Help!! Tracy Arm Fjord excursion

[yun2]

Hi everyone,

 

We will be on Solstice this June. Looking at the schedule, we will be at Tracy Arm in the morning of day 4 before arriving Juneau. We are interested in the Tracy Arm Fjord excursion. I am a bit confused while researching, hopefully someone can shed some lights.

 

1. While we are at Tracy Arm that morning, we don't dock right?

2. If we don't dock, how does the excursion work? Is the excursion offered by Celebrity is the only option?

3. If we have the option of excursion from outside vendors, how does the logistics work?

 

Hopefully my questions make sense..!

 

Thank you in advance!

[SetU2]

All of the other excursions are out of Juneau. You will go from Tracy Arm to Juneau on a small tour boat, which you board just like you would if we tender, getting closeup looks at the glaciers and wildlife. This can only be done from Celebrity. There is an equivalent but much longer one offered from Juneau that goes out and back, but time could be a factor.

 

 

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Edited April 29, 2016 by SetU2

[peety3]

While your cruise ship visits Tracy Arm Fjord, you will not dock. If the cruise line offers a small-boat excursion, go book it now. OK, now that you've completed that, here's how it works: the ship will open up one of the tender platforms on the side of the ship by the waterline. The small boat will come alongside your cruise ship, and you'll head down to the tender platform where you'll board the small boat in the middle of Tracy Arm Fjord. For gosh sakes, don't fall in! Just kidding...they'll take good care of you as you transfer to the small boat.

 

At least on Princess the two times I've done it (coming from Ketchikan the day before), the small boat does its thing at the two Sawyer Glaciers, and then heads to Juneau to meet your ship. This is important to know if you're planning another excursion: the small boat will return to the cruise ship's tender platform, where you will reboard the cruise ship by passing through ship's security (like any other port of call). It's a "you must pass go, you must be scanned, you cannot collect your $200 or feel free to move about the country until you've done this" step, as the cruise line apparently must ensure that you don't utilize the small-boat tour operator as a means to escape. As I understand it, the small boat's crew actually has to gather the trash into bags and toss it onto the tender platform for the ship to incinerate, since it's theoretically possible that you've smuggled something onto the small boat from international origins. Only once you've reboarded your cruise ship (on the side facing away from town) are you able to walk across to the other side of the ship (and perhaps a different deck) to make your way into Juneau if you so choose.

 

Because of these logistics, and because the ship wants to manage the sellable capacity of the tour (trust me, it WILL sell out, probably before even the upgrade fairy starts doing her thing), you cannot book it independently. The only way to book it independently is as a round-trip voyage on the small boat from and back to Juneau, which adds 2 hours to the total time of the tour and makes it next to impossible if your ship is doing Tracy Arm and Juneau on the same day.

[illiniwahoo]

Another note, do check if the solstice is tendered or docked in Juneau. If tendered, you miss tender ticket distribution while you are on the tracy arm excursion. We got back to the ship about 2pm and went immediately to get tickets. We didn't get ashore until after 330pm. So if you are booking a private excursion in Juneau, just be aware of the timing. If you are docked there are no issues.

 

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[BigB0882]

We booked this excursion. The way I understand it is a smaller boat (but still big, holds 150) will come up to the cruise ship in Tracy Arm and we will get onboard and go on our excursion. It will bring us back to the cruise ship at 1:00 in Juneau.

 

We will be tendered on our cruise so for our evening whale watching excursion we booked through Celebrity so we didn't have to worry about missing tender tickets.

 

It is going to be a long day but I am so excited about it.

[new_cruiser]

Another note, do check if the solstice is tendered or docked in Juneau. If tendered, you miss tender ticket distribution while you are on the tracy arm excursion. We got back to the ship about 2pm and went immediately to get tickets. We didn't get ashore until after 330pm. So if you are booking a private excursion in Juneau, just be aware of the timing. If you are docked there are no issues.

 

What is tender ticket distribution? My one big ship cruise we were docked in all the ports. Other than that, I've sailed on Windstar and you just board the tender - there are no tickets.

 

We will be on Crystal in Alaska - does it use tender tickets or operate more like Windstar?

[xlxo]

The ship makes a brief stop while you thumb a ride to Tracy Arm. Once you are on the boat, the cruise ship continues North to Juneau for 50 miles.

 

On the small boat you travel East for 31 miles to look for Sawyer if you are lucky. After Sawyer, the boat travels 81 miles to Juneau to look for your mother ship.

 

Juneau departing boats to Tracy Arm takes much longer as you must retrace 50 miles of water while eating into your Juneau port time (whale watch? Mendenhall?)

 

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Edited December 3, 2016 by xlxo

[sherryf]

The ship makes a brief stop while you thumb a ride to Tracy Arm. Once you are on the boat, the cruise ship continues North to Juneau for 50 miles.

 

The above is misleading information. The OP's ship (Solstice) goes into Tracy Arm. It doesn't just drop off passengers for the tour. The OP doesn't have to take the add-on tour in order to see Tracy Arm, but they might want to for the better experience.

 

OP - Your ship will sail into Tracy Arm that morning and may or may not get in far enough to see the glacier at the end. The small boat tour will give you a better chance of seeing one or both of the Sawyer glaciers, and you will get much closer than the ship.

[bUU]

All of the other excursions are out of Juneau. You will go from Tracy Arm to Juneau on a small tour boat, which you board just like you would if we tender, getting closeup looks at the glaciers and wildlife. This can only be done from Celebrity.

A very minor clarification to what SetU2 is saying: This "starting at the Tracy Arm Inlet by boarding the excursion tour boat as if a tender" is only available from the cruise line. Private excursion operators cannot benefit from the ship's service call at Tracy Arm Inlet like this.

 

However, Celebrity is not the only cruise line that offers this. If you were on Nieuw Amsterdam instead of Celebrity, this excursion from Tracy Arm Inlet is available from Holland America, in that case.

[LPCKG]

We are looking at this option in 2017, sailing on board Solitice. We'd like to do an up, close tour of the glacier but really won't t do one of the whale tours from Juneau later that day. The glacier tour appears to end at the time the trip from Janeau starts. Does anyone have a successful experience of the timings working. I don't won't to book and later discover we are unable to make the whale excursion?

[oakridger]

What is tender ticket distribution? My one big ship cruise we were docked in all the ports. Other than that, I've sailed on Windstar and you just board the tender - there are no tickets.

 

We will be on Crystal in Alaska - does it use tender tickets or operate more like Windstar?

 

Crystal usually docks in Alaska but when tendering anywhere they don't use or need tender tickets. That's the advantage of being on a smaller ship! I love Crystal!

[VennDiagram]

this excursion from Tracy Arm Inlet is available from Holland America, in that case.

 

Just an FYI. It is actually most often called Tracy Arm Fjord.

[bUU]

I believe the fjord is the whole thing. The inlet is the westernmost portion thereof.

[TheCalicoCat]

Hi everyone,

 

We will be on Solstice this June. Looking at the schedule, we will be at Tracy Arm in the morning of day 4 before arriving Juneau. We are interested in the Tracy Arm Fjord excursion. I am a bit confused while researching, hopefully someone can shed some lights.

 

1. While we are at Tracy Arm that morning, we don't dock right?

2. If we don't dock, how does the excursion work? Is the excursion offered by Celebrity is the only option?

3. If we have the option of excursion from outside vendors, how does the logistics work?

 

Hopefully my questions make sense..!

 

Thank you in advance!

 

2 possibilities:

1. the ship itself will enter Tracy Arm

or

2. It will be like a tender & you will off load onto a small boat.

 

Outside vendors will only work if you have a TON of time in Juneau (not often the case).