blackkitteycat

8 minutes ago, Glaciers said:

Yes, I suppose I was. Had never heard before that there were simply more whale watch tours in Juneau because it was a bigger town.  Since you do whale research you may know Chris Gabriele who does whale research at Bartlett Cove in Glacier Bay. She publishes humpback whale monitoring results and I have communicated with her numerous times over the past 8 years or so clarifying info in her reports.  You can see some of them here: https://www.nps.gov/glba/blogs/Currents.htm

 

 

She seems to indicate that humpbacks follow their food source where there is an increase in areas like Pt Adolphus/Glacier Bay & Juneau.  I think she would be interested to learn it’s based on the size of the community and not just because there is an abundance of humpbacks due to the food. You should contact her and share this information.

I'm not going to fight with you! I never stated that OP should not go whale watching out of Juneau, only that tours are available out of Ketchikan as well. You never know what might line up with someone's schedule better, or perhaps they were wanting to see Misty Fjords as well and this tour would provide them with that in addition to seeing whales.

I do in fact work with many local researchers all over Alaska. I'm just saying that there are increases in krill during the summer that happen all over Southeast and can attract humpbacks. Like I said earlier, the Alaska Whale Foundation, which primarily researches humpbacks, is located about halfway between Juneau and Ketchikan, far in the opposite direction of Glacier Bay area. I don't think they would be based out of that region if there weren't many whales...perhaps you should reach out to them and ask why they are located there if all of the humpbacks are by Juneau? You might be able to teach them a little something!

38 minutes ago, Glaciers said:

I had no idea either. I had also thought that the reason there were an increased number of humpbacks near Juneau was because of being a very good place for food such as krill. Little did I know it was because Juneau is a bigger town.

 

Would love to see Budget Queen respond to this thread.

I'm sorry - were you referring to my post being misleading? If so I would be curious to know what about it you consider to be misleading. A quick Google search shows multiple whale watching companies out of Ketchikan and I personally know multiple people who have worked in the whale watching industry there. Here is the link to Allen Marine's (the company I specifically named) Ketchikan tours: https://allenmarinetours.com/ketchikan/

Humpbacks can be found in large numbers along the entire North Pacific Coast, from central California to the Gulf of Alaska. This entire region has nutrient-rich water with plentiful krill/food due to large amounts of upwelling. There are a few individual humpbacks who will regularly stay in waters near Juneau, such as Flame or Sasha, but humpbacks in general are found all over Southeast Alaska. Right now most humpbacks up here are near Sitka for the herring egg harvest! 

37 minutes ago, Coral said:

I know I have seen whales really early when approaching Ketchikan - I just didn't know anyone offered tours there.

 

I was in Cabo in December and did whale watching there. I was disappointed that a lot of companies didn't follow any distance guidelines when whales were sighted. I almost felt like they were trapped as boats got too close to them.

Yes, a quick google search shows multiple whale watching companies.

I don't know the details of whale watching in Cabo, but if it is any consolation, the whales aren't trapped. They are living in a 3-dimensional space and can easily swim under the boats if bothered 🙂 Of course, regulations are there for a reason and that is not an excuse to encroach on the whales' space. 

2 hours ago, Coral said:

I had no idea. I have never seen tours in Ketchikan.

Yeah, many of the big companies (for example, Allen Marine) run tours all over Southeast, incl. Ketchikan. I do whale research - really the only reason that whale tours are so much more common in Juneau is because as a bigger town, there are a lot more companies. More companies means more whale sightings - when 10 boats are on the water looking for whales, you are a lot more likely to find them than if 1 boat is. The whales themselves are all over. Even the Alaska Whale Foundation, a private whale research organization, is based off of an island located about halfway between Juneau and Ketchikan. You can go whale watching in any town in Southeast Alaska.

Ketchikan does have whale watching tours, but Juneau has a more established industry. 

To be honest, I would say the chance of seeing northern lights in October in JNU is less than 5%. October is very cloudy and rainy here. Juneau sits right in the middle of the largest temperate rainforest on Earth and gets extremely high amounts of rainfall (over twice the amount of Seattle). 

Juneau rarely gets good aurora displays in general, as it is still relatively far south compared to NL hotspots like Fairbanks. When we do get them, they are typically low on the horizon and very faint. 

But, like I said earlier, you probably won't even see that due to the clouds and rain 😄

Speaking as a local, we are supposedly having a very wet spring/early summer this year due to La Nina conditions in the Pacific. We have broken several records for rainfall already. May is typically one of the driest months, but my weather app is calling for rain almost every day. Of course, you never know with weather!

Hi, i'm a local to Juneau who works in tourism. In my experience working with local outfitters, most whale watching tours tend to be a little over 4 hours (incl. transportation to and from downtown, which is about 20 minutes away from the dock) and canoe tours tend to be around 6 hours. I would not recommend doing both. 

I will say that I haven't been very impressed with canoe excursions to Mendenhall. The lake is not very big, the area is extremely touristy and busy, and the glacier is unfortunately pretty small nowadays. This is just my experience, however.

Keep in mind that depending on where your other stops are, you might be able to do one of these excursions somewhere else. Whale watching is very popular all over Southeast Alaska and many of the companies are based out of Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan.

These posts simply do not add up - there are no cruises out of Vancouver until April this year. I can't imagine why someone would bother with fake posts about a nonexistent issue, so I assume there was a mistake in one or both of the above statements.

 

OP, if you're still here and do need a passport within ~10 days odds are that you are now totally hooped with the shutdown - so alternatives need to be considered. Most insurance won't pay out with cause - passports are an issue under your control - unless you have a cruiseline's 'cancel for any reason you like' insurance.

 

Depending where/when you actually need to travel it's possible you may not need a passport at all (almost all RT cruises from any US port) or you may be able to get an alternative document to cross the border if it is Canada you need to come to (if your state issues EDLs, these should not be impacted by a federal shutdown - you'd have to cross the border on land not by air, but might be able to alter plans).

 

If you were posting nonsense for a jolly jape - congrats, you've sucked up several posters' time!

I am going on a cruise departing out of Vancouver, but i'm also going on a trip there beforehand. I have family that live in Canada and it's always been a dream of mine to visit. I'm going to be traveling to Vancouver, Whistler, and Banff. I apologize for not giving the full details of my travel plans, I didn't think it was really necessary on a post asking for help about my passport.

Either way, I got the passport in the mail today, so i'm assuming the online tracker isn't 100% accurate.

The tracking has now changed to say my passport is in the final processing stages and won't even be shipped out until Monday, Jan. 22nd. There is no longer an expected arrival date. This is making me nervous...there shouldn't be any issues with it. I used a new, original copy of my birth certificate and got my photos taken at the post office. Would there be any reason that they're backtracking?

When is the cruise (or travel) for which you need this passport?

It's in 1.5 weeks. I didn't mean to wait till to the last minute, but I had a lot of issues getting my birth certificate that ended up taking months.

Contact them and inquire as to the reason why they did what they did

Thanks. I took this advice and they told me they are unable to access my application and just referred me to the online status tracker. Any advice?

Hello everyone. I'm going on a cruise that departs from Vancouver so i'm in the process of getting my passport. I applied and paid for expedited with overnight delivery. On Wednesday I checked online and it said my passport was finished processing and would be mailed using overnight delivery, and would arrive today, Jan. 19th. Well, I went and checked my mail and it wasn't there. I went back to the tracking and it now says that my passport is being shipped using priority mail and will arrive next week, on Wed. Jan. 24th. I'm annoyed- I paid for overnight delivery! Was there some sort of issue that made them unable to ship it overnight? Has anyone had this happen to them before?