Juneau Whale Watch & Salmon Bake

Looking for recommendations for this excursion. My dad wants to do a whale watch and salmon bake at Orca Point when we are in Juneau. Would rather book independent instead of through Carnival. Any recommendations? We are in port 1pm to 10 pm on Thursday May 26th.

Looking for recommendations for this excursion. My dad wants to do a whale watch and salmon bake at Orca Point when we are in Juneau. Would rather book independent instead of through Carnival. Any recommendations? We are in port 1pm to 10 pm on Thursday May 26th.

There are operators that you can book with . Just do a google search for them in Juneau. Sometimes private tours aren't much of a savings over the cruise line tours.

I think this is who runs the tour, but they don't provide pricing and say you should book through the cruise ship.

http://allenmarinetours.com/sightseeing/juneau/tours/whale-bake/index.html

In 2012, we did perhaps this tour. I'm not sure who the operator was, but the boat capacity was about 40 (which you can probably discern from the Carnival website). If you're looking at the same exact tour, I'd highly recommend that you switch to something from Gastineau Guiding. We used them in 2010, 2014, and 2015, and truly wouldn't go anywhere else for a whale watch in Juneau. The boat we were on in 2012 was not well suited for a whale watch: bench seats that didn't line up with sliding windows, so at most you could lean out through 40% of the window if you didn't mind contorting yourself to the right angle. The aft viewing platform wasn't nearly big enough for 40 people, so there would be a mad rush to be the first to the railing, yet still there'd be idiotic people holding their iPad at arm's length "to get a closer shot" (hint: an arm's length won't make enough difference to justify blocking my shots). And with everyone on the same side of the boat, it would lean enough to make walking around the boat a little treacherous. Gastineau's boats all have inflated pontoons that really help keep the boat stable and level, and single-pane windows in frames that swing up out of the way and pin to the ceiling, providing huge vistas while on the whale grounds.

That said, if the boat listed for your tour has a capacity of about 150, that's probably Allen Marine, and you'll find that their boats are stable and have decent second-floor viewing platforms. It'll still get congested for whale watching, but they are perhaps more comfortable for the transit to/from the whaling grounds. I'd still pick Gastineau first, but Allen second.