In case you missed it, click here to start with Day 1 of the Trip Report.
Day 4 – Skagway.
This morning we were up early to shower and get our day started. All ashore was at 7:15am. In the planning stages, we had scheduled a Jeep rental with DIY Jeep Tours to do a self-guided drive of the Klondike highway, so we were excited to get the day started. The tour route is similar to that of the White Pass Railway excursion, but this way we could stop whenever we wanted to for pictures, eating, etc. Our Navigator gave us this information for the day:
We finished breakfast in Cabana’s around 7:45am, then headed out to pick up our Jeep. It was a short walk to the Jeep rental location, maybe around 10 minutes. Below are some pictures of the Disney Wonder on our walk over:
This picture was taken from the Jeep rental place
We arrived around 8:15am to pick up the Jeep (you can read a detailed review on the DIY Jeep Tours excursion here).
Soon we were off! On our way out of town, we spotted this “Welcome to Skagway” sign so we stopped to take a photo (we discovered a more official “Welcome to Skagway” sign on our return trip but didn’t stop):
Back on the road again, the scenery became more beautiful with each mile that passed:
It got a little cooler at one point!
There were tons of tour buses all along the route as well. We decided to make some stops on the way back to hopefully avoid some of the bus crowds at the pull-offs. We did stop at the Yukon sign:
Starting to see some blue sky!
The route takes approximately 1.5 hours (3 hours roundtrip) and your final stop is at Emerald Lake. The skies had turned blue and the weather had warmed up nicely to the lower 60’s. Emerald Lake was beautiful!
We made it to Emerald Lake around 11:00am and discussed stopping for lunch in Carcross on the way back, but we knew there might be a lot of tour buses stopping there as well, so we decided we would head back to Skagway and eat lunch in town. This worked best, because we also wanted to spend some time in Skagway and do some shopping. All aboard wasn’t until 8:00pm, but Eddie and I had a massage scheduled for 6:30pm and wanted to grab dinner before our massage.
On our drive back we stopped at the “Twilight Zone” sign showing the time change between Alaska and Canada:
We stopped at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign since we hadn’t stopped in the morning:
Shortly after crossing the border we saw this on the road ahead:
A grizzly! (We learned that a brown bear and a grizzly bear are one and the same from Captain Paul during our whale watching tour the day before). We were so excited to see some wildlife. The bear had crossed the road so we pulled off and were able to get a pretty close up picture:
We stopped by this waterfall on our way back and ran into some cyclists. They took off as we were pulling up and we passed by them later on the road. I would be scared to death to do that! The road is downhill to Skagway and so many tour buses go along that route, not to mention the bears!
We made it back to town around 1:15pm and went ahead and fueled up the Jeep and returned it, then walked to try to find something to eat. We ended up stopping at Bites on Broadway. It was a little sandwich / pastry shop. I ordered chicken salad on an everything bagel and Eddie ordered a breakfast bagel. Hunter didn’t want a sandwich, so he just snacked on some chips and a coke. I forgot to take pictures of the food!
After we ate we went to some of the gift shops. Hunter was wanting to look at the collection of knives with the hand-carved woodworking. After walking around, Hunter ended up buying two small knives. I was looking for a Christmas ornament, and ended up buying this one:
Afterwards we headed back to the ship. It was around 4:00pm when we boarded, and there were a couple tables set up when we walked back on, one with hot mulled wine for purchase, the other with hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was free, but the wine was $5.50 (or $10 if purchased with souvenir mug). Before I knew what was happening, Eddie had bought the $5.50 glass (had I known he was going to buy some, I would have bought with the souvenir mug – but he says we have too many cups/mugs at our house already, lol). I drank a few sips of the wine, but it wasn’t something that I loved. I prefer hot chocolate.
We went back to our room and decided we would like to go to the dining room for dinner – the Frozen menu that we didn’t care for was switched to the following night – so we called the spa to see if we could change our massage appointment from 6:30 to 5:00pm. We were able to change it without a problem, so we told Hunter we would meet him in the dining room as soon as we were finished. Our dining servers (Svetlana and Istvan, whom we LOVED) had told us we could come as late as 7:00 and they could serve us. Our massage was for 75 minutes, so we finished up around 6:15, took a quick shower in the spa locker room and headed straight to dinner. We weren’t terribly late, arriving around 6:30pm. Hunter was already on his entrée. We were in Triton’s and the menu was the Captain’s Gala Menu with Regional Inspirations. As a side note – we enjoyed the massage, but both agreed that we most likely won’t do it the next time we cruise. It is very expensive and we decided we’d rather spend that $$ on something else and get our massages a lot cheaper at home.
For my appetizer I ordered the Aged Prosciutto:
Verdict: Okay
Eddie ordered the Alaskan King Crab Legs:
Verdict: Good
For my entrée – Fettuccine with Parmesan Crusted Chicken:
Verdict: Very Good (I asked for extra sauce because some of my other pasta was a little dry earlier in the week)
Eddie’s entrée – Roasted Red Snapper
Verdict: Very Good
Svetlana also brought him an Oven Baked Lobster Tail to try:
Verdict: Okay. We are not big lobster fans.
For dessert we shared the Chocolate Lava Cake:
Verdict: Very Good. Needed the ice cream as it was very rich!
After dessert we headed over to Azure for TV Tunes Trivia. After that was over, we stayed and waited for the Matt Baker Juggling & Comedy Act for families. We were glad we didn’t leave and come back, because it was a packed house! They ended up asking all the children to come up and sit on the floor to free up some chair space for some adults. I really enjoyed Matt’s shows and this was particularly hilarious with his on the spot humor after pulling up different kids and adults on stage to help with the act.
After the Matt Baker show, we ended up staying in Azure for the adult games. Tonight was “Seriously?!” followed by “The Feud.” I had went to “The Feud” on my last Disney cruise and thought it was a lot of fun, so we were looking forward to that. Eddie and I ended up getting picked to participate in “Seriously?!” with another couple. Each couple had to take off their shoes so that each person was holding one of their shoes and one of their partners shoes. Then Rod would ask questions like “Who gives better gifts?, Who stays mad the longest after a fight?”, etc. The women were standing in front with the men in the back. The men would answer first, then Rod would let us know when to hold up the shoe for our answer. We were on a roll getting most of them right, and at one point we were tied with the other couple. Then Rod asked a few final questions and we bombed, well, Eddie bombed. LOL. One question was “Who is more wild when sleeping?” Although neither of us are particularly wild (when sleeping that is, lol!), I held up Eddie’s shoe. Well he of course held up my shoe saying it was me. I turned around and said “What?! You tell me all the time that I don’t even MOVE when I’m asleep!” Oh well. It was a fun game and Hunter got a kick out of watching us up there. The Feud was next and is basically Family Feud and Rod split the room in half, and would call different people up to play, then the crowd would help whoever was on their team with the rest of the answers on the board.
Karaoke was next, but we were all pretty tired after our early wake up, and tomorrow was another fairly early day, so we went to our room to rest up for the day ahead!
Up next: Juneau & Endicott Arm
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