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
joe b. wrote:
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.
We stayed in Garden City CG the last couple of visits, all of the campgrounds in town tend to be packed.
Four cruise ships docked at Skagway this day.
Last summer, we endured three days of Skagway and had to leave. Four cruise ships were there at all times and, when one left, a new one was there the next morning to take its place. And the noise of helicopters taking off (four at a time) to take tourists up to a glacier could be heard all day long. We got a reservation on the ferry to Haines one morning and left the same afternoon.
Haines was such a nice change that we ended up spending four days there. No cruise ships came in the entire time and we actually walked all over town on the sidewalk! (that's hard to do in Skagway) We visited Fort Seward, ate seafood, took eagle photos at the Bald Eagle Preserve, toured a salmon cannery, and stocked up at the IGA before heading back into Canada, where groceries are more costly. However, we did miss the Hammer Museum--maybe next time!
Kudos to Sitka for keeping the cruise ships out in the harbor. That's one reason it is still our favorite picture-postcard town in Alaska.
By the way, Joe, we read in the Haines newspaper that the Garden City RV Park (where we stayed too) is closing this year. The city of Skagway owns the land and wants to build a new city hall on it.
