worth going to haines, while in skagway??

[rain1018]

hey everyone!!

we will be in skagway in late july on our cruise from 7am to 9pm. we have been to alaska before and done the only tours we wanted to do in skagway. we were reading we could take a fast ferry for 35 each way over to haines for the day.

 

is it worth it? has anyone done this and is this something we should consider doing or not risk the ferry ride?

 

any help is greatly appreciated.

[sherryf]

We have taken the ferry over for the Eagle Preserve float trip. The town of Haines is very small. I wouldn't go over there just for the town, but if you can find an excursion or something specific that you want to do, it might be worth the trip.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We have been to Haines a couple of times -- 2 different cruise lines that stopped there.

The town is small.

First time we did a tour there. Second time we took the ship tour to Skagway so we knew what time our ferry would be returning to Haines to catch the ship.

If you can find a tour that you would like to do there, then it might be worth it. But I would not take the ferry just for saying that I had been to that port.

We have been to Skagway many times and always find something to do there. More places to have lunch than Haies has.

[cole]

We have taken the ferry over for the Eagle Preserve float trip. The town of Haines is very small. I wouldn't go over there just for the town, but if you can find an excursion or something specific that you want to do, it might be worth the trip.

 

If you are interested in seeing eagles - this tour is great - but other than that - Haines is probably not worth the time it would take to ferry over and back.

B. Cole

[WeRockChalkKU]

Our cruise ports in Skagway and we are taking the ferry to Haines, renting a car and touring on our own. The problem we have run into is that the cruiselines hold the majority of seats on the ferries. We booked our ferry months in advance and didn't get our first choices of times (in fact we ended up with the last seats on that ferry) because the ships had tickets held in hopes of selling out each of their excursions to Haines. The ferry company told us we could always show up and see if the ships had released any of the tickets after each ship's excursion deadline.

 

So, you might want to call the ferry office to see if there even any tickets available the day you need.

[ROCruiser]

One of our Alaskan cruises had a stop in Haines. Nothing much in that pretty little town except a couple of stores. If you plan on driving around that might be different.

[rain1018]

thx so much for the input everyone~

[doug52]

We just returned yesterday from our cruise to Alaska and here is what we did on our Skagway day.

 

Our Cruise ship was in port for about 13 hours in Skagway, like yours, which allowed us to do two excursions. In the a.m., we took the train to Frasier and a motor coach down which returned us to Skagway around 11 am, giving us time to explore before catching the ferry to Haines at 2pm.

 

We enjoy being active on our shore excursions, so we booked a hike through the Chilkat State Park with Rainbow Glacier Adventures. I found them on trip advisor, very highly rated. Not much on them here on CC.

 

So, we really like to have small groups versus the large cruise ship excursions. Well, we had our own private tour guide for my Wife, Daughter and myself. Her name is Jenn and she has lived in Haines for 33 years, is an artist, a hiker, naturalist, and kind of a hippie/Renaissance woman; meaning she is very unique and a real pleasure to spend over 3 hours with.

 

By the way, our last three excursions with Harv and Marv in Juneau, Rainbow Glaciers in Haines, and South Sea Kayaks in Ketchikan ended up being all personal as we were the only participants for each of these tours. Not that this was planned, but another major advantage to booking yourself.

 

Haine is small, but I found it much more of an Alaskan experience than the tourist town of Skagway. More natural beauty, better weather(meaning less wind) and a great hike through a rainforest down to the shore where you could clearly see Rainbow and Davidson Glaciers.

 

Rainbow Glacier Adventures has many other excursions in Haines, and the owner, Joe Ordonez, is very easy to talk to.

 

Good luck, I think you should give Haines a try. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

[rain1018]

thanks for that, will look into that company!

 

we are doing harv and marvs in juneau as well! how was it for u?

 

in ketchikan we are booked with seawind aviation to go see the bears!

[Arizona-Cruising]

We have done Harv and Marvs and also the Orca tour (purple boat) both are great and entertaining.

 

If you are on a Princess tour this was more $$ But so worth it smaller groups flight plane fly to Island with bears and the trip back across the ocean and the whales you see before you reach the ports where unbelievable

 

Whales, Bears & Glaciers Adventure

 

JNU-875 | Juneau, Alaska |

 

Video http://www.princess.com/find/excursion/exDetails.do?tourCode=JNU-875&t=A&exType=S

 

The Bear was right along side of road I took this from my cheap camera phone, the whales kept us entertained for 30 minutes and some breached, my battery died so I missed a lot but they were so close to the boat, and out side town limits so we got to sit longer and watch.

The flight was breathless.

Do the flight first and boat back..... they split up group 1/2 boats over other flies over...

[skibozo]

We have done the eagle preserve float trip 3x. It's a fun ferry ride over and we enjoyed floating in the raft down the river. However Haines itself seems very small via our 'bus tour' zip through town and fort area.

 

However......on another trip the ferry returned to the dock immediately after exiting the harbor due to high waves and all the tours were refunded. Don't know why they even attempted it, guess too much money at stake. So imagine this scenario....what if you get to Haines and the waves pick up and you can't return to Skagway? This could be one where a ship tour guarantee of not leaving without you might be handy.

 

Also, one time the ferry was full and a local couple could not board. So reservations might be a good idea to guarantee a return seat.