Chilkat River Adventures

Okay, I don't usually like to blast mom and pop businesses, owned by the Hess family, but because it seems these folks have a lock on the cruise ship shore excursion business I gotta say something and hopefully can spare future Yelpers/Cruisers from some disspointment in visiting the Chilkat Eagle Reserve, with River Adventures.

First off, the good: The organization of getting you onto the bus and to their facility was good, the bus driver was good and interesting, the scenery of Haines, AK spectacular. I really liked Haines, AK. This is a totally sleepy town environment with not much going on, which is pretty nice compared to the some other ports of call that are nothing but tourist shopping traps. The lunch and facilities of this place is very nice too. Bathrooms clean and updated and they seem to have a good "flow" of getting people in and out in respects to cruisers time on shore. We did see some active Eagles Nests too which was cool.

Now the bad: INCONSISTENCY of the TOUR and POOR MANAGEMENT/TRAINING.
My family's boat had the priviledge of getting a brand new river captain who gave one of the most boring tours EVER. He didn't tell us sh*t about sh*t. I mean you're suppose to be the friggin' expert at this eagle reserve right??? Then tell us something about an eagle! Tell us something other than the obvious "Uh, that's the Chilkat Mountains"....yeah, you told us that 3x already. Half the boat fell asleep and even when we did see eagles nests dude didn't even stop to linger, he just went by them, even when others were trying to take pictures etc. SUCH A DISSAPOINTMENT. The worst part? The other boats with better tour guides came back and people were just raving about they saw moose droppings, they saw this, they saw that....uh, I would have loved to have a tour guide who could have moose droppings be exciting! Okay, the one cool thing this captain did was take us to a very cool lake and turn off the engine for a while so we can experience the true solitude of the place.

So when I complained to the Cruise Ship Shore excursion director, they contacted the company who's only resolve was basically, "Sorry about that but he's new and this was his first time out by himself and he needed to concentrate on navigating the boat." WHATEVER...POOR TRAINING. FIrst off, why even put him out there by himself??? Why not give this poor sap a frigging SCRIPT??? Why not have a more senior person be out there with him SHOWING HIM how to do it???? WHY PRACTICE ON US???? You turned my once in a lifetime experience into an expensive nap. POOR TRAINING. I believe because they know we're only there for a short amount of time, and they're in cahoots with the cruiseline, they don't truly give a sh*t about what they do, and how they do it. So I don't blame the lame captain, I blame River Adventures management for using me as a guinee pig for the training. BOOOOOOO!!!!

HAL refunded me 25% but whatever...that's just their commission. Again, hate to blast mom and pop shops but they're living fat off cruises and they need to not play with my hard earned money/time.

Here's my main tip for people reading this:
-If you really want to see animals etc...DON'T USE A TOUR that USES AN ENGINE!!!! It scares animals away! Guaranteed you will not see big animals on this tour. Best to do a kayak or motorless pantoon to try to see animals in the wild.
-This eagle reserve only sees a ton of eagles in November....we saw 5x more Eagles just flying around downtown Juneau! No kidding, they were everywhere in Juneau....in the Chilkat Eagle Reserve in the summer...not so much.
-If you do book with this company MAKE SURE YOU GET A SENIOR/EXPERIENCED TOUR GUIDE. Not some friggin' solo trainee.

As the name says, they operate boats that cruise up and down the Chilkat River. They cannot guarantee what you will see since wildlife is not really predictable. There is nice scenery if the weather it good (they can't guarantee the weather either).

Our weather was good, but initially we didn't see much wildlife. Nice scenery, pretty mountains. We saw a few birds, including trumpeter swans. On the way back to the dock we got lucky. Bears. A mama brown bear and her juvenile cub. The boat stopped and we lingered for several minutes watching them interact. It was great.

As I said, they can't guarantee that. But if you do get to see the bears it's truly magical. And watching them from the safety of the boat is really the only way to do it.

This was one of the finest tours we have taken. It exceeded all of our expectations. Rustin Gooden was our boat captain and naturalist. His knowledge of the area and wildlife was extraordinary and we would highly recommend asking for him if you have the chance. If you are looking for an incredible Alaska adventure and something off the beaten path this is the excursion. You will not be disappointed.

This was one of the highlights of our recent trip to the Yukon and Alaska.
We had an excellent tour of the Chilkat river area in June. The company has great customer service -- picking us up at our hotel in Skagway, bringing us to the ferry that cruised through the fjord to Haines, picking us up at the ferry and driving to the property. We boarded a flat bottom jet boat and "cruised" in and among the channels of the Chilkat where we saw moose and eagles and the beautiful scenery. The narration along the way was extraordinary. After the tour we had lunch at the covered pavillion. We highly recommend this company and this excursion.

Save your time and money and do something else. I paid over $600 for 3 people to see nothing. First of all from your cruise ship they are making you take public ferry that's super inconvenient - 45 minutes. After that another 45 minutes by the bus. From that point they are taking you around in the boat for an hour or whatever and it's another bus and ferry back. You will have to stay in line and wait. After charging enormous amount of money, they do not bother to do anything to make your experience worth it. They should have at least scan the area with the drones before taking passengers so they know where to spot animals. Spread around soda and food so that bears will show up. Something... instead, there is nothing to see because they are lazy and not willing to do this. Because they are getting stupid clients like me, who bought these pretty pictures on the internet and these 5 star reviews everywhere... We only saw one frog and back of the moose eating, several football fields away and it was a nice sunny day! It's not worth your time and I feel like I wasted money and all of my time at the last stop in Alaska. Honestly I would not do this even if they pay me $500... we got back super tired, unhappy, 30 minutes before cruise departure.

My husband and I were booked to take a tour with Chilkat last month. We were traveling on a Princess ship and had booked our tour through Shore Excursions. My husband became ill and we had to unexpectedly leave our cruise and travel home so we missed taking the tour. Shore Excursions would not give us a refund, however, the kind people from Chilkat refunded us our money minus the amount that Shore Excursions kept.

My advice is to book direct with Chilkat (cut out the middleman) and know you will be treated right.

By the way, our friends did take the tour with Chilkat and enjoyed it immensely. Thank you to the kind and understanding folks at Chilkat.

Excellent tour! It's our second time going in two years and we wouldn't recommend missing it on any trip to Alaska ever! The people giving (and taking you to) this tour are so lovely and the tour itself cannot be beat... Getting to the tour is an adventure in itself and you will often be met with a delightful and knowledgeable intermediary (always a smiling local like Paul and sometimes the owner) whether narrating on the ferry, driving the busses, or in between different forms of transport. No matter what, the scenery is beautiful!

Once you arrive on the Bald Eagle Preserve, you're met with a lovely lunch, a roaring fire and spectacular mountainous scenery. The friendly and pumped staff are so prepared for you, they hand out blankets, jackets and/or earmuffs for free. You can also rent binoculars for 5$. There are some viewing stations in the form of telescopes where you can apparently see mountain goats on the opposite shore. We didn't even know about that until after we had left this time around!

The tour itself is really quite great, mostly because of the enthusiasm of the guides. Yes, the scenery is breathtaking and the animal sightings are fabulous... But we've had Sierra both times now and she's one of the reasons we came back to this tour and will return in the future. Her enthusiasm and intelligence is literally infectious and we really appreciate her nature-oriented and laid back approach to showing people her version of Alaska. She's a really wonderful person and with her we've seen eagles, baby eagles, moose (Mooses? Meise? Moosen?), trumpet swans, and so forth... And also many non-animal natural wonders of Alaska. She does this moment of silence thing where we turn off the engines and listen to the natural silence and it's really quite marvelous. The tour itself is truly a gorgeous experience and we very highly recommend it!

Tip: if you're on Princess Cruises, the tour falls under Skagway SGY 700 Haines Wilderness River Adventure!

HIGHLY RECOMMEMDED. Rafting down the river is super. We saw about 10 eagles mostly in the trees. The view is fantastic and the water not terribly rough. Dana was a great river guide and all in all well worth the effort and cost. Do the trip for the scenery and peacefulness, not necessarily to see tons of eagles.

This is a must do when in Haines Alaska. The people at River Adventures are the best. I highly recommend this to anyone. The owners Duck and Karen are there with you and bend over backwards to make sure that each guest has an amazing time. We will be going back to Haines as a vacation spot.

Great Excursion!!

My husband and I took this excursion and had a wonderful time. "General" Karen and Duck, the owners, were great hostesses. The landscape was gorgeous and we saw so much wildlife on the Chilkat River. Our tour guide (Sierra) was very knowledgeable and shared so much interesting information about this area of Alaska. After the tour, we had a yummy lunch including some chili that I could have gone back for seconds. You will not be disappointed with this excursion. It was a professional well-run tour with a blend of a family feel to it. I must admit that I am hard to satisfy ... this excursion ROCKED!!