Tendered- you will get on a small boat from your ship and boated to the dock. Go to www.cruisecritic.com a resident posts there. Top tours recommended are the whale watches and bear tours if going later in the season.
Does anyone know if there are tour companies in port at Icy Strait? We are really splurging in the other ports and we thought we would wait to see how the weather is the day we arrive at Icy Strait. If weather is nice, we might do the bike tour. Can you book it that day on the cruise ship?
Heard the two top attraction in Icy Strait is Whale and Bear Watching. From the reviews I read, Icy Straits seems to have the MOST whale as compared to Juneau (even thoug it's already good at Juneau) and chances of seeing many whales on all trips. And the bear watching trip also has good chance of seeing brown bear.....
Is that true ? Anyone can comment ?
I'm now stuck on which port to choose for whale watching since both Juneau and Icy Strait get very good comments. Pls help !!
Is there any other ports that can be substitiuted from Icy Strait that I can see brown bear (my ports are Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Icy Strait Point and land portion is Seward, Alyeska, Anchorage, Fairbanks , Denali, Talkeetn).
Denali Park- I'll assume you are on a cruise tour- is Tundra Wilderness tour included??? You will have brown bear viewing on that tour, but these are about 1/2 the size of the coastal browns. Binoculars are necessary, at least 10 power in my opinion. If you want the brown bears- eating salmon, Icy Strait is your cheapest option.
If you went back and looked at old posts, mine were some that you probably found giving positive response for whalewatching a ISP. Depending on the weather and your interests, you may want to schedule whalewatching for both as we did. On our last trip in Sep, we had rain and a lousy day in Junea so a wet tour with Capt Larry. Everyone was soaked, camera gear was all wet no matter what you tried, but we still saw whales but pictures were all grey. ISP was nice sunny day and we saw lots of whales doing lots of things. But next trip, it could be the opposite. We wanted to do whalewatch and bear tour in ISP but didn't have enough time due to times of the tours. So we did not book until we got on ship because we wanted to see how we did on our bear tour to Katmai NP first and if we did not see bear, we were going to choose this one. But we saw our bears, and booked the whalewatch. BQ will be going to ISP and can give us more info. The first ships should be in in the next week or two.
Any recommendation whether should the whale watch and bear watch in Icy Strait to book with cruise ship or book any independent tour when arrive in the shore ?
Always book in advance, or you run the risk (almost certain) of it being sold out. I don't know of independents in ISP, so you might want to book with the ship.
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Denise
Carnival Spirit to Alaska
There are no independents in Icy Strait Point. The owner of Icy Strait Point is the local Native (Indian) Association. They control everything. You can book when you get off, but it will be the same tour and you won't get io at a cheaper price like you do when you book trips independently in other ports.
As for "better" there is no better Juneau or Icy Strait Point. If you have lots of things you are interested in doing in Juneau, then definitely do our whale watching in Icy Strait Point. ISP does not have the broad range of activites Juneau has.
Icy Strait Point, Alaska
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