Best Sea Plane Experience

[Cinderellie]

My husband and I are planning an Alaska cruise in June 2015. We are both chubby and can't do a helicopter tour without a great premium. So, we plan to do a sea plane over the glaciers. We start our trip on a land tour, arriving in Anchorage, then sightseeing for a few days, spending a day in Denali, and perhaps a day at Hotel Alyeska in Girdwood. Then we will sail on a Southbound cruise on Princess, stopping in Juneau, Glacier Bay, Skagway and Ketchikan.

 

Which sea plane excursion offers the most spectacular views/itinerary/most entertaining tour guides? Where does it leave from?

 

Thanks for your advice.

[mapleleaves]

there are floatplane excursions in all of those places, and most of them will provide glacier viewing. The length of tour and cost will probably be key considerations. And also where will the flight best fit into your itinerary when you consider your other activities at each location? Anchorage might be easiest.

 

Look at various vendors at each destination and see which ones are within your budget and meet your sightseeing needs.

 

Have you looked at trip reports? There's a current one just a few threads down the page from ken4556 about a HAL cruisetour. They took a flight in Anchorage. Great photos! I think it was Regal Air or Rusts either of which run about $125

 

If you're going to Denali, Talkeetna is a popular spot for flightseeing and even a glacier landing. Brusselsgirl's trip report is just a few threads down and includes photos of their Talkeetna flight. I've tried at Talkeetna twice and was weathered out each time. (That's a common theme with flights so always have back up plans.) Those trips are pretty pricey.

 

If you're driving to Seward, Scenic Mountain Air has flightseeing out of Moose Pass for around $125. Glacier and wildlife.

 

Many many options for you to research. Start with each towns web site for a list of vendors. I'd suggest choosing a couple of options just in case one gets weathered out.

Edited September 2, 2014 by mapleleaves

[DougH]

I really enjoyed a recent flight with Mountain Flying service from Skagway over Glacier Bay. They are based in Haines but can arrange a flight out of Skagway with several options. I thought it was a great value for the dollar and spectacular scenery.

 

http://www.mountainflyingservice.com/

 

I also did a glacier flight from Juneau thru the cruise line and while very nice it was shorter and more expensive

[peety3]

For our 2012 cruise, I did a ridiculous analysis of all of the excursions I was considering. I'd calculate the price per hour for each, to compare it to others of similar "content". For flying excursions, I'd also calculate the price per minute of flying time (obviously there's a flawed assumption because I'm applying the entire excursion cost to the time aloft). Interestingly, almost all of the flying excursions work out to the same per minute price, no matter what they were. Excursions that involved one flight out, time on the ground, and a second flight back still came out to the same price, probably because they have to work the logistics to optimize aircraft loadings (in other words, they'd run 3-4 separate sequential groups: flight 1 delivers group 1, flight 2 delivers group 2 and returns group 1, etc.).

 

In the end, I suspect you simply pay for time: more money->more time aloft. At that point, it's all about the reviews and perhaps the choice of planes. I really liked the DHC Turbine Otter we were on from ProMech in Ketchikan - 11 seats, 1+1 seating, and decent room. I enjoyed being in the RF seat to watch the pilot.