Homer and Kodiak

Dh and I are taking HAL's 14 day Alaska cruise. We only have two previous cruises and this is the first to Alaska. We have booked excursions for most of the ports. We haven't booked any excursions for Sitka as it seems to be a pretty walkable port. Any suggestions for Homer and Kodiak? Are they small enough to see a lot just by walking. We are interested in nature, of course, but also history and culture. Suggestion and/or advice?? Thanks!

In Kodiak make sure you hit up the Alutiiq Museum, it's wonderful, full of history and culture. If you have transportation you can drive out to Fort Abercrombie, it's a really pretty area with walking trails and wonderful scenery. (you can look both up on Google or TripAdvisor)

On our first trip we did the HAL shuttle in Homer. It gets you off of the Spit and made three stops. We skipped the first stop and got off at the Pratt Museum...from there you can walk to other sites. We grabbed it again to get back to the Spit. Most recently we had a wonderful tour at the Peterson Bay Field Station of the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.

In Kodiak we walked to town and walked around. There is plenty to see and do. We enjoyed the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Visitor's Center. On our most recent trip we took a small group tour with Memory Makers and got to see more of the island as well as Ft. Abercrombe State Park.

Homer is a great little town to spend a couple days in . As far as Kodiak ,was wondering how you plan to get there. Years ago I took the overnight ferry from Homer. The seas were 16' and found out why they call it "The Vomit Comet" !!LOL

Homer is a great little town to spend a couple days in . As far as Kodiak ,was wondering how you plan to get there. Years ago I took the overnight ferry from Homer. The seas were 16' and found out why they call it "The Vomit Comet" !!LOL

We will be cruising on Holland America and Kodiak is one of the stops.

I did this same itinerary in 2015 and will be doing it again in a few days!:D

For Kodiak Island, I recommend Memory Makers - excellent tour and much by way of scenic beauty. Alas that particular day, the bears decided to stay warm and dry indoors so we didn't see any bears. The rain cleared up within an hour.

http://www.memorymakersinak.com/

For Homer, I recommend taking the free school bus shuttle to The Spit. From there, I would take the town's Hop On Hop Off Trolley. It is cheaper and has more stops as part of its route compared to HAL's. One of the stops was the Pratt Museum. The driver was a great tour guide - so knowledgeable - occasionally making detours to get closer to eagles, etc. or stopping for photo opportunities.

We spent four days in Homer last summer. You will dock at the end of the spit. From there you can walk the spit and visit its shops or you can get the shuttle into Homer proper. It is a small town with a few interesting sites. Most activities seem to be based around the water.

In Kodiak I really enjoyed walking across the big bridge, strolling around North End Park (less like a park and more like a easy trails through forest and rocky seaside) and then to the Fisheries Research Center Aquarium and Touch Tank where I got to hold crabs and touch anemones and such. Really fun and relaxing day. The downtown Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge visitor center is pretty nice for a quick stop. I also hung around in the small boat harbor and talked to a couple fishermen. Really interesting to hear their stories.

My picture of the touch tank: https://cruisingalaskaonabudget.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/kodiak-touch-tank/

Doing Ft. Abercrombie State Park (Kodiak, Alaska) on your own

On June 14, 2017, we were in Kodiak, Alaska and did Ft.Abercrombie State Park and the Military Museum. The park is beautiful and the museum was very interesting. We didn’t book an excursion butfound it quite easy to do on own.

We used Kodiak Island Taxi to get to the park and back: 907-486-2515. Someone told me that they are only taxi company that can actually go into the park if you want to be dropped off at the museum itself but I’m not sure if that is true. The cost was about $20 each way and is for the taxi not per person. They use Ford Expeditions and can accommodate 6 people. I had emailed Bonnie at mailto:indy_jones101@hotmail.com to verify all of the information before we got there. We called around 8:00 am the day we arrived and the taxi was waiting for us by the time we got off the ship. Around a 15-20 minute drive to the park.

When we got there the gate was still closed so we just had them drop us off there. Right there you can pick up detailed maps of the park which include descriptions of the historical World War II structures. We hiked up to the military museum using the trail on the west side of Lake Gertrude. Roughly 30 minutes. Looked at the canons and the viewpoints for a bit. The museum isn’t open every day but is open most days when the cruise ship is in town since they run tours out there. It opened around 9:10 am the day we were there. $5.00 admission. For a small museum it was great with lots of interesting stories to read. The volunteers demonstrated the equipment. I was glad we had come on our own since we spent much longer than the tours. Then we hiked around the park going down to the water on Monashka Bay. We ended up hiking around 5miles total which was both sides of the lake plus the outer trails of thepark. Left the park a little after noon having felt that we had seen most of it.

Things to take:

• Binoculars

• Sunscreen

• Hand Sanitizer – lots of port-a potties but they don’thave sanitizers in them

• Maybe bug spray. I only saw a few mosquitos butit was cold

Most recently we had a wonderful tour at the Peterson Bay Field Station of the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.

 

This is our plan in Homer.

In Kodiak we hope to fly to see bears. (Ft. Abercrombie is our "Plan B.")