Whale Watching in Juneau or Icy Strait Point

[SpeedNoodles]

3 hours ago, ramebane said:

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.

We did the bike from White Pass to Skagway (we transported up in vans, not via the train), back in 2007.  It was one of the best excursions we've ever done anywhere and plan to do it again someday.

[ramebane]

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".