time difference that they would be up at the crack of dawn, but they slept consistently until 9:00 every morning. (The blessings of an inside room).
Today we were going on the Liarsville excursion. I booked it because I really wanted my kids to pan for gold and I figured that this was something that we could all enjoy. My parents were doing The Klondike Experience and the train ride today. We decided to do our excursions separately so my parents could experience Alaska without the kids holding them back. In hindsight I probably should have booked the Klondike experience with them as it sounds like the kids really would have enjoyed that one and it would have been nice to tour with them. I knew that we were not doing the train because there is no way I would subject anyone to being stuck in a confined space with my two youngest children for 2 hours. My parents really enjoyed it though and even saw a bear.
We woke up bright and early and quickly headed up to beach blanket buffet for breakfast. Then we met our tour in the theater. We were led to board these big yellow buses, which my kids enjoyed, and our bus driver's name was Butterfingers. He was very good at giving us a little history of Skagway. We traveled a few minutes to Liarsville where we were greeted by some comical people.
From there we got some very watered down apple cider and some cookies. We watched a little puppet show, which was cute but did not engage my children at all. They were pretty bored watching it. I took pictures of it, but they didn't turn out so well, so I will spare you those pictures.
We were given instructions on how to pan for gold and taken on a scavenger hunt of sorts. It wasn't really much of a scavenger hunt because we were put in groups of 15 or so people and led around by one of the workers. I think my kids really would have enjoyed doing the scavenger hunt on their own and figuring out the clues by themselves. Instead they weren't all the interested in following the guides around.
Then we were led to pan for gold. They had given us instructions, but we were not having much luck. Out of fear from dumping all our gold out we were all hesitant to really look the way we were supposed to. Thankfully Chip and Dale came around to make it a little more interesting.
The guides were really good and came and helped our kids find their gold. They spent the time necessary to allow them to feel like they were finding the gold themselves and because of that the actual panning for gold was a positive experience for them.
After my kids found their gold they went and danced with Chip and Dale. I think if the characters weren't there my kids would not have enjoyed themselves at all. My daughter did get some guitar instructions from one of the staff, which she thought was pretty fun.
We went and roasted some marshmallows at the campfire. We were waiting for Donald Duck to have a shorter line before we went and visited him. The kids enjoyed their marshmallows and played a little more with Chip and Dale.
We went over to see Donald and I made sure that the kids each got their own picture with him since most character lines are so long we don't have that opportunity. I am happy I did it this way because these are some of my favorite photos from the trip. My youngest son decided he was scared of Donald all of a sudden so it took some coercing from Donald but he eventually grabbed Donald's hand and walked with him over to the waterfall. It was so nice of Donald to take that time with him.
After all of this we were led over to the salmon bake. They had cesaer salad with salmon in it, pasta salad, baked beans with caribou sausage in it, chicken, salmon and blueberry cake. (There were probably other things but I can't remember now). It was only about 10:30 or so when we were eating, so it was an awkward time and I honestly didn't think the food was all that great. The chicken was good, the salmon was ok and the beans were decent. None of us really ate that much though. Perhaps it was because it was so early and we weren't ready for that kind of meal, or it could have been it just wasn't all that good, I'm really not sure.
I believe we were on the bus to head back just after 11. We were given a couple of options as to where we wanted to be dropped off. We decided we wanted to go back to the boat.
We had a little bit of a rest on the boat and then grabbed ourselves some lunch. The kids and I delivered some more of our FE gifts and then they headed off to the club. They did not want to go shopping with us, so we decided to leave them in the club and do some quick shopping.
I know, some of you are crawling in your skin. Please don't attack me for it. You need to keep in mind that Skagway is so small. You can see the complete town from the boat and we had a good 4 hours before all aboard time. We were only gone for an hour while we quickly shopped the shops and we made it back to the boat just fine and all the kids were more than ok. Everyone was happy they got to do what they wanted to do. Maybe we were lucky that nothing happened to us or our kids, or maybe it just wasn't a big deal.
I thought Skagway was a good place to shop simply because it was so small. It had all the main touristy type stores and stores with the made in China type items. I did not see much in the way of unique items in the Skagway area. They all seemed to be stores that were in both the other ports as well. I have no photos as they are all on my other camera, which I seemed to have misplaced in all the chaos. I know it's here somewhere, I just am not sure where.
There is something to be said about seeing the cruise ship in among the mountains. It's not something you see very often. When I think of cruise ships I think of tropical beach locations. It was a refreshing change.
Tonight was our dinner in Triton's which is one of my favorite menus, so I was not going to be late for this one. Some times the best laid plans....
I just had to get some photos done. I knew I was going to buy the cd if I could get some good photos, so I made an effort to do it. The kids and my husband obliged but weren't too thrilled about it. I think it was worth the efforts though as we got quite a few nice photos throughout the trip.
We managed to get pictures with Captain Jack Sparrow, Terk and Captain Hook and Mr. Smee tonight. There were opportunities to meet Pinocchio, Stitch and a few others as well but we just didn't make it to see them.
Tonight the evening show was Iron Man 3 in the theater. We hadn't seen it yet so we decided to let the kids go to the club and nursery so we could have an evening for ourselves. We enjoyed the movie and the kids didn't even miss us. We went to pick the kids up from the nursery and they had them both asleep. The nursery workers are such amazing people. They were so kind to our kids the whole trip and our little ones just loved going there.
We had a great day in Skagway.
