Whales & Waves

By: Samie

Travel Dates: July 13th-25th, 2025

Day 4

(Port Day in Skagway)

Another day, another port! Our fourth day at sea brought us into the Gold Rush town of Skagway, Alaska. At it’s peak, this city was home to over 10,000 residents, which is actually about ten times the population that resides there now.

Our scheduled arrival time was 6:30 on the morning of July 17th, but after our very full and adventurous day the day before, we felt no need to be up and at ‘em that early. I managed to peek my head out on the balcony at about 8:30 that morning from our fully docked ship. However, I was completely comfortable relaxing in my pajamas for a while longer.

Luke, who is always more motivated and active in the morning than I am, made his way down to the formal dining room for some tummy fuel where he enjoyed a full English breakfast that he said was very good (peep the end of this post for all big food and drink pictures!).

By the time we finally managed to get dressed and make our way off the boat, it was around 11:30. Despite the later start to the day, we still had more than enough time to explore since all aboard wasn’t until 8:30 that evening.

Immediately after stepping off the walkway down the dock, we took in our surroundings of the gorgeous cloud-tipped mountains and combination of sprawling greenery and Klondike Gold Rush history.

Unlike our previous ports, we didn’t have any intention or purposeful stops or destinations, so our day was simply open and free to roam and walk. For us, that meant mostly meandering through and checking out the souvenir shops along the main strip.

One of our first stops was into the train depot turned shoppe, aptly named the Train Shoppe. Inside, there is a cut but very busy little coffee shop, so be prepared to wait for your pick-me up energy boost. Because we weren’t in a rush to catch a train or anything, I was willing to wait. However, instead of a coffee, I opted for a plant-based energy drink. I went with the Blue Lotus (don’t forget to hang out until the end of the post to see all our food and drink pictures from this stop).

Walter about an hour and a half of walking around and shopping, we found a designated sitting area in a nice grassy patch within the shade of a large tree that had a bench wrapped around its large trunk. We sat, rested, and regrouped for a while. We were also endlessly surrounded by crows. Birds are definitely not my favorite, and if you didn’t know, crows are not small. However, it brought me some comfort knowing crows are very intelligent birds, and they wouldn’t aimlessly swoop or crowd like most dumb birds.

We ended up going our separate ways with Luke and I once again breaking off from the rest of the family to accomplish our own agenda. What might have been on our agenda? If you guessed a couple of the best food stops we could find leading up to our trip, you would be absolutely correct.

The first of which is the most common suggestion when looking into Skagway. The place is called Klondike Doughboy and is known for their fried dough pastry called the Doughboy. The line was already quite long by the time we took our place in it, but since we didn’t have too many things on our to-do list but a good amount of time, we knew it was worth the wait. In the end, it was only about a 15-20 minute wait before having a fresh fry bread with cinnamon and sugar. It was huge and delicious.

Also while walking around, Luke noticed a little shop called Knotty Delights. It was, in fact, so little that I ended up waiting outside and out of the way while he ordered a salted pretzel with nacho cheese. When he came out, his first comment was that it was being run by children. When I peeked in, there were, in fact, preteen children behind the counter. It was a true look in to how tourism can really impact an area and bring both money and jobs to all people in a community and keep its economy up and running.

Our final essential stop before making our way back to our home at sea was a popcorn place. We had seen people pass by with bags of popcorn. Popcorn is our all-time favorite salt snack to enjoy together, so we refused to leave without at least a couple bags of our own.

We had a surprisingly challenging time finding the source, however. We had even looked up the location on our phones, and we still couldn’t seem to locate it! There was really not an excessive amount of places to hide along the Skagway port strip, so we were motivated and determined to get there.

The fruits of our labors paid off not long after as we finally saw the words we had been searching for, Yukon Heath’s Popcorn Emporium. The moment we walked in, our noses were caressed by the sweet smell of the fresh, hot, caramel tumbling around to coat the golden puffed kernels. If I could bottle a smell as a souvenir, this one would absolutely have come home with me.

Despite counters stocked full of options, we knew it would be best to limit our choices down to just two, so we went with Gold Rush and Dill Pickle. Dill Pickles should be self-explanatory, and the Gold Rush is their caramel corn with candied nuts. When digging into them, we literally could not pick a favorite. They were both so different and delicious in their own ways. We tried to decide all the way down to the last kernel but were unsuccessful. If we were in the mood for something sweet to snack on, we would grab the caramel corn. If we were feeling salty, we had our hands in the dill pickle. It was that simple.

We made our way back onto the ship just a little after 2:00pm. While we had definitely filled up on plenty of carbs while exploring Skagway, we also did plenty of walking and were feeling a little peckish around 3:30. We ventured out to the Lido Deck, but instead of foraging the buffet, we went instead to wear the Dive-In, a poolside classic burgers and hot dogs with fries kind of shack, which is also inclusive with your ship package. We got a burger to split, and it was quite good.

Before we knew it, dinner time had rolled around, and it was time for our 5:00 table reservation, and we made our way to the dining room.

Our options for starters on this evening were baby shrimp cocktail, steak tartare, chicken with sweetbreads and mushroom cream, Westland salad (tomato, cucumber, egg, mustard dressing), green peas soup, French onion soup, or classic Caesar salad.

Our options for mains were Bami Goreng (Indonesian stir-fried noodles, chicken and shrimp, peanut sauce, and krupuk shrimp crackers), Hodge Podge Klapstuk (braised beef brisket, carrots, potatoes, onions, and butter gravy), beef tenderloin with mushrooms, pan fried Dover Sole with lemon butter, vegan braised bell pepper, pork Cordon Bleu, roasted chicken, and salmon fillet with baby shrimp.

Last but not least, our dessert options for the evening were crème brûlée, Tompouce (puff pastry, vanilla custard, and royal icing), apple pie, Lindt Chocolate Tulip, or Lindt Hot Chocolate Fudge Sundae.

My choices were the baby shrimp cocktail, hodge podge klapstuk, and the tompouce. Luke opted for the French onion soup, Bami Goreng, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

It was back to relaxing after dinner. Around 8:20, I decided to go down and take a solo walk around the ship before the ship departed and headed back out to sea.

To make one lap around the ship, it took me about six and a half minutes, and I was walking at a pretty brisk pace. I will share a sped up video of my walk because over six minutes of me walking is intriguing for no one, but even at ten times the speed, you can still get a feel for the size of this boat!

At some point throughout the evening when we had been out and returned to our rooms, another sweet treat had been laid out for us. It was another pleasant little surprise!

We finally began to pull away at around 8:30 as scheduled. We enjoyed taking in the beautiful mountain views blanketed by the thick, gray, coastal clouds. It was a fabulous farewell after another great day on land. Setting sail, we knew that our next two days would be solely at sea and this was our last land stop before hitting land for the next leg of our journey after departing the ship. We watched the last chunk of land we would be seeing for over 48 hours disappear into the distance before settling in for the night.

Please enjoy these photos from our favorite treats from our time in Skagway, as promised! Try not to drool on your screen. We know it will be quite a challenge as our taste buds are reactivated every time we look at these pictures.