Helicopter & Dog Sledding - Juneau

[jerseygirl629]

Hi All,

 

Curious if anyone has gone on this excursion lately? We have it booked in Juneau through RCL. I read in the past they cancel tours based on weather and/or snow melt. Has anyone gone on this lately and can provide any experiences?

 

We are double booked with a whale watching / mendenhall glacier tour just in case (which I would need to cancel a few days ahead to avoid a fee) this gets canceled. 

[TrinityFL]

This excursion was canceled on the NCL Spirit the morning of due to weather.

[mozfoz]

We booked it privately through Coastal Helicopters last week 10/14/22. $660.00 They do not book with cruise ships. We did the extended excursion which included the helicopter to the dog camp along with the sledding, then onto the next stop for a walk on the glacier. Weathe was luckily great. I balked at the price initially, but the experience was exhilarating. Best excursion ever. Beg, borrow or steal the money if you get a reservation.

[jerseygirl629]

21 hours ago, TrinityFL said:

This excursion was canceled on the NCL Spirit the morning of due to weather.

 

Did they say if it was due to snow melt? or, was it too cloudy? Were you given another option?

[Cambria2]

We booked privately for the glacier/ dog sled last week when we were in Juneau. Every single helicopter tour private or ship tour was cancelled due to weather- rain & low visibility. Happens frequently I am told.   Our grandkids were disappointed but luckily we had a whale watching tour booked for the afternoon which saved the day!  We booked with Juneau whale watching. Saw several whales & even got to see them breach. It was great.

[itsanita]

We were cancelled last week too.  Too windy.  The flights were able to go in the afternoon.  We had VERY disappointed kids...to the point of tears for the little ones.   Wish we would have kept it a surprise.   We had booked an excursion in the afternoon to meet the pups and go gold panning.  That saved the day.  

[jerseygirl629]

Thanks for the updates. Sorry to hear all of these tours have been getting canceled. I hope if they cancel ours they at least give us some notice. :-/

[QueenWiggler]

40 minutes ago, jerseygirl629 said:

Thanks for the updates. Sorry to hear all of these tours have been getting canceled. I hope if they cancel ours they at least give us some notice. 😕

They do whatever they can to go. But if the weather does not cooperate they can't control that. This is one excursion that you most likely won't get a lot of notice if it gets cancelled. 

[doktor71]

Keeping my fingers crossed that we can do this again next May! 

[Shel71]

We were canceled last Sunday due to extreme fog/rain. I was sad. This is my 4th time to Juneau. First time (end of May 2014) with my kids and we were canceled. Second (June 2018) and third (Sept 2019) I was alone or with my husband only and we flew. This time was with one of my kids again and canceled again! i think my kids are jinxing it!

[Shel71]

I figured it out! I was supposed to sail on the NCL Sun on 7/5 but it was canceled due to the iceberg so we switched to the 7/18 NCL Spirit. I had put in for reimbursement of the airline change fees to NCL and was awarded the $300 offered and they just refunded my card and never sent an email confirming it. My mind was stuck on the Spirit and what the refund could be for and forgot about the Sun stuff!

[jerseygirl629]

On 7/28/2022 at 3:31 PM, Shel71 said:

We were canceled last Sunday due to extreme fog/rain. I was sad. This is my 4th time to Juneau. First time (end of May 2014) with my kids and we were canceled. Second (June 2018) and third (Sept 2019) I was alone or with my husband only and we flew. This time was with one of my kids again and canceled again! i think my kids are jinxing it!

 

How much notice did they give you? Sorry to hear it was canceled.

[itsanita]

6 hours ago, jerseygirl629 said:

 

How much notice did they give you? Sorry to hear it was canceled.

They cancelled us that am on the dock.  they said it was last minute as they were hoping the winds would improve.  All the other excursions were full by then.    You take your chances when you are dependent on the weather.   

[SightCRR]

Because the dog tours are only to certain spots where the dogs are sometimes, they can fly to other spots on the glaciers without the dogs. Be ready to answer the question "Do you want to fly to another spot without the dogs for less money?"

Not sure how rcl handles that. 

sightcrr

Edited August 3, 2022 by SightCRR

[CruseHairDontCare]

We were also just canceled on July 23rd. Fog/visibility was the reason and we did not find out until we were on the dock to meet them. Weather cancellations really have to be last minute because they will wait to see. I’m sure they want to do the tours as badly as we want to. We just took it as a sign that we have to go back again! Luckily, we had a whale watch booked for the afternoon.

[Shel71]

12 hours ago, jerseygirl629 said:

 

How much notice did they give you? Sorry to hear it was canceled.

We were supposed to meet out on the dock at 8:45 AM and when I left my room to run up to grab coffee at 8:20 there was a note on the door that it was canceled. I pretty much knew it would be when I woke up and looked outside at the very dense fog and knew the forecast wasn't supposed to change that day.

[jerseygirl629]

We are supposed to go mid-afternoon so hopefully that gives us a better chance. Will see what the weather says I guess and just hope for the best!

 

[piercetc4]

we are supposed to go at like 1:30 pm so guess we will see what it looks like when we arrive and dock at noon

[tetleytea]

I will just share this in case it helps:   my very first time sailing Alaska, I wanted to do the dogsledding more than anything--AND I coughed at the price.  For that price I decided to just fly to Toronto in the late winter and do some actual dog sledding on some real snow (not just some melting glacier in the summer) in central Ontario.  I got an entire vacation for not much more than the price of just that one shore excursion.  Dogsledding for 5 hours on frozen lakes and where you have to wear snowshoes to walk anywhere felt far more authentic.  I only missed on the helicopter part.

[MellyBell]

We just got back and ours was also canceled.  They waited until last minute we were already on dock and 10 minutes before they were supposed to pick us up they gave us notice.  By the time Celebrity got word it was too late for us to sign up for another excursion.  We ended up booking a whale watching on our own.  We were worried about it getting canceled in Juneau so we found a company in Seward and they were fabulous.  

[Antevius]

I've booked the dogsledding excursion through two different companies (not through the cruise line) for 8/25/2022 out of Juneau, and both companies have already told me that they're cancelling my excursion. Apparently, there has been a lot of rainfall and camp conditions are deteriorating, so they decided to cancel all excursions after a certain date. 

That being said, my cruise line is still offering multiple dogsledding excursions. I tried calling them so see if they were confident that they were going to actually move forward, but no one could give me a real answer. I'm hesitant to book through the cruise line and potentially miss out on another excursion should it be cancelled. 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Antevius

[doktor71]

17 hours ago, Antevius said:

I've booked the dogsledding excursion through two different companies (not through the cruise line) for 8/25/2022 out of Juneau, and both companies have already told me that they're cancelling my excursion. Apparently, there has been a lot of rainfall and camp conditions are deteriorating, so they decided to cancel all excursions after a certain date. 

That being said, my cruise line is still offering multiple dogsledding excursions. I tried calling them so see if they were confident that they were going to actually move forward, but no one could give me a real answer. I'm hesitant to book through the cruise line and potentially miss out on another excursion should it be cancelled. 

In looking at a book I received “The 2022 official Vistors Guide” Juneau Alaska, show only two companies do helicopters dogsled tours; Temsco and Costal.  I believe the Cruise Lines use both.  If the two companies have cancelled, I would almost be assured that the cruise line will cancel.  I was told months ago by both companies basically, if the snow disappears the sled tours no longer run.  I had originally book our cruise in late September for my husband’s  birthday 2023, and noticed there were no sled tours.  This was because no snow confirmed both companies  I changed our sailing to May.  I am hopeful that we will get to go as this was my husbands favorite excursion.  The latest they generally schedule is the first week in September .  

[Antevius]

On 8/16/2022 at 8:26 AM, doktor71 said:

In looking at a book I received “The 2022 official Vistors Guide” Juneau Alaska, show only two companies do helicopters dogsled tours; Temsco and Costal.  I believe the Cruise Lines use both.  If the two companies have cancelled, I would almost be assured that the cruise line will cancel.  I was told months ago by both companies basically, if the snow disappears the sled tours no longer run.  I had originally book our cruise in late September for my husband’s  birthday 2023, and noticed there were no sled tours.  This was because no snow confirmed both companies  I changed our sailing to May.  I am hopeful that we will get to go as this was my husbands favorite excursion.  The latest they generally schedule is the first week in September .  

Right on. I ended up calling Temsco directly, and they told me that they’ve moved their camp multiple times, but that they plan on doing their dogsledding excursion through the end of August. They also told me that Celebrity uses their services for the Mendenhall excursion. All of their online and over the counter time slots were booked, so I booked through Celebrity. So, fingers crossed.

[doktor71]

38 minutes ago, Antevius said:

Right on. I ended up calling Temsco directly, and they told me that they’ve moved their camp multiple times, but that they plan on doing their dogsledding excursion through the end of August. They also told me that Celebrity uses their services for the Mendenhall excursion. All of their online and over the counter time slots were booked, so I booked through Celebrity. So, fingers crossed.

Good luck hopefully you will get to go!

[jerseygirl629]

As the OP, I wanted to report back on my own experience with hopes this helps other cruisers 🙂

 

My family and I booked the Helicopter Ride and Dog Sledding at Mendenhall Glacier for 08/16 at 2:15pm through Royal Caribbean. We also booked a glacier explorer cruise through the ship for earlier that morning, departing Ovation of the Seas around 7am. Our boat was late arriving into Juneau; We were supposed to be back by 1pm, in reality, we were back by around 1:40pm which was a little nerve wracking as we had to check back into the ship, then check back out for our 2:15pm excursion with a 2:00pm meet time. Luckily, we made it! We scanned our sea pass cards back on to the ship then were just able to walk directly across the ship and get off again - easy peasy. 

 

I had emailed Temsco a few days before arriving and they said the camp was not closed yet and as long as weather cooperated, we would still get to go. They said they can cancel up until a few minutes before though, which we were prepared for. When we met Temsco reps to check in at the port, the sky looked very cloudy/foggy and we asked them if the tours were canceled. They said they have not received any word they were canceled and they have been running them all morning due to clear skies. They took our party's weight and we waited to board the bus. It got cloudier and foggier, and started to drizzle. In total, there were 11 people for this excursion. My family of 4, another family of 4, one single rider, and one couple. We were unsure this would actually happen but were crossing our fingers!

 

By the time we got to Temsco, it was raining pretty hard. We watched the safety briefing, signed some waivers, and put on our shoe covers they provided. They said the tours were still on but if the Pilot's feel uncomfortable when we are mid-flight, they can and will turn around and if that happens, we will all receive a full refund. 

 

The Pilot arrived, picked us up, and off we went up into the fog and rain. The visibility was low, at least I thought so as a passenger (lol) and the rain was steady. For a bunch of first timers on a Helicopter, my family was pretty nervous as we could barely see anything out the window - which was also a bummer because part of the helicopter experience we were hoping for was great views! 

 

We arrived to camp and were escorted off the helicopter. It was raining very hard and very steady. The group who had just finished their excursion got on the helicopter after we got off.

 

We were introduced to the team on the glacier, about 8 people seemed to work up there. We were then put on the sleds; my family was on one, the other family of 4 was on one, and the couple and single rider shared another. As we were going, the helicopters came back again to do another pick up. Our musher asked if we noticed if anyone else got off the helicopter and we all said no. He said that means they must have canceled the remaining tours for the day due to weather and *hopefully* they will be back to pick us up. The weather kept getting worse - we were all cold and drenched but still trying to enjoy this once in a lifetime experience - while also worrying about getting back down!

 

Another staff member said they have not had any groups stranded yet this season but it has happened in the past and if it does, they have tents, cots, heaters, and food for us in case of emergency. I wanted to believe she was being sarcastic but, I think she may have been serious. Our Musher said if we get stuck, they will house us and pay for our flights to meet the cruise wherever the next stop is. Additionally, they mentioned they are scheduled to be up there until the end of September and this was the rainiest it has been in weeks while still operating. Well, we finished our runs and the helicopters still were not back. They took the group to meet new 2 week old puppies, as well as their 4 month old puppies they referred to as "The Avengers". It was great but, we were all cold and drenched!

 

Visibility remained pretty terrible but luckily, we heard the helicopters approaching in the distance. They picked us up right on schedule and we were back at Temsco around 4:45pm, then back to the main dock area by 5:00pm. All tours for the remainder of the day were canceled due to weather. We were absolutely soaked by the end of it; the only dry parts were our feet (Thanks to the shoe covers they provided, LOL) but grateful we got to go at all! 

 

Admittedly, we were double booked with a whale watching excursion just in case this excursion never happened. We obviously ended up not doing that so unfortunately lost the money we gave but, that was always a gamble and we knew going in we would either get our money back from Royal for Dog Sledding or, lose our money to whale watching. Ah, well. 

 

Photo so you can see how foggy/cloudy/rainy it was. Good thing I brought my GoPro for photos/videos as it is waterproof! If anyone has any questions, please let me know.