Allen Marine at Juneau

[canada99]

Hi, We are off to Alaska for our first ever cruise. We are going with NCL on the Sun on 2 September. Has anybody used Allen Marine for the whale watching and/or Tracyarm fjord excursions ?? We know they use larger vessels so we are expecting more people on the trip, but how do they compare to other operators ?? Any information anybody can pass on is much apreciated, thank-you.

[fti]

Hi, We are off to Alaska for our first ever cruise. We are going with NCL on the Sun on 2 September. Has anybody used Allen Marine for the whale watching and/or Tracyarm fjord excursions ?? We know they use larger vessels so we are expecting more people on the trip, but how do they compare to other operators ?? Any information anybody can pass on is much apreciated, thank-you.

 

Whale watching in Juneau is becoming as common of a topic on the AK board as dress codes are on the cruise line boards :D .

 

You pretty much summed it up - bigger ship. Smallest boats are with Harv and Marv or Alaska Marine Adventure. Orca Enterprises has three boats of various sizes, all smaller than Allen Marine.

 

I am not familiar with the Tracy Arm cruises except to know that Adventure Bound also operates these.

 

John

[TCB2006]

Last November, I emailed Allen Marine about taking a tour of Tracy Arm on 9-4-07. They answered very promptly--but advised that their season for touring Tracy Arm ends the last week in August. :(

 

Case Harris at Alaskan Marine Adventures does Tracy Arm--although the weather is apparently very unpredictable after 9-1. The other catch is the screwy port times for trying to put together a tour at the best rate.

 

But the pictures I have seen from there are drop-dead beautiful, so I hope you can find a tour!!

[ute_fan]

For whale watching, I'd recommend booking with one of the smaller independents rather than going through the ship. My preference is Harv & Marv, but Orca Enterprisees also has a lot of good reviews.

 

As far as the Tracy Arm excursion goes, I strongly recommend booking through NCL -- which does use a catamaran provided through Allen Marine. First of all, you're only in Juneau for about half a day, so you wouldn't have time to book an independent. Second of all, the way the Allen Marine tour is structured through NCL is that you leave Juneau about an hour before the cruise ship sails and take the same route that the cruise ship will be following. You will have time to see a LOT more of the scenery of Tracy Arm, at a much closer viewing distance, than the passengers who stay on the Sun do. It greatly increases your chances of being able to get closer, and thus have a better view of, the twin Sawyer Glaciers at the top of the fjord. Eventually, the Sun will follow the path of the catamaran, the catamaran will meet up with the Sun, you'll pull up alongside the ship, and reboard the Sun. This was the absolute highlight of our trip on the Sun 3 years ago.

 

Just a couple of quick comments: first of all, we did see whales from the catamaran. Since we hadn't booked a separate whale watching tour, that was great. However, wildlife sightings are NOT guaranteed. Second of all, getting within viewing distance of the glaciers is also NOT guaranteed. If you're on the catamaran it increases your chances substantially, but sometimes, due to ice, neither the catamaran or the cruise ship will actually be close enough to see the glaciers. On our trip, the catamaran passengers saw both North and South Sawyer, while the passengers who stayed on the Sun only saw South Sawyer. There was too much ice to permit the larger cruise ship from sailing up the channel to North Sawyer.

[RichardK]

We went with them -- getting on the "big boat" in Juneau for the Whale Watch & Wildlife Quest.

 

We enjoyed it. So did it seem everybody else.

 

The larger boat afforded us some things we wanted -- i.e., a head, less motion, and a place to get inside occasionally out of the cold. A cold beer (instead of the coffee and hot chocolate) would have been nice; however, you can’t have everything…….!! :)

[Toyz711]

just to not confuse everyone, in juneau for whale watching:

orca enterprises...all ships have heads (restrooms), inside seating, snacks.

Harv & Marv..only 6 to a boat, but even their boats have heads, protective inside area and snacks.

these companies just have less people then allen marine usually has on it. some of the folks that were on allen marine, raves about their trip, while i raved about orca's boats.

[canada99]

Thank-you for all the feedback, every little helps. We decided to book all our excursions through NCL, we thought that if there are 4 or 5 cruise ships in each port there could be a chance that all boats could be full by the time we get there. We have had some great whale watching trips in previous years (Tofino, Telegraph cove), our best was over the East coast at Digby Nove Scotia where we had exclusive viewing of humpbacks......Juneau whales will have to go some to beat that.

[Budget Queen]

I was on the Allen Marine add on excursion to Tracy Arm a few weeks ago. In my opinion, this is a MUST DO excursion. It is FAR superior to anything from the cruise ship. My sailing had the first full view of the South Sawyer this season from the cruise ship, but way away compared to the jet boat getting right on top of it. We also did have a few humpback sightings, and a wonderful close extended look of a brown bear on shore. Also plenty of harbor seals and eagles.

 

I am also, always on whale watch tours. If not that much of interest, there certainly are plenty of other fantastic tours to consider. :)

[MercedMike]

We did the excursion with Allen Marine a few years ago, and enjoyed it very much. There were quite a few people on the boat but it was not at all crowded, even when whales were sighted. The inside spaces were very comfortable and had big viewing windows.

 

The special attraction for us, at least at that time, was that they knew where an island was that was just full of Stellar sea lions. These are the ones that earned sea lions the name, the males having a big mane and roaring like a lion. It was fun to watch the bulls patrolling the water as the females rested.

 

Have a GREAT cruise!

[canada99]

Hi all, Thanks for the input, we are looking forward to our Alaskan cruise and all our side trips. Think of us in 2 weeks......its a tough job but somebody's got to do it :)