Brown Bears in Icy Strait

[LindaMc]

Have any of you partcipated in the brown bear exploration/search shore excursion at Icy Strait? If so, what was your experience like and what time of year did you go? My husband and I are going to Alaska the very first part of Sept, and I'm considering taking this tour. Any info would be much appreciated!

[JohnQ]

Linda,

While we did not take this tour, we researched it and did not decide until a week or two before to do the whalewatch instead. We did talk to several people and the ship naturalist and Koo Hook when there about this tour. We were there in early Sept. Some people saw one bear on the tour and others saw three or four. I don't remember anyone who didn't see at least one but that is certainly possible. The good news is that these are big brown bears, and this is the cheapest tour you can take by a whole lot, that has good chance of being sucessful. They also give you a narrated tour of the area and way out to the platforms. You would also have time to take other walks or tour into Hoonah. The day we were there, they had several bear tour leaving every 1/2 hour while they only had one whale tour. We chose the whalewatching, even though we did Cap Larry in Juneau two days before. Our whalewatching tour was sunny and we saw tons of whales for the whole tour. Glad we chose it, but we also did a one day bear viewing trip out of Homer to Katmai, that would have been hard to top at ISP.

[LindaMc]

JohnQ,

 

Thanks very much for the info. And yes, you are certainly correct in that this bear excursion in ICP is much less expensive than some of the other bear excursions that are offered on the trip. I do think we will book this excursion. We are also doing Capt Larry's whale watching in Juneau, which I'm looking forward to.

 

Thanks again,

 

Linda

[LoneStar72]

You might pose your question on http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=50884 -- Koo Hook and Chookenshaa both live in Icy Strait Point year round, and both are involved with the tours -- Koo Hook as a Naturalist on the whale watching tours, and Chookenshaa as director of emergency medical services at the Point. I met them both (as well as Koo Hook's father) during our stop at ISP last year on Celebrity Summit, and will agree that there's no better source of up-to-date info.

 

John