Coastal Helicopters — Local services in Juneau

tl;dr : Amazing, the best excursion we've ever done. Staff was great.

We took the Dog Sled Tour during our Celebrity Alaskan cruise in the beginning of June. It was hands down the highlight of our cruise and one of the most memorable experiences for our family. It started with a very short drive from the cruise terminal to the Juneau International Airport. The representatives at the cruise terminal were very friendly and excited about our tour. We were driven to the airport and greeted by some other representatives that brought us inside, checked us in (including weighing each of us separately, don’t worry no one can see your weight except the team member behind the desk), showed us a video, gave us overboats for grip, warm, and water resistance, and locked up our belongings we couldn’t take on the helicopter.

We were then lined up outside and given our seating order, all based on weight distribution. When the 3 helicopters arrived from a previous excursion, it all started to become real. They were all about safety, ensuring we knew where to stand, walk, and how to board the helicopter. Once buckled in and headphones donned, we were on our way. The 3 copters all took off together and headed to the glacier. If you’ve never been in a helicopter before (and I hadn’t) it is truly an amazing experience. The pilot talked to us about all the sights we were seeing, he was great.

As the glacier came into sight it was amazing to see. Off in the far distance you could barely make out the dog camp. As we continued to fly over the glacier, you could start making out the camp more, tents, dog kennels (a few hundred of them), and a few people. It was a massive camp.

We landed and got out and were safely brought closer to camp. It was then you could hear 240 dogs all barking, excited to take you on the adventure of a lifetime. Since the dog sleds could only take 4 people, our group of 6 was split into 4 and 2. So we sent the 4 kids off together. My wife and I were matched up with a mother and daughter duo from another group. Our musher started explaining to us what we were going to do, how we were going to sit, etc. There are 3 seats in the 2 tandem sleds connected to each other by rope. So the 4th person gets to stand on the back of the sled. I volunteered for that because it seemed really cool. The musher stands on the back of the 1st sled. Once all 12 dogs were connected to the sled, off we went.

The dogs just want to run. They love running. That is their joy in life: running and pulling. As we mushed along, the musher talked about each dog, their personality, why they were in the order they were in…simply fascinating. The musher had 40 dogs under her care for the summer. But for each mush she takes groupings of 12 different dogs to ensure they all get enough exercise, but not too much work. The entire dog sled experience lasted about 25 minutes. We got off the sleds about halfway through to play with the dogs while they were still connected to the their harnesses on the sled so they would stay contained.

After the mush back at camp, we got to play with our 12 dogs again. We did not get to play with any of the other 230 dogs at the camp. All of the dogs we played with on our sled were very friendly, loved to bark, jump, and lick.

They took a picture of our group during our mush with all of the dogs included. They were selling printed photos back at camp for $30. Totally worth it.

Then we loaded into our helicopter for a 10-15 minute ride back to the airport. Wet ave back our overboats, collected our belongings, and were then shuttled back to the cruise terminal. They run a very smooth operation where safety is their #1 priority.

You can tip your musher if you like, but don’t feel obligated as they are not pushy at all. Cash works best.

This was the most expensive excursion we did on the this cruise; or any cruise we have been on for that matter. But this is probably a once in a...

Coastal Helicopters allows young children and states that they provide snow boots to go over their shoes for the glacier dog sledding excursion. While the adults get adequate boots that go over their shoes and close at the top. The young children's boots are simple plastic rain boots that remain open at the top and have no insulation. They have to remove their shoes and slip on a pair of rain boots. These boots do NOT close at the top, and the snow is deep. The boots filled with snow, which melted inside. Most of our excursion was tempered by our son crying and screaming that his feet hurt. Of course, they did. His socks were soaking wet in the cold, and the plastic rain boots provided no real insulation. I would have brought appropriate boots had I been warned. The same issue was going on with my daughter. As we waited for the helicopter to return, we removed his soaking wet socks and tried to use our gloves on his feet. While we were struggling with this, an employee came to up sell us the photos. Not only did this show no recognition of the situation with my son, but let's be honest...when you some pays $3,400 for an excursion, I'd suggest not nickel and diming over photos you'll be tossing in the garbage if not purchased. Just include the photos versus expecting someone who was forced to leave all their belonging behind to have cash ready on a glacier. Next came the reboarding of the helicopter. We had specific instructions that we would be bucked in by staff. I was buckled in before they attempted to put my daughter in the child's seat. She was not happy about being strapped in, and her feet were freezing. The employee decided just not to do it. He let the man sitting next to my daughter get in, which blocked him from getting access to safety secure her in the helicopter. He than proceed to ask the stranger to help get her into her seat. LOL. I then unbuckled so I could proceed to wrestle her into the car seat, which was NOT properly adjusted for her and was way too tight with her jacket on, as it didn't seem like the employee was concerned about her safety. The employee returned to "help" and felt he was done when I managed to complete the top buckle and called it a day. Most car seats have a main buckle at the bottom and a secondary one at the top. I then continued to wrestle with the bottom buckle. Clearly, the straps needed to be adjusted. I managed to strap her down after removing her coat. I find it ironic that I had to be briefed on all the safety regarding the excursion when the staff out on the glacier seemed not to care. My impression is that a bunch of young adults who like to party take these temp positions on the glacier, and it shows. I get that she was screaming and upset, but her feet were freezing because of an issue caused by your company. When asked how things went, we reported the issue, but nobody really wanted...

Upset, disappointed and angry. We had a helicopter/dog sledding tour booked yesterday at 3 pm. The day before there was a possibility that our ship would be running late due to departing late. We let the Coastal Helicopters know as soon as we thought we might be late for our excursion and we’re advised they were aware and tracking our ship. As it turns out our boat wasn’t late to Juneau Port and arrived just after 2 pm. Our tour was booked for 3 pm. As we were sitting on the dock waiting to get off at Juneau we got an email from Coastal Helicopter tours advising our tour had been cancelled. I called coastal helicopters straight away and was advised they thought our ship was arriving at 6:30 pm so had cancelled our tour. I told them no, we are sitting at the dock waiting to get off the boat and should be off the boat in the next 20 minutes and will make our tour in plenty of time. They said they would see what they could do. They rang back and said we can do 3:35 pm. No problem. We are happy to change to 3:35 pm even though we could make our 3 pm original booking - that had been booked for months and fully paid for. I got another call a few minutes later saying sorry, they couldn’t get us in at 3:35 pm as they were accommodating other people on our ship for that tour. I questioned why we couldn’t have our original booking at 3 pm and they told us it was too late it was already cancelled. We’re from Australia. Not just a few hours away where we could probably come back in a year or two. This is our one and only trip to Alaska. A very expensive trip for us but we allowed our son to pick one extravagant excursion for his 16th birthday and he chose this one because of his love of dogs. It was cancelled because the tour company didn’t do what they said they were going to do on track our ship and didn’t check that we were sitting on the dock before cancelling our excursion. There was no need for it to be cancelled. When our tour was meant to start at 3 pm, we were sitting on another tour bus for an excursion that we scrambled to organise get once we got onto dock because we had nothing to do so we approached one of the vendors right near the coastal helicopter flag and they accommodated us for a whale watching tour as all their dog sledding ones were full. Not what we wanted to do but better than nothing. We were sitting on their bus at 3pm when we should’ve been doing the tour that we had planned. I’m waiting now for the credit they say they have processed and I’ll still be out of pocket for the credit card exchange rate fees on both the original charge and the credit. For something that is their fault. I DO NOT trust Coastal helicopters and would not...