20260912 Saturday, September 12, 2026; Skagway, Haines
On one of our earlier cruises, we had been disappointed not to be able to do an excursion to Haines from Skagway, so we booked one on this trip. This involved getting off the ship at 7:20 a.m. and catching a high-speed catamaran ferry from Skagway to Haines. This is a 14-mile trip that takes about 45 minutes.
We had perfect weather conditions with calm winds, blue skies with patchy clouds, and temperatures in the mid-50s. The Lynn Canal between Skagway and Haines is a misnomer attributed to George Vancouver’s navigator Joseph Whidbey’s scribe. What should have been recorded as Lynn Channel, was misheard and recorded as canal, so despite it being a natural fjord, and not a man-made canal, the name has stuck around. This stretch of water is less than a quarter of a mile wide and about 1400’ deep at its center. It is the deepest and longest glacial fjord in North America.
The tides here are close to 30’ so there is a very evident bathtub ring on the stone walls of the fjord. A steep Sitka spruce forest arises at the water’s edge and this ascends steeply to the tree line. There were several bald eagles spotted in trees along the channel, but these are little more than white spots in trees to the naked eye. The only other wildlife sighting was a harbor seal resting on Indian rocks, which sit above the surface at low tide, but are submerged on high tides. There was also a bald eagle sitting atop the day marker designating this navigation hazard.
Haines itself is a very small city, most of which sprouted from an abandoned military fort built to prevent Canada from annexing it. In a twist of irony, most of the buildings that comprise the fort are now owned by Canadians.
There were 19 passengers on our Haines ATV excursion. We loaded up into an airporter-style van and drove about 20 minutes north along a river to the ATV basecamp. The guides in the bus cued us in on their lifestyle. Both are from the lower 48 and seasonal workers. Both live in tents but have access to an “indoors cooking space” which is a propane stove-equipped kitchen built inside a gutted-out school bus. They did have access to communal showers but with 4 stalls to service about 70 campers, getting a shower sometimes involves a lot of patience. This description of what is basically homeless living reinforces the importance of tipping these guides in Alaska.
The ATV base camp was a hodgepodge of shipping containers, port-a-potties, and canopies around a dirt parking lot in the middle of the woods. Janet and Ben did manage to get a 2-seater Kawasaki side-by-side UTV, while all the other vehicles were 4-seater Kawasaki and Honda UTVs. We set off in 9 UTVs single file and drove about 15 miles through the woods, down gravel logging roads, and across a braided river bed.
The trails through the woods were the most rough and terrible terrain we have driven through on a UTV. There were deep ruts, moguls, roots, and severe washboarding that were enough to rattle your teeth and bones. It’s a wonder we were able to get through all that in 2WD and not get stuck. Those sections were so rough, it was not possible to hold a camera to video because you needed both hands to brace your upper body to keep your head from smashing into the roll cage. Our suspension bottomed out many times with a jolt as we drove over roots and stones. We thought the Denali ATV adventure was pretty extreme, but this ride took the rough and uncomfortable parts of the ride to a whole new level. It might have been enough to cure us of future ATV excursions.
The scenery was very similar to dense forests at home, so aside from driving in the wide gravel and rock river bed, it was mostly a demonstration of how bad a forest 2-track for ATVs can be, and what a decent ATV/UTV can navigate if it has to. We did stop by a beaver pond with a lodge evident in the middle, but there were no wildlife sightings on the trip despite making 3 stops to stretch, change drivers, and enjoy the views.
Lunch was provided after the ride. This was a chicken wrap with a bag of chips, chocolate chip cookie, and coffee or tea. Then it was back into the van and back to the ferry for a ride back to Skagway. The water conditions remained very calm and flat the whole day, and it was nice not to have it rain while we were driving the UTVs because these ones didn’t have windshields, and the forest tracks were already pretty muddy and slippery.
After returning to Skagway, we walked down Broadway and visited the National Park Service museums, which include a nice exhibit on the Klondike gold rush. There was also a nice free museum attached to a large gift shop with high-end merchandise that was reminiscent of the Maxine and Jessy Whitney Museum in Valdez. They boasted about having the world’s largest baleen basket on display and had a lot of scrimshaw and other native artworks on display.
We returned to the ship in the afternoon and checked out the Elite lounge, which is in the Crown Grill from 3-5 p.m. On other ships, there is often a small buffet with canapés. We had hoped to maybe find some sushi. What we found was a guitar vocalist performing and 3 people sitting in chairs. The waiter said that because of the small size of Elites on this cruise itinerary, they would bring out individual canapés. These included a nice fruit cup, mini-crudité cup, seared tuna bite, deep-fried mushroom risotto ball, and pistacchio mousse. It was fancy and nice, but perhaps a bit too intimate with so few people in attendance.
Dining reservations have been a problem with Princess since they implemented a Dine your way plan several years ago. The main problem is there are no reservations available for when you want to dine where you want to dine, and the online system is constantly crashing. But Ben did manage to get reservations for traditional seating, which is at 5 p.m. every night at the same table and with the same waiter staff. Unfortunately, when we went in with this reservation, the table was right by the entrance to the restaurant in the noisiest possible location with a six-top, so Janet was unable to engage in any of the conversation and found the whole experience not to her liking. So she canceled all our remaining reservations for the rest of the cruise. We will just have to get in line early and hope for the best for the rest of the cruise. Dinner did feature halibut fish and chips, which was real halibut, and baked cod.
After dinner, we attended the Princess Showtime featuring Keddy-Ann Batson, who is a Whitney Houston tribute artist. She put on a great show, despite having lost her luggage while flying into Alaska from the Caribbean. The Princess Production show team managed to put together an outfit for her, as well as do her hair and make-up. We recognized the Tina Turner inspired dress from the Production Show "Sweet Soul Music" which we had seen on the Grand Princess Vancouver to Sydney Transpacific crossing in October 2023. They did an admirable job of getting her stage ready. She did earn a standing ovation. There were some serious Whitney Houston fans on board.
After the show, Ben went up to the buffet hoping to score some cookies, but they were sold out. In general, the cookies have been disappointing, and the food service seems to have suffered compared with prior Princess cruise experiences. He had to settle for a bowl of minestrone soup, which was good.
Tomorrow we arrive in Juneau. Since we have been there several times before, we will relax and walk through town at leisure and enjoy the ship’s facilities while everyone else is out on excursions.
