Should We Book A Whale Watching Tour in Juneau?

[Himawari000]

We will be on Coral Princess in August and trying to decide on activities. I see one of the must-do in Juneau is whale watching. Question - Is it really necessary to book a tour for whale watching, or will we see whales from our ship through out the cruise? We plan to do a lot of lounging on the deck... Thanks in advance.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Himawari000

[Italy52]

We will be on Coral Princess in August and trying to decide on activities. I see one of the must-do in Juneau is whale watching. Question - Is it really necessary to book a tour for whale watching, or will we see whales from our ship through out the cruise? We plan to do a lot of lounging on the deck... Thanks in advance.

 

For us, whale watching excursions are a must. Will you see whales from the ship? Possibly, if you keep an eye out for them. The one advantage of a whale watching excursion is that you get that close encounter with the whales as opposed to seeing them off in a distance. Our whale watching experiences in Juneau have been very memorable and unmatched by what we have seen from the ship's decks or balconies.

 

If you click on my Alaska 2015 picture link below and select Juneau, you will see what I am talking about. One thing to keep in mind is that every whale watching trip is different --- we never know what we will get. So far, we have been very blessed during our trips.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Italy52

[Quilting_Cruiser]

We will be on Coral Princess in August and trying to decide on activities. I see one of the must-do in Juneau is whale watching. Question - Is it really necessary to book a tour for whale watching, or will we see whales from our ship through out the cruise? We plan to do a lot of lounging on the deck... Thanks in advance.

 

You may or may not see whales from the ship, but if you do you'll be quite a distance from them. Whale watches are done from small boats and you get much closer to the whales--they take you to where the whales have been sighted. Seeing whales from the ship isn't in the same league as an actual whale watch.

[Budget Queen]

We will be on Coral Princess in August and trying to decide on activities. I see one of the must-do in Juneau is whale watching. Question - Is it really necessary to book a tour for whale watching, or will we see whales from our ship through out the cruise? We plan to do a lot of lounging on the deck... Thanks in advance.

 

Frankly- it's the WRONG thinking to even consider the "must" claims, MOST of Alaska tours could be classified the same- for that person with the PRIORITY interest.

 

You can't be "lounging" (using a Caribbean reference of laying in a lounge chair :) ) for whale watching from a cruise ship. Whale watching is a lot of work, :) :) :) and takes a significant amount of time. :) Most important to know your areas, be willing to skip meals, get up early (before dawn) and have a GOOD pair of WIDE angle binoculars. Realistically- you are out for hours with a couple minutes of combined views, and it is nowhere near "most of the cruise".

 

A whale watch tour does have extended multiple viewing options, in far superior viewing proximity. There is unrealistic thinking here as well though. You can not expect anything more than blows, backs and tails.

 

You need to determine what it is you want out of your trip, and your priorities for touring. With your "really necessary" reference- it may not be that much of a priority for you???

 

I am very successful with wildlife viewing from a cruise ship- BUT, I am mostly out by myself and those who do come out are usually walking right back in. :) I am also on multiple tours- always. There is no comparison between the two.

 

Good luck with your decision.

[peety3]

I'm usually one of the best-equipped photographers on the ship when I cruise, if not the best (I usually rent a big wildlife lens for our Alaska cruises). If I dig up the absolute best whale pictures I've gotten while aboard the ship, I'd have to zoom in on the screen to get a good view of the whale. Most of my pictures taken from whale watch excursions are uncropped and filled from almost edge to edge with one or more whales, and you can count the barnacles hanging from the tail.

 

Sample from the ship:

 

Sample from a whale watch:

[Quilting_Cruiser]

I'm usually one of the best-equipped photographers on the ship when I cruise, if not the best (I usually rent a big wildlife lens for our Alaska cruises). If I dig up the absolute best whale pictures I've gotten while aboard the ship, I'd have to zoom in on the screen to get a good view of the whale. Most of my pictures taken from whale watch excursions are uncropped and filled from almost edge to edge with one or more whales, and you can count the barnacles hanging from the tail.

 

Sample from the ship:

 

Sample from a whale watch:

 

You really should have reached out cleaned off that poor whale's fluke. ;)

[trophy_23]

Agree with the last two posts. We are also very well prepared with photo gear (some pretty big lenses) and usually a whale from the ship will have to be cropped 100% and still be small. While we do see quite a bit of wildlife from the ship we spend hours outside walking and watching and for this we are usually rewarded. We often eat dinner after it is too dark to watch for whales. I would recommend a whale watch as it will give you the best chance to see whales in close proximity to the boat.

[gottagoacruzn]

You really should have reached out cleaned off that poor whale's fluke. ;)

 

Yes, I agree with Quilting Cruiser!!:rolleyes: Would have been nice.:)

[onespots]

To Italy 52

 

This really applies to anyone who would like to assist me. I am interested in learning how to post photos to my reviews on CC. I understand you need a photo site like Shutterfly or Photobucket.

 

If I purchase an account, I am only interested in sending photos. Should not need much storage as I use external hard drives to back-up most of my photos.

I have tried in the past, however I am clearly not following the process or procedure properly, as I have not been successful in getting a photo on CC.

 

Without tying-up this thread... Please email me at sfaigle@aol.com

 

Would appreciate any help I can get. My computer skills are very limited. Have searched you tube & other internet sites for learning this process. Still I guess I do not fully understand the process.

 

Thanks in advance, John

[Quilting_Cruiser]

To Italy 52

 

This really applies to anyone who would like to assist me. I am interested in learning how to post photos to my reviews on CC. I understand you need a photo site like Shutterfly or Photobucket.

 

If I purchase an account, I am only interested in sending photos. Should not need much storage as I use external hard drives to back-up most of my photos.

I have tried in the past, however I am clearly not following the process or procedure properly, as I have not been successful in getting a photo on CC.

 

Without tying-up this thread... Please email me at sfaigle@aol.com

 

Would appreciate any help I can get. My computer skills are very limited. Have searched you tube & other internet sites for learning this process. Still I guess I do not fully understand the process.

 

Thanks in advance, John

 

John, I have a Photobucket account. It doesn't cost me anything. When I want to post a photo on CC, I go to the photo in my album on Photobucket and I click on it so that it's the only photo that shows (rather than thumbnails of all of the photos in the album). Over to the right, there's a heading that says "Share this photo" and underneath it are options for how to share it. I click on the Direct box and that copies the location of the photo to my clipboard. Then I come to CC and I click on the image icon above (the one that's yellow and has a mountain in it) in the toolbar of the box in which you type your post and click in the dialog box that pops up. I then hold down the ctrl button and press "v" to paste the location of the photo. That's how you post a photo on CC from Photobucket. :D

 

Cheers!

[Himawari000]

Thank you all for your input. Whale watching is back on the table. Now we just have unlimited budget on this vacation :)

[onespots]

To Qiulting_Cruiser

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Even with my limited skills I should be able to figure this out. Muchly appreciated, John

[Quilting_Cruiser]

To Qiulting_Cruiser

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Even with my limited skills I should be able to figure this out. Muchly appreciated, John

 

You're very welcome! I hope I explained it in a way that is easy for a novice to follow. :o Good luck!

[Italy52]

To Italy 52

 

This really applies to anyone who would like to assist me. I am interested in learning how to post photos to my reviews on CC. I understand you need a photo site like Shutterfly or Photobucket.

 

If I purchase an account, I am only interested in sending photos. Should not need much storage as I use external hard drives to back-up most of my photos.

I have tried in the past, however I am clearly not following the process or procedure properly, as I have not been successful in getting a photo on CC.

 

Without tying-up this thread... Please email me at sfaigle@aol.com

 

Would appreciate any help I can get. My computer skills are very limited. Have searched you tube & other internet sites for learning this process. Still I guess I do not fully understand the process.

 

Thanks in advance, John

 

 

Per your request, just sent a private e-mail response to you.

[xlxo]

If you are looking at a whale watch..... consider a Mendenhall combo. Both activities are West of Juneau and a combo will save your valuable port time in not retracing travel time going back to where the cruise ship docks.

[Rtrnvb19]

Also consider a salmon fishing trip out of Junea...about the same price but you get a two-fer; whales AND a fun experience with down rigging!

[tree.star]

I think I must have just come off an unusual cruise. Our whale watching excursion in Juneau was a bust (a couple of distant blows, a pretty rainbow), but we saw quite a few whales from the cruise ship, and close ones. One day I woke up, walked out on the balcony, and one was right there in front of me in the water. I also saw about 5 whale breeches (two of them orcas) from the cruise ship, with one being pretty close.

 

My husband is an amateur wildlife photographer, so we were out on deck a LOT, at all hours of the day. However, the captain was good about announcing whales, so there were many people on the ship who were able to come out to see them. I honestly can't even count how many tails I saw from the ship.

 

But as I said, this seems to be unusual based on the responses of others. In the future, I would probably skip whale watching in Juneau but I definitely want to try it in Icy Strait Point. The whales there were quite abundant, and the whale watching boats were really close to them.

[peety3]

I think I must have just come off an unusual cruise. Our whale watching excursion in Juneau was a bust (a couple of distant blows, a pretty rainbow)...

Do you recall what vendor/tour you were on?

[tree.star]

Do you recall what vendor/tour you were on?

 

It was part of a longer excursion booked through NCL, but the whale watching portion was with Allen Marine. I was actually pretty disappointed in the experience, not necessarily because the whale watching wasn't great (wildlife is fickle, what can you do), but for other reasons. Maybe I was just expecting too much. For example the description of the tour had said we would receive snacks, but when we got there it was a tray of about 20 chocolate donut holes, the processed kind you get in a bag from the dollar store. They ran out quickly and were not replaced. I'm "lucky" I got to eat one of them. The description had also said there would be salmon dip, but it was actually them passing out a sample to each person containing a miniscule amount of dip on a Ritz cracker. I'm no foodie, I ate at the buffet every day, but come on, really? The whole excursion (we went to Mendenhall Glacier as well) lasted almost 7 hours, so I was starving by the time we got back to the ship.

 

There was also a very drunk person on the boat that was obviously irritating others, but they didn't seem to care or make any effort to stop selling her beer. She kept interrupting their talks and laughing loudly, but they seemed to brush it off instead of understanding that she was bothering people.

 

My husband, who stayed on the top deck with his camera the whole time and can seemingly go all day without feeling hunger, has a better opinion of the experience than I do.

Edited May 18, 2016 by tree.star

[Mrs.Gosse]

I thought the exact same thing the first time we went to Alaska. As the previous poster mentioned , whale watching is a lot of work. Plus the whales are very small. I would not give anything to replace our whale watching tour in Juneau. It was so incredible we very likely will do it again when we go back. I highly recommend it.

[mek]

We had the most incredible whale watching tour last June in Juneau. We picked up a tour right on the pier after chatting with the vendors. They told us we needed to get on a tour as quickly as possible because of the amount of whales that were in the area. I've chased whales all over the world and have never seen anything like we did that day. You just take your chances and hope for the best - generally you will see a few whales and occasionally you will see the spectacle we saw.

Edited May 22, 2016 by mek

[jawhoffman]

I would highly recommend Harv & Marv's tour in Juneau. Our captain was Liz and she was awesome. We saw eagles and an eagle nest, harbor seals, sea lions, orca whales and humpback whales, including a calf and its mother. There were only 6 of us on the boat and there were spots to watch from inside, the front and the back. It was a great trip! We saw lots of whales from our boat but being down close and personal was quite exciting.