Holland America LandCruise (Denali - Yukon) question

[Pair of Hikers]

We are on a land cruise starting in Anchorage with travel to the Yukon and then into Skagway where we spend a night at a hotel. The next day our boat docks in Skagway and is docked until 9:00 p.m. We just realized we will be transferred to the ship from the hotel in the morning and then free to tour in Skagway. Does anyone know how this works? How much time it takes and when we might be free to tour (or in our case hike)? I called Holland America. While they told me I would be free to go off on an early excursion booked through them, I was not able to get any information about the embarkation to the ship and beginning the cruise part of our trip. If you have done this, or know how it works, we would appreciate. Thanks in advance for your help.

[dyeadave]

You will have plenty of time for hiking while you are here in Skagway.

just go o the NPS which is only about a block from your hotel and they will give you plenty of advice about all of the hikes available  right around here from town.

you don't need any of their ship tours, just go on your own!

DD

[Pair of Hikers]

Yes. We have a full day but it appears we will need to check in at our ship before setting out. First time cruiser, have no idea how long that takes. We would like to have 8 hours and were originally thinking we could set off by 9:00 a.m. but we don't understand if embarkation would take us several hours. We know it is a limited group moving on to the ship - only the folks from the land tour - but we are trying to better understand our morning. Best thing about planning hiking - we do it on our own at our own pace. We'd just like to be back on the ship for dinner and relaxation!

[oaktreerb]

You are on a cruisetour that has a journey host who can help you with your transfer to the ship.  I loved spending the night in Skagway.  It was so quiet after all the ships left, the shops closed, and the local and seasonal residents came out to enjoy an evening stroll or hike.  

 

This is our experience:

You will board a bus late the next morning for the very short ride to the ship where you will say goodby to your journey host and be escorted into the showroom where you will get your ship docs and room keys.  The first year we stayed overnight in Skagway on a Yukon tour we sent our luggage on to the ship with “bags out” process and took a HAL excursion with the fast ferry to Haines for the Eagle Preserve excursion.  After the excursion we went back  to the ferry, then to the ship where we checked in and got our room key,  We were back in time for the lifeboat drill.  Tell your journey host what you want to do and he/she will help you.  You probably don’t want to waste your day waiting around for the transfer from hotel to ship!

[Pair of Hikers]

Thank you so much for your response. We hope to hike Upper Dewey Lake and would like to include the Devil's Punchbowl which would add enough extra time that doing it the night before might not be realistic. I had the same thought about the evening before - that it would be a wonderful opportunity to explore Skagway. I appreciate your answer and we hope our journey host will help us so we can have a full day of hiking before boarding the ship. Did you enjoy the Haines Eagle Preserve excursion. I think they offer that to us the night we arrive in Skagway. Again, thank you so much! Just counting the days......

[oaktreerb]

We did enjoy the Haines Eagle Preserve but the trip to Haines was on a very foggy morning, there wasn’t much water in the braided river and we saw only a few eagles.  It was an adventure!  Skagway has some wonderful hiking opportunities.  The visitor’s center has a wonderful map describing hiking trails by difficulty level.