A week ago I was sooooo happy about going on the alaskan cruise - now having spent a week trawling through the port adventures i am about to have a breakdown - my mind is confused and I cannot focus on what I want to do where. Please, if I list my wishes, could anyone point me in the direction of what may be suitable:
Dog sledding
Gold panning
Bears
glacier walk
some sort of train ridethrough mountains
This is what I basically want to see - anyone recommend a trip?
The list of trips is huge so i need to narrow it down to the bullet points.
Cheers all - off to take a valium to calm down ( joke)
Did this cruise in June. Your request is easy. One excursion will get you dogs (not exactly sledding), gold panning, a train ride, and a small chance of a bear: At Skagway do the "Yukon Adventure."
http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/c...e-excursions/skagway-alaska/yukon-expedition/ The Yukon Adventure takes you on a bus up to Canada. On the way, your driver watches for wildlife. You stop for lunch at a fake town made for tourists: this is actually ok. Lunch is decent, they have a nice museum of stuffed animals, there is a gold panning area (not gold panning in an actual stream, but most aren't. if you pan gold from an actual stream, you are unlikely to get anything. so this is gravel spiked with gold that you pan in troughs of water. you get the idea, learn the skills, and actually get gold, which is much more rewarding for kids than panning a bunch of gravel and getting nothing.) Also at this site are sled dogs who train for the Iditarod. They pull people in a wheeled sled. So, not a true dog sled experience, but these are Iditarod dogs performing their true summer training. Then you board the White Pass Railroad for the ride back down to Skagway. My wife and daughters, ages 12 and 14, loved it.
In Juneau, we chose to take the helicopter up to Mendenhall Glacier and do the glacier hike. Absolutely perfect. It was wonderful. We spent over two hours exploring the glacier.
In Ketchikan, we met up with a local guy who takes people around in his van. He knows where to find bear, and we did see several bears.
Frankly, you are in good shape. You know what you want to do, so just choose some excursions that will provide those opportunities. Have fun!