Alaska Excursions--post your reviews here!

[Silly Little Pixie]

For folks who did their own thing in Ketchikan, where are the cool things to see/do that are cheap and/or locally owned? I want to support the local shops, not cruise line owned ones.

Definitely! We are planning to just do our own thing in Ketchikan so I would love to hear ideas. I like the hole in the wall type places.

 

[Plucker001]

We will be on the Wonder in August and my Dad really wants to go fishing. I assume it would be salmon fishing? If so, does anyone have any recommendations? Particular ports or excursions?

TIA!

 

[jenna7394]

We will be on the Wonder in August and my Dad really wants to go fishing. I assume it would be salmon fishing? If so, does anyone have any recommendations? Particular ports or excursions?

TIA!

We booked the Salmon fishing through DCL. We looked into booking on our own but the company I had seen good reviews on actually does the tour for DCL. We are doing this in Ketichan at the beginning of June. I can let you know how it went when we get back if you would like.

 

[Meghanabc]

Hi.... We just booked our Skagway excursion with Chilkoot and we are looking at the heli/mush tours for Juneau. No ideas for Ketchikan yet though. We will have my parents with us on that day so we are looking to do some fun excursions but nothing too over the top! They dont want to do any sort of sea plane/helicopter tour. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[Plucker001]

We booked the Salmon fishing through DCL. We looked into booking on our own but the company I had seen good reviews on actually does the tour for DCL. We are doing this in Ketichan at the beginning of June. I can let you know how it went when we get back if you would like.

That would be great if you happen to remember! DIS'ers are the best!

 

[AZMermaid]

Hi.... We just booked our Skagway excursion with Chilkoot and we are looking at the heli/mush tours for Juneau. No ideas for Ketchikan yet though. We will have my parents with us on that day so we are looking to do some fun excursions but nothing too over the top! They dont want to do any sort of sea plane/helicopter tour. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

We are doing the Winlderness Exploration and Crab Feast. It is on the DCL site, the last one down. It gets pretty good reviews on Trip Advisor but I haven't read too many people from here who have done it.

 

[katiefried]

Sorry if I've missed this in a previous post, but does anyone know if its possible to do a flight seeing tour over Glacier Bay National Park, maybe from Juneau? I've been searching online and keep seeing references to that but nothing specific. I think DCL is going to be our best bet since our son will have just turned 3 when we hope to go (5/2014), but I'm a little disappointed they don't sail through the National Park. On that note any good stories about Tracy Arm would be appreciated too

 

[meajuly5]

Sorry if I've missed this in a previous post, but does anyone know if its possible to do a flight seeing tour over Glacier Bay National Park, maybe from Juneau? I've been searching online and keep seeing references to that but nothing specific. I think DCL is going to be our best bet since our son will have just turned 3 when we hope to go (5/2014), but I'm a little disappointed they don't sail through the National Park. On that note any good stories about Tracy Arm would be appreciated too

I know I have seen these offered from Skagway. I can't recall the company but if you do a search I am positive that there are some independents who fly there

 

[katiefried]

Thank you meajuly5! I guess I was just looking at the wrong town, oops! You are right, when I switched my google search from Juneau to Skagway Glacier Bay flights I found several! Definitely going to keep this in mind! Would love to hear from anyone who's done a flight over GBNP!

 

[scrapycruiser]

Gathering info for our Alaska cruise 2014 !
Thanks everyone !

 

[Ntrain]

For those of you that are booking with tour companies, how far in advance did you book? from what I'm reading people are booking like two months in advance.
Did you do it because the preferred excursions were already full via DCL or is it more cost effective?

I think turning into an obsessive planner but already doing research for my August 2014 cruise.

 

[peachygreen]

For those of you that are booking with tour companies, how far in advance did you book? from what I'm reading people are booking like two months in advance.
Did you do it because the preferred excursions were already full via DCL or is it more cost effective?

I think turning into an obsessive planner but already doing research for my August 2014 cruise.

I plan to book on my own because I like the details of the offerings with some of the tour companies better than what Disney offers at a slightly better price in general.

For example in Juneau from the research I have done I can get a smaller whale watching excursion for about the same price as the one on Disney but have 6-16 people on my boat instead of 50-150. I can also do 2 tours in one day which is very hard to do with Disney because they require that you have 2 hours between their proposed return time and your scheduled meet time to be able to book them.

I haven't figured out the exact timing for when to book yet. I know that several of the companies require payment in full up front so I imagine that would be a reason to wait if you know it won't sell out in advance.

 

[AZMermaid]

We booked with Harv and Marv in Juneau about 6 months in advance. We booked with them because of the good reviews. It is the same cost for a private boat with the 6 of us as it would be for us to do the DCL excursion in the 150 person boat.

 

[OrcaPotter]

I booked my rail/bus excursion in Skagway directly with Chilkoot Charters & Tours back in December for my June 3rd cruise. It would appear that most people have excellent experiences booking directly with companies in Alaska, with more to offer for the cost--sometimes slightly cheaper, too. I'm doing the tour that offers the train up to the town, lunch, a 15 minute sled cart dog ride, and the bus return--$208 PP for adults. I notice that DCL does not offer this excursion.

For Juneau, I booked directly with Rum Runner Charters based on recommendations here on the DIS for our whale watching excursion. We're getting our own private tour (3 adults) for a total of $543. The DCL excursions offer whale watching along with stops at the glacier or with lunch for a bit more, but your time is limited at these places and your boat holds 100 or more people. Larger vessels cannot get that close to the whales, while smaller ones can. Rum Runner will be private, and the captain will even drop us off at the glacier when we're finished--where we can tour at our own pace. Public transport back to the pier, I've read, is no more than $8 per person. I booked this last month.

I would say that you may be OK waiting until your cruise to choose an excursion through DCL, although popular excursions I'm sure would sell out. My cruise leaves June 3rd and it would seem almost all the excursions are still available. I wanted these private tours, so I booked way in advance to ensure them.

 

[Ntrain]

Thanks for the responses. I'm still reading this thread and I found a couple of reviews saying the same thing that private is with less people. We definitely want to do de helicopter/dogsled excursion. Anyways we still have a lot of time but at least I can plan on the budget now.

 

[CruznLexi]

I booked the Deadliest Catch tour last month I saved $20 per person.

 

[scrapycruiser]

Is there a list somewhere of the tour companies that you can book on your own ?

 

[katiefried]

I have a question about time zones and I apologize if I've missed this on another post. Maybe I'm wrong, but is Vancouver on pacific time, and is all of Alaska one hour behind that? So when you see times for activities, dining, etc on the boat is that going by Vancouver or Alaska time? Assuming when you're looking at excursion times they would be on Alaska time?

Also any tips to help kids (specifically 3 year olds!) adjust to the time change (coming from east coast time, yikes!) are appreciated! We do plan on spending a few days prior in Vancouver to help. Thanks!

 

[Aby]

On Day 2 (at sea), we had to put our clocks BACK one hour when we went to bed to get on to Alaska time. So for Day 3 and forward, we were on Alaska time and all times posted in the Navigators & the excursion times were based on this. On Day 6 (Ketchikan), we had to put our clocks FORWARD one hour when we went to bed to get back on to Vancouver time. So only Day 1 and Day 7 were on Vancouver time.

As for adjusting to the time change, coming in a few days early to Vancouver will help. Excitement also helps for both kids and adults to adjust as you are more likely to want to stay up late since you're having so much fun . After 1-2 nights of this and getting up at a regular time the next day, you get switched over pretty easily.

I hope this helps!

Aby

 

[katiefried]

Thank you so much for clearing that up for me Aby!!