Haines/Skagway

[sijid]

Hi, all! Our cruise (Volendam SB, 8/31/08) has us spending 6:30am-9:00 pm in Haines. Naturally, when I was originally planning, I thought we were spending the day in Skagway (:o ), and got myself all excited about the drive to Emerald Lake. I've seen a lot of "things to do in Haines" posts, and am not altogether convinced that there's enought to keep us all (four) occupied for an entire day. Should we consider doing the Emerald Lake drive anyway? Or possibly the train trip? What are the time factors, as well as expense factors?

 

Any enlightenment would be greatly appreciated.

[plenox]

Is it possible to visit both Emerald Lake and Haines on the same day? has anyone done that?

[mii]

This is just a suggestion but before you decide on excursions to do in Skagway you better know the fast ferry times. Here is their web site.

www.chilkatcruises.com

 

Marilyn

[vbmom87]

this thread should help explain some options to you:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=568299&highlight=skagway+haines

[Solstice]

I can highly recommend the jet boat trip up into the eagle preserve. We had a large family group ranging in ages from 6 to 65 (and everything in between) and everyone loved it.

[JohnQ]

Sandra,

We were on the Volendam in late July and we stopped in Skagway for 13hrs. Since we had rented a car and driven to Emerald Lake and Carcross on the previous trip, we wanted to see Haines. Trying to get accurate info on fast ferry was time consuming and not available until last minute.

 

At first we planned to rent car in Skagway and do Emerald Lake drive again, a little faster than first time and then come back and catch a ferry to Haines at about 2 or so. When checking the ferry schedule, I found that going from Skagway to Haines and back on most days are only guaranteed for 8am, 12noon and 7 or 8pm. I knew we would have hard time getting back to dock by 12 noon. On my first call to Chilcoot ferries, I was told they often have extra trips if needed, but couldnt guarantee. Their busy day in 2007 is Wednesdays since that is when they have a ship or two in Haines and many people want to come to Skagway to ride the train. Other days they don't add a lot of trips.

 

As stated on the referenced thread, they also provide the transportation for all the ship tours to Haines from Skagway on those other days, and are not available to independent travelers.

 

So because of all that, we cancelled our Skagway car, and planned to go on first ferry we could catch to Haines and come back on next to last ferry for safety. We found out a couple of days ahead that we would be in Skagway early, which meant we might be able to catch the 8am ferry, which we were able to do.

 

In Haines, we had reserved a car and just drove around all day. Went to the state park twice looking for wildlife. Saw a few eagles and a glimpse of a bear there, and lots of fishermen. We also drove to eagle preserve and saw nothing. It is interesting landscape and you can envision what it must look like in winter with 30,000 pair of eagles there. We had lunch in town, walked around, went thru the old fort grounds and were ready to catch the ferry at 5 or so. There is also rafting and 4x4 trip that gets good reviews here. We just looked around on our own.

 

Since you are going from the Haines end, you may have time to see some of both, if you have long day. Make sure of the ferry times and you may want to get reservation in advance or go thru ship for a tour. Our problem with ship tour is that we still wouldn't have had time to walk around in Haines before or after our tour. Hope that helps. I have the ferry schedule somewhere too, but it is on line.