Tracy Arm pros/cons??

[P.A.]

For those of you who have been to Tracy Arm, can you please tell me the good and the bad? Trying to decide if we should do a cruise that includes Tracy Arm or go with one that includes Hubbard Bay instead.

 

If Princess would just go to Hubbard or Glacier Bay for a 7 night cruise(inside passage), all my worries would be taken care of.

 

Your comments are appreciated.

[wolfie11]

If glaciers are a priority, I would not go to Tracy Arm except on an NCL ship that offers a small boat tour of the fjord as an option. Most cruise ships don't get within sight of the glaciers because of extensive ice in the water.

[wspatton]

We were on the Sun Princess last August, went in to Tracy Arm on August 30.

 

Below are my comments on Tracy Arm, from my review written right after the cruise. Also, in my signature below there is a link to my Webshots pictures of this cruise which also has a number of shots from Tracy Arm.

 

C. Tracy Arm Fjord

We were in Tracy Arm for about 4 hours, 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. I had been worried about this one because a couple of the Sun cruises early in the summer were prevented from entering the fjord due to weather/visibility concerns. We were very lucky, and got up to within about 2 miles, 23 miles in, of the glacier and could see it clearly. There were plenty of the colorful blue icebergs, and the scenery was stunning. My wife stayed mostly on our balcony, observing from there, and I spent about half my time on the upper decks.

 

As we were leaving the fjord, we rounded a corner and saw ourselves in the mirror! Actually, it was our sister ship the Dawn Princess, and that provided some neat reference to the immense scale of this place.

 

Bottom Line: It is a very beautiful place, and most ships get to see it. Some do not. One down side to this glacier view is that you are very unlikely to see any calving.

[Sea Hag]

We went twice, once in May and once in September. On the Setember visit, we did see calving.

[ute_fan]

We went to Tracy Arm 3 years ago on the NCL Sun. We did take advantage of the catamaran excursion that NCL offers and were very glad we had done. We were able to see both North and South Sawyer glaciers, whereas the passengers who stayed on the cruise ship were iced out from any views of North Sawyer. It was the highlight of our trip, but I really didn't know enough to realize how lucky we were to have had the experience we did.

 

If you aren't taking a ship that offers the catamaran excursion, don't count on being able to see the glaciers. If you get lucky, you may see them, or at least one of them, but more often than note the cruise ships are iced out. I think as I was reading through last summer's posts, there were only two sailings of the NCL Sun the entire summer where the ship got to within viewing distance. That's just not very good odds.

 

I did read several comments from people who were glad they'd gone, even if they didn't get to see the glaciers. The scenery in the fjord is breathtaking, but it's not your best choice if your primary interest is seeing glaciers.

[Yukon]

The cons you've already heard about, the pros from my persective can be seen at http://www.explorenorth.com/articles/tracy_arm.html

 

Murray

[kellywhitehills]

Your photos are lovely..Thank you for sharing..We have a private tour of Tracy Arm planned in July with Goldbelt...Needless to say we are very excited about going!'

[Budget Queen]

, and most ships get to see it. Some do not. .

 

Actually, most probably do not get within view of the glaciers.

[Vmalcolm]

Just returned from the Vision sailing May 4. I did not expect to see the glaciers in Tracy's Arm, but we saw both North and South Sawyer. The ship paused for probably 1/2 an hour so you got a good view. My husband even saw North Sawyer calve.

 

I wouldn't go there for the glaciers, though. But it was the most beautiful sailing of our trip.

 

Valerie

[Chenega]

If you want glaciers, go with Hubbard. It's one of the most active and massive in Alaska with a face over 6 miles long. It's quite active too.

 

The best glacier trips up here for glacial action are out of Whittier into Prince William Sound and College Fjord. One trip even promises that you will see "26 glaciers" and they keep their promise.

[OldCodger73]

We were on the 5 July sailing of the Volendam last year. Tracy Arm had a great deal of ice floating in it, which required a slow zig-zagging course. Evential the announcement was made that we couldn't go any farther so we wouldn't get to see the glaciers. I don't think people minded too much as we saw a low of floating ice and were due to cruise Glacier Bay the next day. My take was we could have gone further but there was no guarantee that we'd actually get far enough to see the glacier, and to do so meant we would arrived in Juneau late causing people to miss the expensive excursions they had booked through HAL. Even without seeing Sawyer Glaciers it was still very pretty.

 

Bottom line, if you definitely want to see a glacier book a cruise that either goes to Hubbard or Glacier Bay.

[qiangf2]

We had a great time last September when sailing into Tracy arm.. Here are few photo teasers. :D

 

We got to very close to Sawyer glacier

 

Really close, and you can see the deep blue ice.

 

Along the away, we saw numerous waterfalls on both banks of the fyord.

 

 

The sister ship Sun Princess just came out..

[qiangf2]

Of course, we saw a lot of wildlife: from the ship, not excursion. I am sure you will see more with some specialized excursion tour.

 

 

Beas and Mountain goat.. Shot with 400mm telephoto lens.. Don't forget to bring your binoculars. 10x is the must

 

 

 

One of the 50+ whales we saw after leaving Tracy Arm. Check out the ship railing on the left. You got the idea how close those whales are.. DW and I used our binoculars to really enjoy the very detail of those whales.

[qiangf2]

some beautifully formed floating ice

 

BTW, did I mention how cold this place was when we sailed in.. check out those people on their "secret viewing deck" :)

 

 

The END! Thanks

[TrojanJulez]

Thanks for posting the great photos! Our cruise is sailing to Tracy Arm, and I'm glad to know that we won't be missing out on anything - it looks beautiful - well worth waking up at 5am! :)

[cruisemamma99]

Were leaving from Seattle aboard the Vision, and I am very excited. We'll be going that route and looks very beautiful. We just started cruising and now this will be our third but I'm not too concerned if I miss something. We'll be doing many more Alaskan cruises, and I may try HAL next time for a much longer one.

[BLONDIE35]

we went last week on NCl to Tracey arm and saw sawyer glacier in all of her beauty up close on the cruise ship just like the pictures posted on this thread! it was beautiful!!!

[Bucky3]

Even though we didn't get all the way to Sawyer glaciers last May, the scenery was still one of the highlights of our trip. We want to go there again and this time perhaps a little later in the season. However, we were blessed with perfect weather for the whole May trip and have not been that lucky on our other trips in late June and early September.

[qiangf2]

Some experts on this board pointed out before that even September does not guarrantee a sawyer glacier view depending on the weather. I heard some one who just came back from cruise had a great time in Tracy's Arm and get very up close to the glacier in the first week of this May.