Skagway Travel Forum

we are going on our first cruise in september and while my husband is of fishing or diving I would like to do some christmas shopping we are stopping at skagway juneau and ketchikan and we would like to do a dog slede and heli trip awhich one is better

From what I remember, the best shopping will be in Juneau, a much bigger town than Skagway or Ketchikan. I can't imagine a dog sled ride without snow would be much fun. Do the other excursions. The helicopter ride to glacier is fun as is visiting the forest in Juneau (I did that one). Skagway is very small. We did the raft ride at the Eagle preserve and it was worth every penny.

Excuse my ignorance, but are you saying there will be no snow in these three locations in September?
Thanks for your quick reply.

I was in those places in early September and it was about 50-60F most days. Sorry if you expected snow - I think it's rare to find, even in Alaska, that time of year. I see you're from Australia so you can't be expected to know what happens on the other side of the world! Alaska is very cold and snowy in winter but as you probably know, our winter is your summertime and vice versa. You can look at my pages here to see what it was like that time of year.

I'm afraid Zuriga is right regarding the dog sleds - most of the places that do these tours for the cruise passengers hook the dogs up to sleds on wheels and run them over dirt trails. Although a few may be on glaciers. You will see some snow on tops of some mountains but even in May, there wasn't any on the ground until we got into the Yukon.

I'm not much of a shopper, but people onboard seemed to think that Ketchikan was the best for shopping "bargains". There was one place in Skagway, "S.O.S" at the very end (top) of the street (Broadway? only one main shopping street) that had good deals. Look for the Alaska port coupon book in the port terminal where you board your ship for some nice discount coupons for stores in the ports.

We just came back.
We had the helicoptor to the top of the glacier and a dog sled ride up there. It is about $400 per person. The best is in Skagway, but it is often cancelled because of clouds, our was. We went in Juneau and flew atop Mendenhall glacier and had our dog sled trip up there. I did it because my wife wanted it, but I think I enjoyed it more than her. The helicoptor part is short but very nice. The dod sled part was nicer tnan I thought it would be, the mountain soars above the glacier and it is very cool, no pun intended, to see it that close.
There are Chrismas shops and just plain shops, mostly tee shirt and jewelry, in everytown the ship stops in and they are all right in the tourist area, no worries about christmas shopping.