Just returned from an amazing Alaska cruise! Pics and video.

[JimAOk1945]

Thanks for your post. We have been to Alaska twice and plan to go back again. It's an amazing place and we just can't get enough.

[SeahawkSiren]

Thank you so much OP for posting these photos and the video. Truly spectacular! I am going on my second Alaska cruise in May and Glacier Bay is the main reason I chose that itinerary (my first cruise to Alaska 9 years ago did not include Glacier Bay). I hope to see as much glacier calving as the OP enjoyed!

[gmadotti]

thanks Sanjuro for your post, video and pics. Taking 1st cruise June 1 on the Pearl so really enjoyed your photos!

[plattwear]

Thank you for sharing the photos Ben. We are leaving for Seattle in 18 days to see the city and then sail to Alaska. I enjoyed your photos. I had booked a Whale Watching tour in Juneau but, mom loves gardens so we changed the Whale Watching tour to Victoria so she could see a garden/rain forest in Juneau instead. I am wondering if she would enjoy the one in Victoria more after seeing your photos. :confused:

[ERed hot nana]

I will be on the Pearl going to Alaska in 28 more days! this is really helpful. I will book the Tray Arm excursion tonight!:)

[THE G TEAM]

DH and I have done the POA Hawaiian cruise every February for the past 5 years. It is absolutely wonderful. You can pre or post cruise a few nights in Oahu (Waikiki Beach) and see the whole island which is amazing. You have an overnighter in Maui so you can do the sunset or sunrise on Haleakala Crater, drive the Road to Hana, whale watch, do a luau and the list goes on. Hilo and Kona are wonderful places and the ship does a sail-by of the lava flow into the ocean between them. You have an overnighter in Kauai to allow for the exploration of the Waimea Canyon to the west or the Wailua River/Fern Grotto to the east. Lastly, the ship does a sail-by of the Napali Coast before heading back to Oahu. POA Hawaiian cruise gives you the best bang for your buck. I believe that Hawaii is good for the soul and everyone should experience it at least once in a lifetime.

[blufroggirl79]

We were on the Norwegian Pearl from June 30-July 7, and it was just terrific. I traveled with a decent size group: myself, my girlfriend, my mother, my brother, my grandmother, my uncle, his son, and his son's friend! Such a rainy part of the world WITH rain in the forecast, but...it never rained where we were. In the Juneau area we got a few drops, but not even a true shower. We were lucky all the way.

 

On the 4th of July we didn't get fireworks, but we got something better. The Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay CALVING ICE like it was going out of style! Here's a video I did of it, and I didn't even start shooting video until it had already calved three times.

 

 

Speaking of Glacier Bay, I'm not sure how the other cruise lines work, but I know that with NCL they do two basic itineraries for roundtrips out of Seattle. I think they all hit Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. Where they differ is on their Day at Sea "excursion" where the actual cruise ship sails into either Glacier Bay OR Tracy Arm (Sawyer Glacier). These are two MAJOR highlights in the area, so each itinerary gets a different one.

 

I was having none of that, so I ended up seeing BOTH on a single cruise! The trick is to go on the Pearl because when it is stopped in Juneau, the cruise offers an excursion through Allen Marine that takes you to Tracy Arm and back in 6 1/2 hours (time in port 2 PM to 10 PM). As I was planning all this, I was worried there wouldn't be enough time. I thought the excursion would be rushed since Tracy Arm is some distance away from Juneau. But no one in our party felt it was rushed.

 

We stopped a LONG TIME at a major waterfall, and both the North and South Sawyer glaciers. We even ran into the Norwegian Jewel in Tracy Arm, and being such a big ship, she couldn't go as far in as we did. I had heard that before... All the people that prefer Tracy Arm to Glacier Bay did Tracy Arm in a smaller boat (people who have done both in a large boat seem to uniformly prefer Glacier Bay).

 

Tracy Arm is narrow where Glacier Bay is wide open. Tracy Arm is more dramatic in a sense, filled with waterfalls and huge chunks of bright blue ice. I can see how it wouldn't be as impressive from a big cruise ship. I feel like we got the best of both worlds doing it this way (Glacier Bay on the cruise ship, Tracy Arm on a smaller boat). As for which I like better...I almost can't choose. It's a tough, tough call. Both are great in their own way, they are both very different and both worth doing.

 

Moving on, we also did the "Bennett Scenic Journey" excursion through Chilkoot Charters. It combines a train ride, bus ride, some nice stops for photos, and a surprisingly satisfying lunch. 8 hours is a long excursion, I must admit. Still, I loved getting all the way into the Yukon, and quite frankly I thought the best scenery of the day was in Canada, not Alaska. People who only do the White Pass Summit thing and then head back, well...I dunno. It's shorter and less taxing, but also less rewarding. Four people in our party did the short version and seemed happy with it. I loved the longer trip (which still left us four hours in Skagway!), but I won't deny it was a full and tiring day.

 

Lastly, we did the Misty Fjord seaplane excursion out of Ketchikan with the best there is (from what I've read and what I experienced on the day). Island Wings, and their pilot, Michelle. My girlfriend was nervous about going up in a seaplane, but Michelle has over 22,000 hours flying the De Havilland Beaver. IT SHOWS! You don't even feel the take offs and landings. The whole thing was terrific, and she lands out in the middle of nothing but nature, where you get to walk around for about twenty minutes on land. From what I understand, the other excursions only let you stand out on the floats.

 

Anyway, loved the whole trip. No issues. It was a real joy from start to finish, aboard the boat as well (doesn't hurt that I won some money at Blackjack in the casino). If any of you are interested, here is my photo album of the trip with scenes from every excursion and Seattle pre-cruise.

 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200249984351768.1073741828.1217675523&type=1&l=9b3e46bed1

 

Love the pictures!!! Thank you for sharing.