This post shares our experience from our Juneau Dog Sledding & Glacier Helicopter Tour during our Alaskan Cruise!
We live in Florida and have cruised the Bahamas, Caribbean and Mexico many times. We have always wanted to do a cruise to Alaska. However, you often hear the advice “Save the Alaska cruise for when you’re older” or “Kids don’t want to go on an Alaskan cruise.” As middle-aged parents with two young kids, we considered both of those when deciding whether or not to stray away from our usual Caribbean cruises and do something different. Let me shout it from the rooftops – DO NOT LISTEN TO EITHER PIECE OF ADVICE!
An Alaskan cruise can be for anyone at any time in their lives. Our Alaskan Cruise was one of our all-time favorite vacations and the kids had a blast. But, we didn’t just stare at the beautiful scenery. We MADE it the most epic trip by choosing the ship we wanted with lots of onboard activities and packed our port days with shore excursions. I will share all about our Alaskan Cruise, including our ship and all the shore excursions, in separate posts.
What to do in Juneau, Alaska
Many ports on an Alaskan Cruise have similar options and will include glaciers, nature, whale-watching, etc. so we had to ask ourselves what to do while in Juneau. We compared options across all of our ports to arrive at what the best option was at each stop. The Juneau Icefield in Alaska is home to at least 40 large glaciers and many small ones. Given what we chose at other stops, this was a perfect location to take a helicopter tour and go on a dog-sledding adventure on a glacier!
I’ll be honest, before we even chose any shore excursion, this was a must-do for me. I’m not like a crazy dog person or anything, so it wasn’t that. This is one of the top activities you think of when you think Alaska. Dog sledding is a one-of-a-kind adventure that you won’t find in many other destinations. Taking a helicopter to the glacier location was icing on the cake.
To book through the ship or not, that is the question
With every single shore excursion purchase, we compared the cost and benefits of booking through the ship versus booking with an independent vendor. Cost is obviously a huge factor, especially given the typically elevated costs of Alaskan shore excursions. I will definitely pay more for the security of knowing the ship will not leave the port without us if we happen to be delayed while on a ship-sponsored excursion (at least that’s what they say). So, for us, the cost savings need to be substantial in order to book independently. We booked all our Alaskan cruise shore excursions through the ship, except this one.
We booked our Juneau Dog Sledding & Glacier Helicopter Tour through Alaska Shore Excursions, which we chose for several reasons:
Price: The price was significantly cheaper than the ship’s version of the tour
Options: Alaska Shore Excursions offered several options that the ship didn’t offer, including varying lengths of time, different glaciers, etc. When scheduling your tour, the website has the dates/ships/times as options so you know whether the option works with your itinerary.
Guarantee: They offer an on time ship return guarantee. You won’t see me running down a pier to catch the ship! I want to be back in plenty of time to be enjoying a drink on my balcony watching the other pier runners.
Cancellation: They offer free cancellations, whether it be due to weather or personal reasons.
*As with anything you read on the internet, be sure to review the company’s current policies when booking, as they may be updated at any time after this blog post was written.
Given all that, we felt comfortable booking with Alaska Shore Excursions. 🙂
Juneau Dog Sledding & Glacier Helicopter Tour Review
Now for the fun part, our experience on the tour!
During our entire Alaskan Cruise, we experienced unusually high temperatures. I’m talking almost Florida temps! While I am grateful that we had zero rain, this temperature anomaly made for some interesting packing and dressing. This day was no different and Juneau was incredibly warm. Layers are your friend when you start at the port, then venture all the way to the top of a glacier.
When we booked, we received directions to meet our driver right outside the Mt. Roberts Tramway building. We arrived a little early and did not see anyone holding a sign, so we patiently waited. After some time, we started to worry if we were not in the correct location because no one with a tour sign showed up and we couldn’t tell if anyone else was there waiting with us for the same tour. It was hot and the kids were getting antsy.
Eventually, a tour van appeared but it was for the next time slot after ours. The driver contacted our driver and apparently there was major traffic holding him up, which we could clearly see all the traffic in that area…it was busy! Our driver arrived after a few minutes, we loaded up and were on our way to the helicopter facility.
Helicopter Over Glaciers Portion of the Tour
When we arrived at the helicopter facility, we checked in and they weighed us to divide folks up among the helicopters. We then put any belongings that we can’t take on the tour in a large locked box for free. This includes backpacks, purses, tablets, selfie sticks and anything that can’t comfortably be on your body. Sunglasses, phones and cameras are allowed on the tour. Some people were even leaving their jackets in there due to the temperature, my son being one of them. He made sure to tell me that I made him wear too much clothing.
They then provided us with boot covers that you wear on top of your current footwear and go several inches up your leg, so you do not need to concern yourself with special snow boots or water-protective sprays for your sneakers.
We lined up to board our helicopters and sat in our assigned seats to make sure the weight was evenly distributed. We put on our headwear and we were off!
The helicopter tour was amazing! Our tour was to the Herbert Glacier. We meandered through the valleys and icefields, getting so close to the mountains and taking in the beautiful scenery.
After about 15 minutes, we arrived at the dog camp!
Juneau Dog Sledding Portion of the Tour
After landing, a camp operator became our guide and gave us a short talk on safety and what we would be doing. We had a family of 4, so we got a dog sled to ourselves plus our guide. Smaller groups were put together and larger groups got split up. Our guide then gathered our troop of dogs and connected them to their positions on the sled. We talked to him quite a bit about how they operate. There are hundreds of dogs and they like to rotate them so they all get opportunities throughout the day to be active. Dog-sledding dog breeds want to run, and you can tell they were so excited when it was their turn.
Now, what I’m going to share next may be a bit much, but I’m going to do it anyway because it’s reality. You are at a camp with hundreds of dogs. It smells like you are near hundreds of dogs. Dogs poop. Guess what? You will get whiffs of it. However, I did not think any of it was overwhelming. Perhaps because we were out in such a wide open space; it was only when we were right next to all the dogs did we get the lovely aroma. This did not stop our enjoyment, but it’s not something I’ve seen any other reviews share, so I’m gonna share it!
Our lead dog was Galaga and she was the goodest girl!
Once our dogs were all ready to go, we chose our seats. Everyone gets a seat, except one person can stand at the back, so my son chose to do that.
The guide stands behind the first set of seats and controls the speed and direction, we did not have to do anything other than lean if he asked us to.
The dogs led us around several loops on the glacier. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and it was so incredible knowing we were doing this ON A GLACIER IN ALASKA!
You ever think to yourself “This is a core memory. We are doing something we may not ever do again. My kids get to say they did this and remember it their entire lives (hopefully).” That was running through my head and made me appreciate the moment so much more. Was it worth the money? 100% yes. I’ll let my smile in this photo tell you how happy I was.
About halfway through, we stopped to take some pictures. We were in the middle of the glacial valley and had mountains all around and the sun shining. Speaking of the sun shining, because of the high temperatures, the camp operators were wearing shorts and shirts with no sleeves! Some even had sunburns! It was hilarious and they knew it.
Oh, remember when I mentioned dogs poop? Well, these dogs are special and are apparently really good at pooping while running and pulling the sled. Only a couple of dogs did it, so don’t let me sharing this make it seem like they were doing it the entire time. My kids thought it was hilarious, whaddya gonna do?! When ya gotta go, ya gotta go!
We gave each one of our doggies lots of love.
We were on the dog sled for about 35 minutes. When we arrived back to the camp, we got to interact with our doggy crew before they were brought back to their little houses. The operator said the dogs aren’t used to the high temps and were rolling around in the snow and laying down flat in the snow to cool down.
While we waited for the next batch of helicopters to arrive, we got to play with some of the puppies and the kids played with the snow.
Our helicopter tour followed the same path back to the facility. We took off our boot covers, grabbed our belongings, then were taken back to the pier in a van with plenty of time to spare before getting back on the ship.
Do we recommend this shore excursion?
Absolutely! This felt like two excursions wrapped up in one experience: the helicopter tour over the glaciers and the dog sledding. We get to say we went dog sledding in Alaska!
Would we do this shore excursion again?
If money was no object, absolutely! However, this excursion was not cheap, especially when we had to pay for four people. If we found ourselves in Juneau, Alaska again, we would choose another excursion to experience something different that the area has to offer. If you only get to go once and you are interested in an excursion like this, do it.
Did the kids enjoy this shore excursion?
Yes! This was the third excursion on our cruise and they told me I was “3 for 3” so far. That’s like winning mommy of the year, right?
Random Tips & Thoughts
Bring your sunglasses! Whether it’s sunny or cloudy, you are surrounded by white snow, which can be just as blinding as sun. For the kids, we bought smaller sunglasses and with straps like these. For us adults with glasses we already like, we bought just the straps since we didn’t know how jostled the activities would get and we didn’t want to drop them.
Bring cash for tips. This Alaska Shore Excursion has several folks guiding you throughout the tour, such as the van driver, helicopter operator, and dog-sledding guide. We gave each a tip relative to their portion of the tour.
Consider your tolerance of helicopter rides. Have you been on a helicopter before? My first experience on a helicopter had an operator that liked doing tricks and it was like my least favorite part of a rollercoaster over and over. Thankfully, this operator kept it pretty steady and there were no trick moves here, so I didn’t feel nauseous at all. You can try taking Dramamine or if you’re already wearing some sort of motion-sickness prevention item for the cruise, you should be good.
Your Thoughts
Have you done this excursion? What did you think? What was your favorite part?
Questions?
Have any questions for us? Post a comment below!
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