Alaskan Bears and Whales Question

My wife and I are going on our first Alaskan cruise in mid June 2018 on the Island Princess. My two goals for the trip are to get close up views of both bears (not too close) and whales in their natural habitat. I specifically chose an itinerary that included Icy Strait for whale watching as I had heard it was the best place to do so. The other two stops are Skagway and Juneau. The issue appears to be that Icy Strait is the only place with a chance to see bears at this time of year so you can see my conundrum. I guess I wanted to know if my information was correct on both the bear and whale viewing. Is the whale watching in Icy Strait that much better than Juneau? Will I really see bears at Icy Strait in mid June?

Any thoughts or advise would be helpful. Thanks!!

why can't you do both bear and whale excursions in icy strait?

we did..

how many hours are you there?

as for whales, we did a whale excursion in both juneau and icy strait - just in case....we figured between the two, we'd certainly see something...

.

We saw bears when we were in Icy Strait! Not sure if this is something you would be interested in, but we booked a Self-Guided ATV (it had a GPS) with Hoonah Travel Adventures. We did a 9am tour, and it was only 2 hours so we still had the whole afternoon afterwards. We took the ATV out on logging roads, and did see a couple bears! I a trip report, and the bears are about half way down on this page: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2538372&page=5

There are also bear watching trips from Icy Strait that you could look into as well, but I think Icy Strait would probably be your best chance to see bears.

Check out Jayleen's Alaska for whale watching in Juneau. Jayleen grew up in the Juneau area and her business partner is a marine biologist. She only takes 6 people at a time for a 3 hour tour.

Enjoy Alaska!

Patti

We have made our first cruise to Alaska and are now ready to do a few Whale Watching excursions from Juneau, Ketchikan, or Icy Strait. We

are looking for a large substantial.

boat with a Head for the tour.

If you only have time for one or t'other, do your bear tour in ISP. Juneau has 100% success of whale watches thoughout cruise season - humpbacks arrive before the first ship and hang around longer than the last one, they're very considerate of the average tourist's hard-earned dollars;-)

If you check a map you'll see that the ports are very close to each other - if you took whale tours from both you might see the same whales on two consecutive days. Compare fluke pictures and see how many matches you get!

Is there an Internet site with the Alaska Whale Watching excursions listed with photos of their vessel. We would want to sail on a large vessel with space to move around and a head.

Is there an Internet site with the Alaska Whale Watching excursions listed with photos of their vessel. We would want to sail on a large vessel with space to move around and a head.

Not that I'm aware of. The basic breakdown of available vessels goes from 'huge' (anything sold by the cruise ship except as noted below) - Allen Marine use up to 150 pax boats, with disabled-accessible toilets. If you're worried about seasickness, wheelchair or other mobility challenges, and don't mind being with a horde of other pax (i.e. fighting for window/rail space if the whales are all on one side) these are your best bet.

'6 pack' - most independent tours sell only 6 seats, even if their boats in theory have enough space for a few more folks.

14-pax vessels - Gastineau Guiding seem to be the biggest user of this size, and the ship's tour described as a 'whale/wildlife photosafari' uses Gastineau as the tour operator. To me these are the optimal boat - unlike the 6-packs they are designed for touring & photography, with large fully-opening windows at every seat plus small front & back open decks, so every seat can use their own window or go outside. Stable ride for a small boat, especially when under propulsion, but still rocks around more than the bigguns when stopped.

There are also a few odd-sized boats here & there - IIRC one of the ISP providers has a 20-pax for example.

We've done everything from a small speedboat with just us 2 + guide to the big 150pax vessels - and if you can tolerate the motion, small is always better for quality of the actual watching experience. But if you have to have easily accessible loos then it's not like the big boats are much worse - at times being higher up from the water even gives you better angles. It's really just about the fact that you cannot see anything on the far side due to the width of the big boats, so you have to move - and so does everyone else making rail space a premium...

peak bear viewing is generally tied to salmon runs, so you're too early for the 3 locations mentioned. Not to say you won't see them but it would be luck.

I'd do the whale watching in Icy St since there's little else. Be leary of a 'bear search'... they're called a search for a reason as opposed to a 'bear viewing tour'.

People have seen bears in Mendenhall ...walk all the trails, talk to the rangers, and look UP in the trees.

People have also seen bears along the Klondike Hwy when driving a rental car out of Skagway.

Ketchikan is the most popular location for bear viewing tours during a cruise, but again you're too early.

http://www.experienceketchikan.com/bear-viewing-in-alaska.html

Not that I'm aware of. The basic breakdown of available vessels goes from 'huge' (anything sold by the cruise ship except as noted below) - Allen Marine use up to 150 pax boats, with disabled-accessible toilets. If you're worried about seasickness, wheelchair or other mobility challenges, and don't mind being with a horde of other pax (i.e. fighting for window/rail space if the whales are all on one side) these are your best bet.

 

'6 pack' - most independent tours sell only 6 seats, even if their boats in theory have enough space for a few more folks.

 

14-pax vessels - Gastineau Guiding seem to be the biggest user of this size, and the ship's tour described as a 'whale/wildlife photosafari' uses Gastineau as the tour operator. To me these are the optimal boat - unlike the 6-packs they are designed for touring & photography, with large fully-opening windows at every seat plus small front & back open decks, so every seat can use their own window or go outside. Stable ride for a small boat, especially when under propulsion, but still rocks around more than the bigguns when stopped.

 

There are also a few odd-sized boats here & there - IIRC one of the ISP providers has a 20-pax for example.

 

 

We've done everything from a small speedboat with just us 2 + guide to the big 150pax vessels - and if you can tolerate the motion, small is always better for quality of the actual watching experience. But if you have to have easily accessible loos then it's not like the big boats are much worse - at times being higher up from the water even gives you better angles. It's really just about the fact that you cannot see anything on the far side due to the width of the big boats, so you have to move - and so does everyone else making rail space a premium...

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Exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks!