After years of talking about visiting Alaska, we finally found the opportunity to make this trip happen thanks to a cruise offer from Princess. We are grateful to check off this bucket list trip with an 11-day Alaskan cruise with mom. We intentionally chose to begin our Alaskan cruise in San Francisco (instead of Seattle or Vancouver) as this was a good opportunity for hubby to spend time with his buddy before embarking on the cruise.
11-Day Alaska Cruise (Inside Passage with Glacier Bay National Park)
13 Sep 2025: San Francisco
14-15 Sep 2025: Sea Days
16 Sep 2025: Ketchikan, Alaska
17 Sep 2025: Sea Day
18 Sep 2025: Skagway, Alaska
19 Sep 2025: Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
20 Sep 2025: Sea Day
21 Sep 2025: Victoria, Canada
22-23 Sep 2025: Sea Days
24 Sep 2025: San Francisco
18 Sep 2025 (Thurs): Skagway, Alaska
Our 2nd stop in Alaska was Skagway. Our ship arrived early in the morning and we were allowed to disembark at 6.50am. There were 4 cruise ships docking on the same day - 2 Princess ships, Royal Caribbean and Disney. It was a cloudy morning and it was forecasted to rain later in the day.
Similar to Ketchikan, we didn't have much planned for this port so we took our own sweet time to have breakfast and disembarked at 8.40am. Royal Caribbean and Disney ships got the better docks so we had to use the water shuttle to disembark, which wasn't too bad coz we didn't have to wait to get on the water shuttle and it was just a short 5 min ride.
Skagway is a historic Alaskan town at the northern end of the Inside Passage, famous for its role as the gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush.
The most popular excursion in this port is the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad. We didn't buy tickets in advance (coz we weren't interested especially after experiencing the scenic trains in Switzerland) so we just stopped by the station to ask if there were any tickets available for mom. The train-only tickets were sold out but the had the train+bus tour for $159/pax at 10.30am and 1.30pm. However, mom didn't have her passport with her so we decided to just walk around the town.
Skagway town is small and easily walkable within a few hours. All the historic buildings in this town are either souvenir shops or restaurants, tailored for cruise ship tourists these days. The population is even lesser than Ketchikan with only 1,212 people.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Visitor Center
Stampeder Statue
We spent most of our time in Skagway shopping.
Headed back to the ship at 1.30pm for lunch and was planning to just chill for the rest of the afternoon. However, mom was playing with the souvenir toy she bought earlier and wanted to buy more, so mom and I Mom and I disembarked the ship again at 3.30pm for round 2 of shopping.
Skagway town was much quieter in the afternoon as most tourists were back on the ships already. We headed back to the ship again at 5.10pm. As you can see, my trip planning effort for this cruise was zero...lol! My main goal of this trip was to enjoy the ship coz the excursions at all these ports are just tourist traps imo.
Next stop...Glacier Bay National Park.
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