Skagway, Alaska and Fraser, Canada
Posted on July 21, 2025 by Ching under Travel.
Skagway, Alaska was our first “actual” port of the cruise and it is the stop where we spent the most amount of time. The rest of our stops were brief compared to our stop in Skagway where we had about 12 hours.
We arrived early in the morning and so we had plenty of time to explore before our noon train excursion. As you all know, Brian can’t function without having coffee first so that was the first order of business. We decided to go for something local and hit Glacial Coffeehouse.
The line was long but totally worth it.
I can’t speak for Brian who always just gets plain black coffee, but my honey bear latte was delicious. I hadn’t been drinking coffee on the ship so this was my first coffee in several days.
We ran into mom and dad while poking around town.
Funny thing. As prepared as we were for this trip, we still managed to forget something at home. Brian rolled and prepped his belt but forgot to actually put it in his suitcase. So he ended up having to buy himself a belt in Skagway. We tried to find one in one of the ship’s many gift shops but had no luck. I guess they figured, after eating all of the food on the ship, you won’t need one and so, despite selling everything that you can imagine under the sun, they did not stock any belts. Anyway, Brian still needed one and, thus, we bought one for him in Skagway.
We had plenty of time to run our stuff back to the ship before our train excursion. Met up with Jay and Becca, who did a bit of souvenir shopping as well, on our way back to the ship.
Our train excursion started with a bus tour, with plenty of stops for photos, and about 45 minutes at the Yukon Suspension Bridge, before boarding the rain in Fraser. Here’s a highlight video of the excursion.
Jay and Becca were smart and grabbed a couple of to-go burritos from the taco and burrito station on the ship.
One of the photo stops was the iconic “Welcome to Alaska” sign at the US-Canada border. Our tour bus driver Rose did a great job of taking photos for everyone.
We also had a long stop at the Yukon Suspension Bridge Park.
Train selfie with Jay (topmost) and the Culvers (Lorin and Sandy).
Brian bought a 125th anniversary souvenir ballcap that you can only get on the train. I would have got myself one too but I figured I could just borrow his. Plus, I prefer visors.
Brian tried to get a timelapse of our scenic train ride but we were actually seated on the wrong side of the train. If you are coming from Skagway to Fraser, you want to sit on the left side of the train for better views. If you are coming from Fraser to Skagway (like we were), then you want to sit on the right side of the train. I had read something about this on the Facebook groups. Someone said to sit on the left but I forgot to take into account which direction the train was going so I’m thinking they boarded in Skagway. It makes a difference! Anyway, by the time I figured it out, all the seats on the right side of the train were already spoken for. Thankfully, the train windows are huge — pretty much the entire side of the train consists of windows — so you can enjoy the beautiful sights no matter where you are sitting. Just better if you’re on the correct side for taking pictures and videos though so people aren’t in the way.
There are several stops along the route where hikers can hop on the train. This was one of those stops. The sign has the schedule of when to anticipate pick up times so you can plan your hike accordingly.
I really enjoyed the train ride. There were waterfalls everywhere you looked. Water was just running down the side of the mountain in several places from the snow tops melting. The landscapes are so beautiful. I can understand why people want to live there despite the cold weather. I could wake up to these views everyday and it wouldn’t get old.
I’ll be posting about Juneau next. Stay tuned!
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