camper49 Posted July 15 #1 Share Posted July 15 Port time is 2:30 to 10:00…suggestions for excursions? It just doesn’t sound like enough time, Especially that we are morning people. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zqvol Posted July 15 #2 Share Posted July 15 I wouldn’t worry about the late hour unless you are real early or real late in the season. 10:00 is still broad daylight. Plenty of time for excursions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare cruisetonowhere10 Posted July 17 #3 Share Posted July 17 On 7/15/2024 at 7:25 AM, camper49 said: Port time is 2:30 to 10:00…suggestions for excursions? It just doesn’t sound like enough time, Especially that we are morning people. Thanks I hear you as a morning person versus evening person. Comes down to what you want to see…Mendenhall Glacier? Whale watch? Having done both this timer are hiking up Mount Robert’s and enjoying the views and will probably be back on the ship for dinner and relaxation. That being said, it does stay late out so if there are things you want to do you totally can. Might be an eat a big lunch then head off the ship kind of day…I totally get screwy port times though and how it messes with your schedule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare karatemom2 Posted July 19 #4 Share Posted July 19 You can do a lot in a port in 7 hours. Things stay open to well into the evening when ships are in town and tours operate in the evening as well. One of the most beautiful whale watching trips we ever did in Juneau was an evening excursion. You can eat dinner in town - heck, even enjoy the Gold Creek Salmon Bake. It's fun and good food in a beautiful setting. You will have plenty of options - the town stays active pretty much until the last ship leaves port. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Coral Posted July 20 #5 Share Posted July 20 I hate to say this but this is awful times in port for Juneau. I usually stress people look at the time in port before they book a cruise. You are best to do a whale watching trip and then hang out in downtown Juneau and eat dinner, etc.... If you are in port all day - you can often do 2 excursions but this isn't possible with these times. Hopefully people will see this post and look at port times in the future. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Coral Posted July 20 #6 Share Posted July 20 On 7/15/2024 at 8:04 AM, zqvol said: I wouldn’t worry about the late hour unless you are real early or real late in the season. 10:00 is still broad daylight. Plenty of time for excursions. The problem is that there really are no excursions in the evening, regardless of daylight. They can do one excursion and that is it. These are awful times in port in Juneau. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare NothingBeatsBaseball Posted July 21 #7 Share Posted July 21 If you are morning people, then yeah, that will be tough. We rented a car from Turo and had a great day hitting many different spots. Even with a bunch of ships in port it felt like we got away from folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kandjrolls2 Posted August 3 #8 Share Posted August 3 On 7/20/2024 at 9:06 AM, Coral said: I hate to say this but this is awful times in port for Juneau. I usually stress people look at the time in port before they book a cruise. You are best to do a whale watching trip and then hang out in downtown Juneau and eat dinner, etc.... If you are in port all day - you can often do 2 excursions but this isn't possible with these times. Hopefully people will see this post and look at port times in the future. Doing 2 excursions isn't necessary in any port, and is out of most people's budget. You have plenty of time for an amazing excursion. I think we have similar port times. We are doing the Taku flightplane and salmon lunch. There were plenty of excursions with varying lengths to chose from, or you can do something on your own. I am so excited for my excursion, and with the cost, I wouldn't be able to do a 2nd. After our excursion, we will probably walk the town. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kandjrolls2 Posted August 3 #9 Share Posted August 3 On 7/20/2024 at 9:08 AM, Coral said: The problem is that there really are no excursions in the evening, regardless of daylight. They can do one excursion and that is it. These are awful times in port in Juneau. ....what do you consider evening? They get to port at 2:30. There are plenty of excursions at that time. As with any port, with the right planning, they can have an amazing day in Juneau. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Coral Posted August 3 #10 Share Posted August 3 (edited) 9 hours ago, kandjrolls2 said: Doing 2 excursions isn't necessary in any port, and is out of most people's budget. You have plenty of time for an amazing excursion. I think we have similar port times. We are doing the Taku flightplane and salmon lunch. There were plenty of excursions with varying lengths to chose from, or you can do something on your own. I am so excited for my excursion, and with the cost, I wouldn't be able to do a 2nd. After our excursion, we will probably walk the town. Many of us make the most of our times in port. I definitely do 2 excursions in each town if it is half day or I do an all day excursion. Arriving at 2:30 only allows for one half day excursion. Most companies (if not all) are not running evening excursions. It has been a long time since I had that time in port because, honestly, I would avoid any itinerary with those times in port. Even though I have been to Alaska a ton! Taku excursion is one of the most popular and highly rated excursion. I hope you have fun with it. I usually don't do much in town as a lot of shops are not ones I am interested in. It has become too much like the Caribbean (I don't know if it is still there but there was a Diamonds International there). If you look at this board enough - you will find people who book a cruise and then realize the 2:30 -10 pm time slot is not desirable as there is very little excursions to do in the evening and they wish they had a 8-7 time slot in town to be able to do more. Juneau is such a good port with so much to do, many do 2 tours or 1 full day tour. I have no clue if you have been to Alaska before. Definitely different than the Caribbean. Shopping is not a priority of mine in Alaska. A lot of port cities have a ton of shops, not always authentic shops with authentic "Made in Alaska items". And having been to Alaska many, many times, I don't need any more souvenirs. My souvenirs are my memories and my pictures. Edited August 3 by Coral 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kandjrolls2 Posted August 3 #11 Share Posted August 3 3 minutes ago, Coral said: Many of us make the most of our times in port. I definitely do 2 excursions in each town if it is half day or I do an all day excursion. Arriving at 2:30 only allows for one half day excursion. Most companies (if not all) are not running evening excursions. It has been a long time since I had that time in port because, honestly, I would avoid any itinerary with those times in port. Even though I have been to Alaska a ton! Taku excursion is one of the most popular and highly rated excursion. I hope you have fun with it. I usually don't do much in town as a lot of shops are not ones I am interested in. It has become too much like the Caribbean (I don't know if it is still there but there was a Diamonds International there). If you look at this board enough - you will find people who book a cruise and then realize the 2:30 -10 pm time slot is not desirable as there is very little excursions to do in the evening and they wish they had a 8-7 time slot in town to be able to do more. Juneau is such a good port with so much to do, many do 2 tours or 1 full day tour. I have no clue if you have been to Alaska before. Definitely different than the Caribbean. Shopping is not a priority of mine in Alaska. A lot of port cities have a ton of shops, not always authentic shops with authentic "Made in Alaska items". And having been to Alaska many, many times, I don't need any more souvenirs. My souvenirs are my memories and my pictures. I had plenty of excursion options to choose from. 230 is far from evening. I actually hate shopping, so when I say I plan on browsing the town, I actually mean hitting up a brewery. The OP already has the cruise booked; there is no reason to be negative by repeatedly saying that the port times are "awful" and that they won't be able to do much because that is simply not true. I had a very hard time narrowing down my selection with all the choices. Doing multiple excursions may make for a rushed and tiring day. But if that is what one wants to do, then let them. There is joy in slowing down and just soaking up the natural beauty. There is even more joy in being optimistic. There is no perfect vacation. You can sail on the best itinerary and have crappy weather with excursions cancellations. Having an positive outlook will prevent a person from exclaiming their vacation was ruined over some minor inconvenience. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare cruisetonowhere10 Posted August 3 #12 Share Posted August 3 Just returned from Alaska on Celebrity. We also docked in the afternoon. DH and I walked from the dock (Celebrity was at the furthest dock from town) to the base of the Mt. Roberts trail and hiked the mountain (it was a moderate hike) and took the tram down. We then walked back yo the ship in time for dinner. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Coral Posted August 3 #13 Share Posted August 3 (edited) 2 hours ago, kandjrolls2 said: I had plenty of excursion options to choose from. 230 is far from evening. I actually hate shopping, so when I say I plan on browsing the town, I actually mean hitting up a brewery. The OP already has the cruise booked; there is no reason to be negative by repeatedly saying that the port times are "awful" and that they won't be able to do much because that is simply not true. I had a very hard time narrowing down my selection with all the choices. Doing multiple excursions may make for a rushed and tiring day. But if that is what one wants to do, then let them. There is joy in slowing down and just soaking up the natural beauty. There is even more joy in being optimistic. There is no perfect vacation. You can sail on the best itinerary and have crappy weather with excursions cancellations. Having an positive outlook will prevent a person from exclaiming their vacation was ruined over some minor inconvenience. My point of making a comment is that so many people come here and post that they wished they didn't have 2-10 time frames and they couldn't do what they wanted. So if people like me put that out there - others may look more at their itinerary before they book. Maybe look at what they want to do and if they can't do it with the awful times of 2-10 (yes, they are awful times), then they can look at another itinerary. If you do a 2:30 excursion that will bring you to evening. Very few excursions happen after 5 or 6 pm. So you usually can only do one. If you had 8-5, you can do an all day excursion or two excursions. Many find Juneau a great port, want to do multiple things and can not do that with a 2-10 time frame. I stand by my comments. Edited August 3 by Coral 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donaldsc Posted August 3 #14 Share Posted August 3 I assume that everyone realizes how absurd it is that people are worrying about whether their ship will have the morning docking slot or the afternoon docking slot. DON 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shirtboy Posted August 4 #15 Share Posted August 4 I often see other reviews or posts on the boards commenting about terrible port times in Alaska, especially for Ketchikan/Victoria. Yes, some of the times are less desirable than others or are more suited for morning people or late risers, but the times given are the best the cruise lines can do given the following competing factors: Limited dock space, maximum speed of the vessel, distance between ports, visiting destinations during daylight hours, trying to cram in as much in a week as feasible, getting you to the next port on time, meeting Jones act requirements etc. Anytime you "add port time" to one stop or want it shifted earlier/late, that generally takes away time from another port or requires another port to be skipped entirely to fit the schedule. There's a limit to how much you can technically stuff into 7 days that no one itinerary will satisfy everyone. 7-day Seattle sailings tend to have shorter port times in maybe ~50% of the ports visited due to the longer distance sailed and the obligatory technical stop in Victoria BC. However, the tradeoff in poorer port times comes with a convenient homeport with cheaper airfare. Generally better port times can be obtained by sailing from Vancouver or Anchorage, but that costs more in airfare and port transfers. Hotels in Anchorage are also pricey. If you booked a cruise to Alaska, you are already in for a fantastic holiday, so make the most of the port times given. You'll never be able to see all of Alaska on one cruise, so on the next cruise, just pick an itinerary that fills in the the gaps you left out on the first sailing, or to revisit ports that you enjoyed, or to have port times that favor your waking time. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie11 Posted August 4 #16 Share Posted August 4 I’m not too worried about morning or evening. I actually like the evening whale watch in Juneau a lot, as there’s only one or two boats out. I’m hearing about people unhappy with whale watching this year because of the large number of boats. A couple of people have told me that there were 8-10 boats around a group of whales and they never got a good view. There are 72 boats registered for whale-watching in Juneau. This is alarming because not only are the whales impacted by the boats, but NOAA has initiated research into whether the numbers and times of boats observing the whales should be reduced. Another concern is tendering. It seems like when I’m in Juneau these days there is frequently a ship tendering. As ships per day increase to 7 or 8 over the next few years, tendering may become commonplace. The loss of another couple of hours in an already short day in port leaves passengers with little time to do a longer excursion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MississippiMom Posted August 15 #17 Share Posted August 15 On 7/20/2024 at 10:51 PM, NothingBeatsBaseball said: If you are morning people, then yeah, that will be tough. We rented a car from Turo and had a great day hitting many different spots. Even with a bunch of ships in port it felt like we got away from folks. Was Turo the only way you could get a rental car for the day or is that just your preference? We have a LONG port day in Juneau and I had not even considered driving around in our own, but I am confident my husband would love that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare NothingBeatsBaseball Posted August 15 #18 Share Posted August 15 @MississippiMom Some folks use Avis in Juneau (https://www.avisalaska.com/) That wasn't an option for us as I needed at least an SUV for our group and Avis didn't have that. The nice thing about Turo was the owner met me right by the dock. We had one member in our party who couldn't walk long distances so this was a big plus. We had ages 3 to 70+ in our group, and being able to drive around was great. Some googling will find many trip reports of where people go with a car in Juneau. I just put a list together and tried to not make the day too busy. We stopped at a grocery store for some snacks in the car had one big meal out at a restaurant not near the pier. Going over to Douglas Island was really cool. Considering excursions in Alaska can get pricy, a few hundred dollars for a day of a car wasn't awful. Nice to be together and chat and share the experience too. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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