Alaska Tours

[4everluvDisney]

Looking at booking a tour with Chilkoot Charters & Tours in Skagway and was wondering if anyone has used them in the past. We are thinking of the Yukon Rail & Bus Excursion. Thanks for any input.

 

[auntlynne]

I have not used many independent vendors, but there are some that are positively mentioned every year. Chilkoot is one of them. Check out their review stars in TripAdvisor (my go-to for reference):


Do a search of this forum and you will find plenty of reports, too.

 

[sadiecatie]

I can’t give a review, but we booked with them for that exact tour. Like auntlynne said, they are almost exclusively positively reviewed - I felt very confident booking with them.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Looking at booking a tour with Chilkoot Charters & Tours in Skagway and was wondering if anyone has used them in the past. We are thinking of the Yukon Rail & Bus Excursion. Thanks for any input.

I have used Chilkoot and would highly recommend them! It was the best tour experience!! The smaller group made for a wonderful experience. We did the same excursion you are looking at, their Yukon Bus/Rail. If you can be up & off the ship early, I’d go with the option that does the rail first and bus second.

Smaller group was a huge plus - we had only 14 or 15 people. Their bus was one of those smaller hotel-type shuttles. We could and did make many more stops both up and back than the larger Disney & other ship tour busses.

Taking rail first got us into the lunch location about 15 minutes ahead of the bus first group and rhe bus-only tours.

Taking the rail first, you can get some great pictures off the back of the train looking at the harbor, town of Skagway, and the ship.

I don’t know if this has changed, but when we did their tour pre-Covid, Chilkoot guests got the last train car & Disney booked guests were in the second to last car. This means Chilkoot guests could be on the outside back platform with longer, unobstructed views off the back of the train and those curving pics of the engine up ahead.

The smaller bus allows for more flexibility on the stops. For example, on the way up, there was a large bus at the Welcome to Yukon sign, so we skipped it. We made the stop on the way back, when there were no other people there so no waiting for our family sign pics. We also could make other stops on the opposite side of the road, because the smaller bus could make those U-Turns across the road.

Coming back, with rail first and bus second, you are not tied to a timetable of having to make the train ride. This allowed us to make a couple of extra stops, to wait for and watch the train pass by in the canyon below, and to U-turn & spend 20 minutes watching a bear cub by the side of the road our driver had seen on prior days’ tours. Can’t do that with a large bus!

When getting back into town, we had the option of being dropped in the middle of town or back at the dock by the ship. Most of our bus opted for the middle of town, as we were back around 3:30pm and had time to walk back while visiting many of the shops in town. The town is small, it was not a long walk back & was nice after the bus, plus we were still back onboard for main dining if needed.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[4everluvDisney]

I can’t give a review, but we booked with them for that exact tour. Like auntlynne said, they are almost exclusively positively reviewed - I felt very confident booking with them.

What date are you doing this?

 

[4everluvDisney]

I have used Chilkoot and would highly recommend them! It was the best tour experience!! The smaller group made for a wonderful experience. We did the same excursion you are looking at, their Yukon Bus/Rail. If you can be up & off the ship early, I’d go with the option that does the rail first and bus second.

Smaller group was a huge plus - we had only 14 or 15 people. Their bus was one of those smaller hotel-type shuttles. We could and did make many more stops both up and back than the larger Disney & other ship tour busses.

Taking rail first got us into the lunch location about 15 minutes ahead of the bus first group and rhe bus-only tours.

Taking the rail first, you can get some great pictures off the back of the train looking at the harbor, town of Skagway, and the ship.

I don’t know if this has changed, but when we did their tour pre-Covid, Chilkoot guests got the last train car & Disney booked guests were in the second to last car. This means Chilkoot guests could be on the outside back platform with longer, unobstructed views off the back of the train and those curving pics of the engine up ahead.

The smaller bus allows for more flexibility on the stops. For example, on the way up, there was a large bus at the Welcome to Yukon sign, so we skipped it. We made the stop on the way back, when there were no other people there so no waiting for our family sign pics. We also could make other stops on the opposite side of the road, because the smaller bus could make those U-Turns across the road.

Coming back, with rail first and bus second, you are not tied to a timetable of having to make the train ride. This allowed us to make a couple of extra stops, to wait for and watch the train pass by in the canyon below, and to U-turn & spend 20 minutes watching a bear cub by the side of the road our driver had seen on prior days’ tours. Can’t do that with a large bus!

When getting back into town, we had the option of being dropped in the middle of town or back at the dock by the ship. Most of our bus opted for the middle of town, as we were back around 3:30pm and had time to walk back while visiting many of the shops in town. The town is small, it was not a long walk back & was nice after the bus, plus we were still back onboard for main dining if needed.

Enjoy your cruise!

Thank you so much for your great review. We will definitely be booking this. Also, I was having a hard time deciding which order to do it but you made some great points.

 

[sadiecatie]

What date are you doing this?

We’ll be on the June 12 sailing (so I think Skagway is June 15 if I’m remembering correctly).

 

[4everluvDisney]

We’ll be on the June 12 sailing (so I think Skagway is June 15 if I’m remembering correctly).

We will be on the May 29th. Have this tour booked with DCL but will be cancelling today and booking with Chilkoot. Have fun on your cruise.

 

[sadiecatie]

We will be on the May 29th. Have this tour booked with DCL but will be cancelling today and booking with Chilkoot. Have fun on your cruise.

Coming up so soon! You enjoy yours as well

 

[Mrlogboy]

Looking at booking a tour with Chilkoot Charters & Tours in Skagway and was wondering if anyone has used them in the past. We are thinking of the Yukon Rail & Bus Excursion. Thanks for any input.

We took all our excursions outside of DCL, BUT, all of them (for me ) were the same tours as disney used. For most a large percent we’re officially cruise excursion and one excursion on a crab boat all but 2 couples were official DLC excursion people. And on the crab boat because it was only two couples, and we were also from the Disney Cruise they allowed us to partake in the special lunch and stuff for the others. Lol.

We saved a lot by doing it ourselves last September

 

[justafigment27]

We booked this excursion in 2019 based on recommendations from the Disboards and I would recommend it to others. Our group was 100% DCL. Our tour guide was hilarious and a great driver/picture taker … and the small bus size was very nice.

 

[anricat]

We did and it definitely was one of our top days on a cruise! I love the bus/train combo because we got a different experience with each portion of the trip. If you click the link in my signature to my trip report, you can read about our whole day and see photos. Highly recommended!

 

[Joel0917]

I actually booked for our June Alaska cruise the bus/train but after doing a boring train in thre Grand Canyon we switched to bus up and bus down with a. Different chsarter for only $68 each. Most said train wasn’t worth it

 

[NephieRN]

We did this excursion way back in 2014 through Chilkoot Charters and really enjoyed it. We did the rail up and bus back and thought it was perfect.