Bear excursion in ISP

[ermedchyc29]

Hi there!  Looking to do a bear search excursion in ISP in combination with whale watching.  I know there are a few companies in ISP, but looking for recommendations and reviews.  Thanks everyone!  We are sailing on Majestic Princess on 6/17/23 with land tour first.

[ABQrobin]

We were just there (Agu 30-Sept6 cruise) and the bears are really only out to eat the salmon during the run... we were expecting to see more than we did.  There was only 1 female with cubs, and she was too far away from photos unless you had a huge telephoto lens.  

On the other hand, we did the bear excursion at Ketchikan for black bears and we had almost a dozen, very close up.  It was my favorite excursion of the trip.

[ermedchyc29]

Thank you ABQrobin!  May I ask which bear excursion tour or company you used?  Or did you book excursion from cruiseline?  I saw a few tours that will just drive around for a few hours searching for bears and I saw another tour that you walk on a boardwalk to viewing platforms.  TIA for your response!  🙂

[ermedchyc29]

On 9/8/2022 at 3:31 PM, ABQrobin said:

We were just there (Agu 30-Sept6 cruise) and the bears are really only out to eat the salmon during the run... we were expecting to see more than we did.  There was only 1 female with cubs, and she was too far away from photos unless you had a huge telephoto lens.  

On the other hand, we did the bear excursion at Ketchikan for black bears and we had almost a dozen, very close up.  It was my favorite excursion of the trip.

Thank you ABQrobin!  May I ask which bear excursion tour or company you used?  Or did you book excursion from cruiseline?  I saw a few tours that will just drive around for a few hours searching for bears and I saw another tour that you walk on a boardwalk to viewing platforms.  TIA for your response!  🙂

[ABQrobin]

3 minutes ago, ermedchyc29 said:

Thank you ABQrobin!  May I ask which bear excursion tour or company you used?  Or did you book excursion from cruiseline?  I saw a few tours that will just drive around for a few hours searching for bears and I saw another tour that you walk on a boardwalk to viewing platforms.  TIA for your response!  🙂

We book the one on Carnival for Ketchikan and it was fantastic.  It takes you to the Rainforest Sanctuary near town, so no planes involved.  Highly recommend it. I am guessing it can be purchased online with independent companies also... either way, same tour.

[ermedchyc29]

2 minutes ago, ABQrobin said:

We book the one on Carnival for Ketchikan and it was fantastic.  It takes you to the Rainforest Sanctuary near town, so no planes involved.  Highly recommend it. I am guessing it can be purchased online with independent companies also... either way, same tour.

Thank you for your response.  In Ketchikan we are doing a fishing excursion as my husband and I love fishing.  What tour did you do in ISP?

[ABQrobin]

10 minutes ago, ermedchyc29 said:

Thank you for your response.  In Ketchikan we are doing a fishing excursion as my husband and I love fishing.  What tour did you do in ISP?

In ISP we did the whale watching and also the bear search... both thru the ship.  

[Dancing Shoes]

We did the rainforest walk, bird sanctuary and totems through our ship too.  The boardwalk overlooks Herring Cove.  We didn't see any bears, salmon was running.  A few days later, they were out.  Lucky you.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Dancing Shoes

[boshgarner]

We were just there last week and took an excursion with Brown Bear Lodge & Excursions (which we booked through Alaska Shore Excursions). Our guide was the local clan leader and was incredible, cannot sing his praises enough! We saw five brown bears in total, including a mama and baby and even one that was literally feet away from us. He had spots that it sounds like the ship booked excursions did not go to based on conversations we had with folks back on the boat later that hadn't seen any bears on their excursions. 

 

Of course, September is the tail end of salmon run season, so our odds were better than you may have in June. But I would still recommend giving it a shot! 

 

And definitely go out as early as you can, our excursion left at 7am when very few people had gotten off the ship, and we had seen 3/5 of our bears by 8:30am