Whale Watching in Juneau

Hi looking for some advice. We are pretty set on renting a car (group of 6) and going to Mendenhall but would also like to do a whale watching tour. I'm looking for tour suggestions for a company that we could meet at the whale tour boat as we won't need transport.

Alternatively if anyone has information on a tour that would take us on the whale watch and then drop us at Mendenhall we might be willing to go that route if we could catch the bus back to the pier.

So would love to know where to find the bus schedule.

Any other advice/tips about visiting Mendenhall is also welcomed!

Ultimate goal is to see the glacier and some whales! So if you have another plan that you think would help us meet that goal we would welcome that information too.

We just did this. We had booked a rental, drove to Mendenhall, then stopped at Safeway for sandwiches and drove to the whale watch dock. We used Juneau tours. It worked just fine.

Thank you for your reply.

Did you get a discount on the tour since they didn't pick you up. Also our ship is there from 12-9. Would that pose any issues.

What things/trails did you do at Mendenhall?

No we did not get a discount. We had a group of 11 total in port, rented two cars from Juneau Car Rental. Our ship was in port from 12:30-9:30 I believe. Got off the ship about 1 (had wanted to get off right at 12:30, but it just didn't happen for various reasons), walked over to Juneau Car Rental and got the cars, that took almost a half hour. Drove back to the port and picked up the rest of the passengers. Drove back to the car rental place so I could show DH where it was when he dropped off the car later, this took 5 mins. Drove a half hour out to Mendenhall. By the time we got there, parked, visited the bathroom and got to the first overlook to see the glacier it was just before 2 pm. Hiked out to Nugget Falls and spent some time there and hiked back. We didn't have time to visit the visitor's center or hike Photo Point Trail like I wanted. We left Mendenhall around 3:30, drove the 10 minutes to Safeway, spent 10-15 minutes buying sandwiches, etc. And then my husband drove us to the dock about 5-8 minutes away. I was really paranoid of being late and missing the whale watch, it was their last of the day so we were there a bit early. I think we got there around 4:20 for the 4:30 whale watch. It picks up at the Mt Roberts Tram at 4:30, gets to the dock about 4:50. Out of our group of 11 only myself and my two kids went on the whale watch. The other family of 5 with us went back to the ship, the remaining adults visited the Alaska Brewing Co taproom and went to dinner and then DH returned the car. Kids and I ate our dinner while waiting on the whale watch boat. Got on the boat and started our trip about 5. Got back a little after 7 and took their shuttle back to town. Got back to the dock about 7:45 and back on the ship and in our room a little after 8 pm. We took their shuttle back because I didn't want to deal with returning the car late at night with 2 kids in tow. Juneau was also our Tracy Arm day so I was up and on the go from 5 am. Great day, but exhausting. Wish I had more time at Mendenhall, but I would do the same again, I wanted to get both things in and this was how it worked out. Whale watch was amazing. We saw tons of blows, backs and tails, one breach and 3 bubble net feedings including one way close to the boat.

I have done this several times. There are several docks, so verify which one you are at. At least the one by Hot Spot, is a pay lot. There is a machine.

No, don't expect any "shuttle" discounts.

We just did a whale excursion that included mendenhall as part of the package. It was great!! We booked through Princess for the excursion. I can't say enough great things about our experience. It was about a 5 hr total excursion between the 2.

(We were a group of 9)

Easy enough to do by yourself - recommend "Harv and Marv" for the whale watching, they'll pick you up from the cruise ship dock. Then taxi from H&M to the glacier, and bus back from glacier to the cruise ship dock. Just pay attention to when the last bus leaves.

Hi looking for some advice. We are pretty set on renting a car (group of 6) and going to Mendenhall but would also like to do a whale watching tour. I'm looking for tour suggestions for a company that we could meet at the whale tour boat as we won't need transport.

 

Alternatively if anyone has information on a tour that would take us on the whale watch and then drop us at Mendenhall we might be willing to go that route if we could catch the bus back to the pier.

So would love to know where to find the bus schedule.

 

Any other advice/tips about visiting Mendenhall is also welcomed!

 

Ultimate goal is to see the glacier and some whales! So if you have another plan that you think would help us meet that goal we would welcome that information too.

We booked a whale watching and Mendenhall glacier tour through Viator. It was cheaper than the ship's excursion.

Highly recommend Harv & Marvs for whale watching. We are signed up for the second time when we visit in two weeks.