Its hard to believe our cruise is half over..today we are in Skagway. Yesterday we tried to book a tour but were told they were all sold out..at least the affordable ones. We asked about going to town but the girl at the excursion center said that there were no taxis and it was about a 10-15 minute walk into town. At this port we had all day, until 8:00pm. As we got off the ship and walked toward town, there was a kiosk with the White Pass railroad tour, which was supposed to be "the" tour to take here. We asked about it and booked a tour at 12:30..this through the cruise line. Then we asked about how we get into town and were told that just a few feet away was a bus stop for the shuttle into town. From what we were told on board the ship we would get off the ship and there would be nothing..I think the crew needs to get off more often. We took the shuttle into town- it looked something like Old Sac.. the old western theme.
But..this WAS the town of Skagway..a tourist trap. The main business here was jewelry shops.. expensive high end jewelry shops! That was the first shop we went into.. my sister saw a piece she liked but the price..$3000.00 !! I can't remember the name of the stone, it was pretty but not that pretty. She wasn't interested after she found out the price but boy they were hard sell, they kept dropping the price then even brought out the manager and a Royal Caribbean discount..I think they got down to about $1800.00.. still too much. Since this was the first shop we went into Jeanne had a good excuse to not buy and shop around more. The whole street is nothing but jewelry stores and souvenir shops. We went to lunch at the Red Onion Saloon, which used to be a brothel and they give tours of the upstairs, which is where the "women of the night" did their business.
It was sandwiches, nachos, etc.. just bar food kind of stuff for lunch, but it wasn't bad. We then had to hurry back to the dock to catch the train for our rail tour. I have to say it was pretty on the way up but on the way back I think everyone in our car fell asleep. I don't think it was worth the price.
After the tour, Tianna and I went back into town and did some souvenir shopping, Jeanne went back to the ship..poor thing, she kept getting migraine headaches.
building made of drift wood
These are just a few more shots of around town. On the way back I was talking to the shuttle driver, asking her if this was just the tourist part of town and if there was a suburb, this is the whole town. I was wondering because I didn't see a gas station or grocery store. She said the one grocery store was at the end of town and deliveries were made once a week typically from Seattle and if they ran out of anything at the store, you were just out of luck until the next delivery. One thing I forgot to mention was the price of ordinary goods. I don't know about in Skagway but when were were in Icy Straight we went into a store which was like a convenience store here, but it was their main market. Most things looked like it must have come from Costco in Seattle. Those big packages of toilet paper we get at Costco for about $15.00.. well, there it was $29.00!! Even at this time of year there was very few fruits and vegetable.. mostly canned goods and frozen foods. Maybe in larger cities things would have been a little different but I don't think so. So, anyway Tianna and I did our souvenir shopping after our rail tour and everyone was talking about the Fudge Shop so of course we had to go there and buy some fudge..which was very good. We headed back to the ship just in time to dress for dinner.. another casual night. Tonight I had the Potato Gnocchi and Tianna had the Tempura Halibut and Shrimp. We ended up swapping dishes.. The Halibut was delicious!
At dinner on the cruise, like I said you can have anything and as much as you want..so far I was good. After dinner Tianna and I went to the Crew Talent Show.. Jeanne to bed. The show was the best of the cruise. The different crew members performed and I was blown away at how talented they were. Most sang, the bar guy did the bar flair thing, the personal trainer from the gym did a modern dance routine and the cruise director and his staff did a skit which was just hilarious.. it was a great show.. not it's off to bed, but Tianna ordered room service, cookies..and fell asleep before it even arrived.. oh well, we can have it for breakfast.
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