Top 10 Most Amazing Things You did on Alaska Cruise or Cruisetour

[Disneygirl78]

I'm only going to list 8, because I have a hunch that two of our tours, which were canceled because of low fog, would have been the most amazing of our trip: the Misty Fjords flightsee, and the 2-hour trek on a glacier after being helicoptered to the top. Consider the list below as a guide to "how to have a spectacular Alaska trip, even in the rain"!

 

1. Kenai Fjords Tours 6-hr national park cruise - breaching whales, mother and baby whales, sea lions, sea otters, rookeries with thousands of birds, eagles, close encounter with a glacier. Knowledgeable crew, too.

 

2. Gold Class Train, Seward to Anchorage - absolutely gorgeous scenery, relaxing trip, cozy dining car.

 

3. Kayaking Orca's Cove with Southeast Sea Kayaks - starfish and huge sea stars with 17 arms, beautiful tidal areas, quiet inlets with jumping salmon everywhere, felt like we were the only people for miles (only 3 kayaks in our group - our guide, one other couple, and us!)

 

4. Hiking an almost deserted rainforest trail at Mendenhall Glacier in the pouring rain (the vegetation looked amazing in the rain!)

 

5. Seeing the first whales of our trip from the treadmills at the bow of the Radiance (get up early and exercise, people! it's worth it! :))

 

6. Seeing whales bubble-net feeding at Icy Straight (with Misty Bay Lodge, but our overall experience with this vendor was the worst part of our trip, so unfortunately cannot recommend them)

 

7. Watching the ship come in to Vancouver from our room at the Pan Pacific (at 5 a.m. - there are some advantages to jet lag!)

 

8. Doing it all with family, of different ages and activity levels, and being able to utterly relax and recharge every night on the ship so we were ready to go the next morning!

[ggto4]

Everything about our Alaskan Cruises have been magical, but some stand-outs:

**Standing on your balcony at night, as the ship glides effortlessly thru the Inside Passage, you look up in the darkest dark of skies, and see the biggest, brightest stars you have ever seen. Free of any artificial light, it is stunning.

**Whale Watching w/Capt. Larry of Orca and having two gigantic humpback whales simultaneously come straight up in the air vertically, then slide right back down, so close to our boat, you felt you could reach out and touch them. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that I do not think anyone had time for a picture. Larry said "it does not get any better than that." Awesome sight.

**The priviledge of viewing scenery so spectacular, so huge that it is sometimes overwhelming. I have found myself in tears, at times, at the beauty that is Alaska.

**Hiking the trail to Anan Creek....a primitive, lush wilderness, to see the waterfall where the black and brown bears feast on salmon.

**Pre-cruise....taking a side trip out of Vancouver to go on a zodiac to look for orcas and finding three pods so close to us, that at one point one pod swam right beside our zodiac. Fantastic sights as we spotted so many orcas, so close, so graceful and beautiful.

We keep returning to Alaska because no where have we ever found such serenity, such peace, such natural beauty, and so much to see and do, as we find each time we cruise Alaska. gg

[MJN]

We were on the July 8 sailing of Radiance of the Seas to Alaska that sailed out of Vancouver. Our favorite tour we did was the Taku lodge float plane tour we did out of Juneau. From the very beginning the experience was awesome. We were blessed to have incredible weather for most of the week, so that made it even better. You can walk to the end of the dock to get to their office, so no need to catch a cab. We did our reservation online and by phone ourselves, which saved us I believe $30. per person but it was also available through the ship. The float planes were very nice, great take-off and landing, which I had been nervous about but it was really great! They have earphones to cut down on the noise and they explain to you what you are seeing. My husband was lucky to be able to sit in the co-pilots seat, which he LOVED! All the seats are good though and have a window so nobody has a bad seat. Dinner at the lodge was awesome. Salmon, fresh caught that morning and expertly cooked over an outdoor grill! The lodge sits right across the pond from a glacier! The scenery surrounding the lodge is gorgeous, beautiful flowers. The rest of the lunch was cole-slaw, home-made biscuits and baked beans, topped off with a yummy home-made cookie. We were also treated to a resident black bear hanging out in a tree when we arrived. An employee kept him in the tree until we went in to eat and then he came down and snacked on the remains of the salmon on the grill. We all got to take lots of pictures of him from inside the lodge.

Our other favorite excursion was the Alleutian Ballad, Deadliest Catch tour in Ketchikan. This one we booked through the ship, but as it turned out it was docked right there at the same pier our ship was in Ketchikan so we could have easily booked it online as well. This was really interesting and very well done. They explained all about fishing in the bering sea, showed the different kind of traps they use, what they use for bait, what kind of fish or crab they catch and then proceeded to take us out into the local fishing areas to pull up traps and then put their catch in an aquarium in front of us. We got to hold some of the creatures or at least look at them, Even an Octopus was pulled up. Erik, who was on the show this season as the captain on the Cornelia Marie, hired by the two brothers who lost their dad this past season was on the tour doing much of the speaking. Highly recommend this tour, great for people of ALL ages! The boat Alleutian Ballad was the one that took the rogue wave in the first season and righted itself! There is video of this in the galley running a continuous loop throughout the tour. AMAZING! The only reason the ship righted itself was that it had a full load of crab in the hold, which gave it ballast.

We also did a whale watching tour in Icy Straits point. We went on a small boat, holds 6 people, with Glacier Winds charters. Highly recommend them as well. Teresa will handle the booking and picks you up to take you to the boat and brings you back. Her husband does the boat driving. Both are very nice people and they do a nice job. We got some awesome pictures of whales.

We did the White pass railroad in Skagway. The trip we did was the Yukon Suspension bridge, train and Liarsville for lunch and gold panning. This was a pricey trip, booked through the ship, $215. per person. Gotta say the gold panning wasn't high on my list to do as we figured it would be hokey and not done as the real miners did it. It turned out to be fun and we actually did find some gold, $46. worth, which we had put into a pendant to wear on a necklace. The hint here is (stand in a ray of sunshine if you can to see the gold more easily). This was actually a nice tour, busride at first to take us up to the bridge, saw some cool scenery along the way, including a bear on the side of the road eating berries off a bush! The driver stopped so we could get our fill of pictures, he was really close to the bus, so that was cool! The bridge was worth seeing too. Then the bus took us to the train and the ride down was nice and full of beautiful scenery. After the train ride we were taken to Liarsville, just outside of skagway and had a nice buffet lunch of bar-b-que chicken, ribs and all the fixings, then we did the goldpanning and when it was all done we were taken back to the ship, or dropped off in town, as we wished.

Another highlight of our Alaskan adventure was our Alaskan Railroad Gold-star train trip. We booked this ourselves and were lucky enough to have gorgeous weather again. The trip between Anchorage and Seward is some of the prettiest area of Alaska, at least on the railroad line that we saw. It is well worth the trip and absolutely breathtaking scenery! We saw moose several times and bald eagles. The gold-star train was also worth the experience for us. You can opt to eat in the dining car if you wish, or there is a cafe car as well where you can get lighter fare.

That's it for the moment! Enjoy your cruise....we LOVED Alaska, so worth the trip!

[Maria1879]

So enjoyed reading the replies here. We are off on our cruise in 2 weeks from today. Can't wait to make our own memories!

[oregonsmith]

Northern Lights, Kooztnoowoo Bears, Sara Palin

[julieawill]

1. Mt. McKinley Summit Flight and Glacier Landing

2. Mt. McKinley Summit Flight and Glacier Landing

3. Mt. McKinley Summit Flight and Glacier Landing

4. Mt. McKinley Summit Flight and Glacier Landing

5. Mt. McKinley Summit Flight and Glacier Landing

6. Whale Watching and Mendenhall Glacier - Photo Safari with Gastineau Guiding

7. Talkeetna

8. TWT in Denali

9. Shared dinners with so many interesting guests

10. Watching the sun come up over Mt. McKinley at Princess McKinley Lodge

 

See my detailed reviews at http://terrellandjulie.blogspot.com/

 

Julie

[jlijny]

1. Island Wings floatplane over Misty Fiords (Ketchikan)

2. White water rafting (Denali)

3. Whale watching (ISP)

4. Mendenhall Glacier (Juneau)

5. Zipline (ISP)

6. ATV excursion (ISP)

7. Tundra Wilderness Tour (Denali)

8. "Deadliest Catch" Fisherman Tour (Ketchikan)

9. White Pass/Yukon Railroad (Skagway)

10. Resurrection Bay/Fox Island Tour (Seward)

 

Notable mentions:

11. Kayaking (Seward)

12. Seavey's Dog Show (Anchorage)

13. El Dorado Mine and Sternwheeler Tour (Fairbanks)

 

Unfortunately, our dogsledding in Juneau was cancelled due to bad weather.