ramebane

My wife and myself are cruising with my elderly father. We are from the Hampton Roads area of VA. We are flying in on May 24 to spend a full day in Anchorage with a rental car. Then taking the Coastal Classic train to Seward. We plan to spend time at Mendenhall glacier, on our own timeline, while in Juneau. We have booked the White Pass Rail and Bud tour through Chilkoot Charters in Skagway, whale watching with Alaska Whale & Drone Tours in Icy Strait Point, and a eco-kayaking tour with Ketchikan Kayak in Ketchikan. Then got another rental car to tour the day in Vancouver before our late flight home. Where are y’all from and what do y’all plan to book and see? I look forward to meeting a few of you on the cruise.

After reading more on here and doing more research, we felt trying to do the Mendenhall Glacier trip AND Whale Watch would just pack our day up and not allow us much time left in the town of Juneau. We decided to switch from Jayleen's Alaska in Juneau to another small boat tour group that I heard good things about, Glacier Wind Charters in Icy Strait Point. It's a 3.5 hr whale watch tour. On our cruise day, May 31, they have a 6 passenger boat at 8:00a followed by a 13 passenger boat at 8:45a. We booked the 8:45a tour. Another plus of ISP is being a less populated area, there are fewer boats competing for the same whales. And seeing there are fewer activities in ISP, it just made more sense to us. Here is a great short video of their new 13 passenger boat https://youtu.be/DVvyIg3tYSY with a lot of breaching whales too. On a funny side note, while talking with Teresa at Glacier Wind about activities at Icy Strait, she mentioned that there are a lot more bears there so other than taking the road by the water up to Hoonah, it's not recommended to go hiking or exploring without a gun. She said it is fine in the ISP touristy area, even in those small loop paths nearby (they really only take less than 10 min. to traverse), but not the hiking trails without a guide or a gun. I was like "duly noted".

It was a special request situation. My father is 88 and was going to go on the train portion but not the bike part so we coordinated it all with both companies. So my wife and I booked the White Pass Railway & Bike Tour through Sockeye Cycle Co. and booked my father with White Pass Scenic Railway (Roundtrip to Fraser) directly through White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad. This way we will sit together for the train ride up and he will stay on beyond to Fraser and then return while we bicycle our way back. The bike ride is 15 miles and descends almost 3,300' in elevation. Almost all coasting and braking. We did the same thing when in Maui, biking down the Haleakala volcano for 23 miles and it was great so we had to do it again on this trip.

Hey Kayden, You sound a lot like me. I love getting any and all information I can. Quite the planner. My wife and I are cruising on the Radiance to Alaska for our first time on May 27 and are really looking forward to it. We are looking at going whale watching in Juneau and then heading to Mendenhall Glacier afterwards. We haven't paid, but planning to whale watch in Juneau as we've learned Juneau has a larger typical population during our time of cruise. I tried contacting Jayleen but she was not available our week. In her informing us she was not available, she recommended these other small boat companies: Harv & Marv Outback Alaska, Rum Runner Charters, Lost In Alaska Adventures, Moore Charters, and Local Guy Charters. They didn't pan out for us, but thought I would pass it along. Currently we are leaning with Juneau Tours. They have 2 boats with up to 26 passengers each. Mostly because they have a combo of whale watch followed by bus to Mendenhall Glacier. And the big kicker was that they have buses that pick up every 1/2 hour so you could stay at the glacier longer if you wanted so you don't have to try and rush our to the waterfall and back in 1 hours. I am hoping to hike to the waterfall then fly my drone over to the glacier for some close video and pictures. For other shore excursions while on our cruise, we are also planning to take the Train to the White Pass Summit and then Biking back down while in Skagway and also doing the Eco-Tour Kayak trip when in Ketchikan. We were planning to nature hike and possibly drone, if the right spot allows, when in Icy Straight Point, BUT I do get the point of more to do in Juneau than ISP so we still may flip the whale watch for more freedom in Juneau. Just not sure. Juneau is suppose to be the most populated of whales and even killer whales at first of June. I look forward to feedback with regards to my post as well.