Check Cruise Ship Schedules
Check the number of cruse ships scheduled to visit a port town before planning a visit in order to avoid the thousands of t-shirt buying masses of people. Just do an internet search on "Cruise Ships i...
Forum Discussion
If a person enjoys people watching it can be fun to be in some of the SE Alaska towns when the cruise ships arrive. They are just there for the day and by dinner time, all the visitors have returned to the ships and the towns go back to sleep. LOL Of course most of the businesses do as well. Every so often I enjoy Skagway and the chaos of the place. The cruise folks don't stay in the campgrounds so no problem there, but you may have to have lunch at your rig to find a place to sit.
It is fun to walk the shops and see all the "rustic" names being used. Real gold rush sounding for the most part, lots of high priced, quality jewelry stores, etc. I was talking to a clerk in one of them and asked her who owned the shop. Said she didn't know but her paycheck had "Tiffney of NY" across the top. Not too many of the shops are owned by Skagweigans, at least full year residents, but lots of summer work available there if anyone is interested.
When we get tired of the chaos of Skagway, we will either head back up the hill to Carcross or to Atlin, or Whitehorse. Sometimes we will leave the RV in Skagway and take the fast passenger ferry over to Haines for the day. So laid back over there. Last time we stopped there, 2009, I believe they were down to only one cruise ship a week and the shop owners were not happy about it.
Skagway is one of the places I will call to get a campground reservation, usually a day or two ahead. We stayed in Garden City CG the last couple of visits, all of the campgrounds in town tend to be packed. Have reservations for the scenic railroad if you plan to ride it and it doesn't matter, to me, if the town is crowded for the day. Skagway for breakfast is a sleepy little place, population of 600 to 800, I would guess and by noon it is over 15,000 people there trying to get someone to take their money. I can take roughly 3 days of Skagway and then I am done and have to get out of there. I have also been there in the winter time and it is really sleepy then, ghost town almost.
While at many of the SE ports, the larger of the cruise ships have to anchor out, in Skagway they have deep water right at the docks. The docks were originally built for the ore ships to transport concentrate to mills around the world. Skagway has docking for at least 5 of the large vessels, such as these two.
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Skagway docks
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Four cruise ships docked at Skagway this day. Nice runway in the foreground.
It is fun to walk the shops and see all the "rustic" names being used. Real gold rush sounding for the most part, lots of high priced, quality jewelry stores, etc. I was talking to a clerk in one of them and asked her who owned the shop. Said she didn't know but her paycheck had "Tiffney of NY" across the top. Not too many of the shops are owned by Skagweigans, at least full year residents, but lots of summer work available there if anyone is interested.
When we get tired of the chaos of Skagway, we will either head back up the hill to Carcross or to Atlin, or Whitehorse. Sometimes we will leave the RV in Skagway and take the fast passenger ferry over to Haines for the day. So laid back over there. Last time we stopped there, 2009, I believe they were down to only one cruise ship a week and the shop owners were not happy about it.
Skagway is one of the places I will call to get a campground reservation, usually a day or two ahead. We stayed in Garden City CG the last couple of visits, all of the campgrounds in town tend to be packed. Have reservations for the scenic railroad if you plan to ride it and it doesn't matter, to me, if the town is crowded for the day. Skagway for breakfast is a sleepy little place, population of 600 to 800, I would guess and by noon it is over 15,000 people there trying to get someone to take their money. I can take roughly 3 days of Skagway and then I am done and have to get out of there. I have also been there in the winter time and it is really sleepy then, ghost town almost.
While at many of the SE ports, the larger of the cruise ships have to anchor out, in Skagway they have deep water right at the docks. The docks were originally built for the ore ships to transport concentrate to mills around the world. Skagway has docking for at least 5 of the large vessels, such as these two.
Skagway docks
Four cruise ships docked at Skagway this day. Nice runway in the foreground.
