IdidaRide Sled Dog Tours — Attraction in Alaska

The trip to Mitch Seavey’s Iditarod Sled Dog Training Camp was part of the Great Alaskan Railroad Package and included various things but I’m just giving a review of the sled dog part here. First off, this was really a lot of fun. Arriving at the camp, you heard the dogs in the distance and as we approached it was clear that these dogs were excited to do what they were trained to do. Each group that was harnessed up was bouncing off the ground, barking and yelping to go. Our guide, a very lovely, intelligent young woman of 21 years (I am horrible with names, I am so sorry and I wish I could remember hers, but she was of Filipino decent, originally from Washington state), anyway, this young woman was absolutely the most amazing speaker. I’ve worked for decades with young professional engineers and very few had the poise and ability to speak as well as she did. I was shocked at how young she was, again, super impressive young woman. From her backstory of how she got involved with dog sledding to her hopes for the future this is a young woman to watch!! The tour she gave was very detailed, from the complete description of what goes into training the dogs, to what mushers go through during the races, and watching how the dogs react to her (I’m sure all the guides were close to the same ability) plus she just made the afternoon fun. Now getting handed a relatively new-born pup. You may think you’re one rough and tough guy, but that little ball of fur is going to show you EXACLTY who’s the boss! One other guy in the group remarked to me, “amazing what a puppy will do to grown men ain’t it” he was correct. To see the dedication of the trainers, dogs, and staff you gain respect for the sport of dog sledding and watching the dogs trained so well that single words mean a lot of action, you have to admire the efforts put out by all. If you get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. You might think “this seems kind of hokey” but it isn’t. I realize that the ride we went on was nowhere near the actual mush across frozen tundra but seeing the dogs in action and their genuine love of what they are doing was well worth the trip. A big thumbs up for the staff and big recommendation to go and visit you can’t help but get...

This place is run by crooks ! We initially booked for a party of 4. Later when we found out that they put 8 people together in the cart, we inquired to see if we can get a cart for ourself and not shared one if we come with a party of 6. At the time of booking, we were promised and we happily booked for 6 people. We had 2 young kids who wanted to stand infront and that's the main reason we requested for the privacy and bumped up the number of riders from 4 to 6. However, when we got there not only we were put with a group of 8 people, our request for letting klids stand infront was also denied as those seats were taken by 50 year olds who just happened to seat themselves first. Then we requested to at least consider swapping the seat midway to which the response was "that's not our policy and we cannot do that", which implied that we just have to sit in our seats for the entire ride with 6 & 11 year old sitting in the middle while 50 year olds sitting in the very front. I was stunned and requested to not go and ask for the refund. The response was "we don't refund the money" so if you don't want to come right now, you will have to schedule another time. Of course, as a tourist we didn't have any other time available. I was surprised by the inconsiderate attitude and arrogant behavior of the guy who unfortunately happened to be from the Seavey's family. Of all the nice events in our 10 day Alaska trip, this experience certainly sticks out as a sore thumb and leaves a bad taste in our mouth. Please do NOT take this ride. Furthermore, if you are thinking that you would be pulled by Alaskan huskies, you cannot be further away from truth. What you get is bunch of dogs who are of different breeds and trained for ididaride. They are much leaner (probably fit) but do NOT look anything like...

We did the Real Alaska Tour and loved it. I was hesitant beforehand, however because of the cost and Seward being a 'cruise' town. But we found this tour to be full of activity and felt it was more than worth the price. We were pleasantly surprised at how interesting, informative, yet humorous was the first part where Danny Seavey taught us about the Ididarod and sled dogs. We then went on the ride through the woods and were impressed by our musher, Taran. We returned and received a FREE video of our ride. We learned more about the Ididarod, got to see an actual sled, and then were allowed to hold the PUPPIES! They were seriously so precious (see the picture!!). We then boarded a bus with Daryl who taught us about Seward and its history before having lunch at the cutest cafe downtown. The food was really good too. From the cafe, we went to Exit Glacier. My family hiked the mile up and back to see it. The hike was very doable for an average in-shape person and we thought it was fun. Daryl took our picture at the top for us. From the glacier, we were taken to see the salmon running and then returned to the train depot (or in our case the sled dog home because we drove down). I thought this tour contained a LOT for the price and found each person we interacted with friendly, knowledgable, and skilled. It was one of our very favorite days in Alaska and we would highly...