Excursion or Rent-A-Car in Ketchikan?

Hi I need help making my mind up for Ketchikan. I cannot make my mind up on on Excursions or renting a car for the day. We are on the Bliss September 22nd. I was looking at Adventure carts but don't think it's worth the price at 249 a p erson with NCL. Want to see the land and the beauty of Ketchikan Alaska .Any help would be appreciated.

seems like you answered your own question. If you want to see the land and beauty of Ketchikan will the Adventure carts do that for you?

Hi I need help making my mind up for Ketchikan. I cannot make my mind up on on Excursions or renting a car for the day. We are on the Bliss September 22nd. I was looking at Adventure carts but don't think it's worth the price at 249 a p erson with NCL. Want to see the land and the beauty of Ketchikan Alaska .Any help would be appreciated.

In May we rented a car from First City Car Rental at Ketchikan. We had been to Ketchikan before and didn't really want to do a formal excursion. The car rental was perfect for us. We docked at about 6 AM to 1:30 PM, I think (NCL Pearl) - not a lot of time and odd hours. The rep from First City met us right past the exit from the ship and was very prompt - 7:30 AM. It only took about 5 minutes to do the agreement signing and such (all done on an iPad...) and we were off. The car was parked about 50 feet away in the lot - a very new Kia Optima that was immaculately clean.

What we did was head north out of town on the main highway to see Totem Bight - we enjoyed that. Afterwards we went all the way to the end of the highway for some pictures at Settlers Cove - a small state park. There is a creek with waterfalls that pours into the sea at this point - very photogenic. If we had been a little later we might have seen some bears eating salmon - too early for the salmon in May. We wouldn't have known about this place had the First City rep not told us.

We also drove south out of town to where I had been to a blacksmith's shop on a previous trip - cool items for sale there. It's at the Alaska Rain Forest Sanctuary.

The last thing we did was park right near Creek Street for a little shopping and site seeing there. We were able to simply leave the car in the parking lot by our berth with the keys locked inside when we were finished. Easy. The total cost was $82 - a pretty cheap "excursion" for three and we had complete freedom to do what we wanted - we also stopped by Walmart for an extra bag to carry home our loot from the trip.

Ketchikan is very easy to navigate. If one isn't interested in driving someplace the central part of town has plenty to do on foot within a few minutes of any of the ship berths.

Good luck!

Thank you for the information .I did make my mind up today and decided to rent a car in Ketchikan. Got it rented with First city car rental .Any more ideas on where to drive to would be appreciated.

There is a map of Greater Ketchikan in the town Visitor Guide ( after pg 29).

It also include mileage info .... going north from downtown there is only 20 miles of road (to Totem Bight or further north to Settlers Cove); and going south there is only 12 miles of road (Herring Cove is a popular spot to visit for the Rainforest Sanctuary and bears are occassionally seen here)

http://www.experienceketchikan.com/support-files/ketchikan-trip-planner-2018.pdf

Depending on your port time you probably have time to do both.

We rented a car in Ketchikan on our July visit. We had a wonderful day. We went to Herring Cove 1st and were lucky to see a bear. I loved having the freedom to go at our own pace. We also went to Settlers Cove. We really enjoyed Ward Lake. Nice trail around the lake. Stop there too if you have enough time.

We will likely rent a car on our next trip. I didn’t on a recent sailing because we didn’t have enough time to walk a 2.5 mile trail and then backtrack to get back to the car, with the other things I wanted to do.

So we took the local bus to Totem Bight + Potlatch Park and then a taxi to a trail head for the Ward Creek Trail, walked it one way to Ward Lake, and then a taxi back to the ship. We got a snack on board and then went back out for a stroll to Creek Street and the Salmon Ladder. Had a great day!

When we go back, I’d like to go to Settlers Cove and other places with trails.

Happy Sailing!