Skagway YP &YR Train chartered Tuesday's and Wednesday's all summer 2018?

Hi everyone!

I'm taking my 3rd cruise to Alaska with Princess the beginning of June.

Ive taken the YP &YR on my own to the summit twice before and really enjoyed it, liked booking on my own verses the ship and never has a problem.

I'm returning this trip with family who have never been to Alaska and decided to book with Dyea Dave. Booked last Nov. the Emerald lake tour with the shuttle up and the train back to Skagway from Fraser.

With Dyea Dave you book the train portion yourself, unlike Chilkoot charters which the train portion is included.

Today I went to purchase tickets from Fraser to Skagway and YP & YR is showing no trains running that route on Tuesdays or Wednesday's all summer!! It was not like that the last time I checked a couple months ago.

I sent an email to Dyea Dave and heard back that they are having problems with the train this year and that it appears the train is chartered out to cruise ships on that route on Tuesdays and Wednesday's all summer, they said they weren't sure and were having a hard time getting answers.

I checked Chilkoot charters for the same tour and they are showing sold out? How can that be if the train is chartered by the cruise ships? I checked on Princess and they are showing a very similar tour as available with no set times showing and I don't want to book the ships tour for this anyway.

I have reached out to the railroad by phone and email and I'm awaiting a response.

I've never heard of the railroad being chartered by the ships before, but I also haven't been on these boards for a few years until these last few months.

Does any one have any knowledge of what's going on?

Or ideas? We really were looking forward to the bus up and train back! And I wish we had been contacted by Dyea Dave when they first became aware of this.

Thank you all in advance!:)

Those may be the busy days for cruise ships, and at this point they have committed to the ships.

Those may be the busy days for cruise ships, and at this point they have committed to the ships.

The cruise lines may be pressuring them to not offer independent booking so the cruise lines gets a cut of the fare. This seems common in the Caribbean and may sadly be coming to Alaska.

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We have a bus/train tour booked with Chilkoot on Tuesday, August 28 - maybe it's late enough in the season?

We’re booked with Dyea Dave for June 16th but it’s a Saturday -already have our reservation for the train back.

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I am booked with Chikoot tours on Tuesday July 10th for the Yukon bus and rail tour. I see now though on the White Pass site that all Tues. are unavailable. I have emailed Chikoot to confirm my train portion. Our ship still has these excursions available, but I really liked the tour Chikoot offered. I will post an update once I hear back.

Call the White Pass office directly. I will be there on a Wednesday in May and found the same thing online. I sent them an email and they told me to call their office directly. I had no problem buying three tickets to use in conjunction with a Dyea Dave tour that day. It *seems* like I had the same problem two years ago when our ship was the only one there that day. I have no idea why it's this way but I've bought directly over the phone both times.

Good Luck!

If you look at the ship schedule for Skagway, you will see that there are 5 ships in port on Tuesday and 4 ships in port on Wednesday and these are all BIG ships with 3000-4000 passengers. Just for fun I counted it up and that means around 16,500 pax on Wednesday (and around 5000 crew) and around 15,000 on Wednesday (plus around 4000 crew). Since the train is easily the most popular activity in Skagway and there is a logistical limit to how many trains they can run and how many cars each train can pull, I would imagine this is a situation where the cruise lines have sucked up all the available capacity. As ships get bigger (NCL Bliss is almost 5000 pax), I would expect this situation to become more common....

I wouldn't be surprised if the Park Service tries at some point to put limits on the size and number of ships that can come into Skagway, since they own a significant portion of the town....

Call the White Pass office directly. I will be there on a Wednesday in May and found the same thing online. I sent them an email and they told me to call their office directly. I had no problem buying three tickets to use in conjunction with a Dyea Dave tour that day. It *seems* like I had the same problem two years ago when our ship was the only one there that day. I have no idea why it's this way but I've bought directly over the phone both times.

 

Good Luck!

Thank you so much! You're experiencing the exact same thing!! I have left them a voice mail and an email! I'll post back when I have an answer!

:DThank you everyone for the help! :D

I heard back from Chilkoot tours regarding my excursion on July 10 (Yukon bus and rail). They are allotted a block of seats on each Fraser and Bennett train. Phew! I was really looking forward to the train — glad to know we are ok.

You may want to consider checking them out if having a hard time getting train tixs.

Don’t rely on internet-call them!!!

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Interesting topic. Please keep us posted.

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The cruise lines may be pressuring them to not offer independent booking so the cruise lines gets a cut of the fare. This seems common in the Caribbean and may sadly be coming to Alaska.

 

 

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That's the way it is in St. Kitts....I tried booking directly with the railroad, and they told me I 'had' to book with the shorex on my cruise line.....although they do have a contact window on their website if you are flying in.....

I heard back from Chilkoot tours regarding my excursion on July 10 (Yukon bus and rail). They are allotted a block of seats on each Fraser and Bennett train. Phew! I was really looking forward to the train — glad to know we are ok.

You may want to consider checking them out if having a hard time getting train tixs.

I've tried Chilkoot for that day and they are showing sold out. If I had known this might be a problem I would have booked with them back in November when I booked Dyea Dave.

So far I have called the train twice and I'm trying to get through to the reservation line and all I'm getting is an answering machine to leave a message which I've done.

So glad that your trip is in place and everything is good to go!!!

I'll post when I know what's going on thanks again everybody!

Call the White Pass office directly. I will be there on a Wednesday in May and found the same thing online. I sent them an email and they told me to call their office directly. I had no problem buying three tickets to use in conjunction with a Dyea Dave tour that day. It *seems* like I had the same problem two years ago when our ship was the only one there that day. I have no idea why it's this way but I've bought directly over the phone both times.

 

Good Luck!

I'm so glad that it worked for you thank you so much but can you tell me did you call the reservation line and have to leave a message? That's what I've done twice in the last 2 days and haven't heard back yet. Or did you press the prompt for the administration office?

Thank you!!

I made all my Shore Excursion reservations months ago and I'm so upset right now that the train part is not locked down.

Keep in mind this is off season for the train. They might not have a lot of people to answer the phone.

Unfortunately, it is extremely possible that the train is booked for ship's tours.

I'm so glad that it worked for you thank you so much but can you tell me did you call the reservation line and have to leave a message? That's what I've done twice in the last 2 days and haven't heard back yet. Or did you press the prompt for the administration office?

Thank you!!

 

I made all my Shore Excursion reservations months ago and I'm so upset right now that the train part is not locked down.

Remember the time difference between Alaska and where you are located. I think I called twice - the first time I was asked to leave a message, which I did not do. I tried again maybe an hour later and went right through. I'm imagining there is only a couple people there in the middle of winter (which it is right now) and they do have to eat lunch and such. :) I called in their afternoon on January 25th... (4 PM my time Central)

Not directly related to your question, but may also explain why you're seeing things like this at this stage of the calendar. A few years ago, we took a truly beginning of the season cruise that had only one stop, Ketchikan. We did the Misty Fjords tour via Allen Marine, and at the end of the tour, I asked the AM gal who seemed to be corralling all of us onto the tour boat how it worked for reservations, as clearly they don't want to assign an entire 150-pax boat to one cruise line/ship.

Her answer was intriguing: Princess might "claim" 75 seats, and HAL might claim 75 seats when the original contract is signed the year before, for a given tour. As the booking systems gather guest reservations, the cruise lines adjust their estimates, and either stick with their current estimation, give back some seats, or request additional seats. The cruise line essentially ends up with a wholesale commitment as it gets close to a given tour, based on what their numbers were. If the cruise lines begin to ratchet back their commitments, the tour operator can sell those seats privately or through any other means they wish (that isn't in conflict with the contract).

Or as another example, last September we went to Alaska and in Juneau had planned to do our usual whale watch, but we wanted MORE. I knew who the tour operator was, and called to see what our options were. Long story short, even though we set it up completely in advance, we had to call them at 11:00am as we docked in Juneau to get a preliminary check of capacity, we had to hunt down the dock rep and get "paper tickets" pre-written, which they handed to us. They let our guide know what the plan was, but it wasn't until we were out on the water (and when the HAL ship arrived with "final" numbers) that they knew they had 2 open seats on a second tour that was only 15 minutes after our first tour ended (we were on the very first round of tours for the day). Moral of the story is that I think the contract terms make many of the operators quite loyal to the ship contracts, so they hold off on capacity until they have reason to believe it won't jeopardize their ship-sourced business.

I heard back from Chilkoot tours regarding my excursion on July 10 (Yukon bus and rail). They are allotted a block of seats on each Fraser and Bennett train. Phew! I was really looking forward to the train — glad to know we are ok.

You may want to consider checking them out if having a hard time getting train tixs.

Chilkoot has an entire car to themselves, they rent it out from the RR. Thought not a guarantee it is usually the last car on the train so you have the rear platform available for viewing. We did the Bennett/Carcross train 2 years ago and loved it.

I heard back from Chilkoot tours regarding my excursion on July 10 (Yukon bus and rail). They are allotted a block of seats on each Fraser and Bennett train. Phew! I was really looking forward to the train — glad to know we are ok.

You may want to consider checking them out if having a hard time getting train tixs.

Thanks for the update - we are on Chilkoot a week before you! Even though we've taken the train before, I would have been disappointed if it was cancelled since its a great excursion. This time we'll have our son and daughter-in-law with us.

We are coming in on a Wednesday and booked with Dyea Dave. We also wanted to add the train and left a message with the WPYR on Saturday. Someone called back to day and we were able to book our tickets.

OP, were you able to get yours?

Hi everyone!!

Finally got a hold of a real person at YP YR yesterday morning, she confirmed that they are being partially chartered by the cruise line.

The afternoon for the 5th from Fraser to Skagway was sold out, however she had a few tickets one way from Skagway to Fraser for the morning train...so I called Dyea Dave and changed the itinerarary for the trip to morning train and afternoon lake tour ( very grateful) Then I called back and bought my tickets.

Dyea Dave does not appear to have any arrangements with the train as far as space... Something else I didn't know, and they seem to be very frustrated with YP YR.

I'm very fortunate to have been able to secure seats on the train!!!

Thank you to everyone! My 3rd time to Alaska and the train and I've learned a lot of new things they were not doing a few years ago. It makes it hard for a person that wants to do it on their own.

Not directly related to your question, but may also explain why you're seeing things like this at this stage of the calendar. A few years ago, we took a truly beginning of the season cruise that had only one stop, Ketchikan. We did the Misty Fjords tour via Allen Marine, and at the end of the tour, I asked the AM gal who seemed to be corralling all of us onto the tour boat how it worked for reservations, as clearly they don't want to assign an entire 150-pax boat to one cruise line/ship.

 

Her answer was intriguing: Princess might "claim" 75 seats, and HAL might claim 75 seats when the original contract is signed the year before, for a given tour. As the booking systems gather guest reservations, the cruise lines adjust their estimates, and either stick with their current estimation, give back some seats, or request additional seats. The cruise line essentially ends up with a wholesale commitment as it gets close to a given tour, based on what their numbers were. If the cruise lines begin to ratchet back their commitments, the tour operator can sell those seats privately or through any other means they wish (that isn't in conflict with the contract).

 

Or as another example, last September we went to Alaska and in Juneau had planned to do our usual whale watch, but we wanted MORE. I knew who the tour operator was, and called to see what our options were. Long story short, even though we set it up completely in advance, we had to call them at 11:00am as we docked in Juneau to get a preliminary check of capacity, we had to hunt down the dock rep and get "paper tickets" pre-written, which they handed to us. They let our guide know what the plan was, but it wasn't until we were out on the water (and when the HAL ship arrived with "final" numbers) that they knew they had 2 open seats on a second tour that was only 15 minutes after our first tour ended (we were on the very first round of tours for the day). Moral of the story is that I think the contract terms make many of the operators quite loyal to the ship contracts, so they hold off on capacity until they have reason to believe it won't jeopardize their ship-sourced business.

I'm so glad it worked out for you!! I would have been freaking out!.

I think you're completely correct on the contract and how the seats are being adjusted! This would account for the no rhyme or reason appearance to people booking on their own.

Thank you for all the information!!

I am afraid with the growing popularity of cruises to Alaska causing more and larger ships to cruise Alaska, this will be an ongoing issue. As others mentioned, the train has a limited capacity on the number of trains per day and cars per train. At some point, booking through the cruise lines may be the only option, at least mid-week. Most cruises leave on Saturday or Sunday and arrive in Skagway Tue - Thur.

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