Whales and Bears at ISP

[Bubbs33]

We are thrilled to be travelling on our first cruise. We're going to Alaska mid July!  We arrive in ISP at noon. We have booked a private whale tour at ISP from 12:30 to 3:30. There is a Bear and Wildlife Search with Misty Bay Lodge from 4:15 to 7:45pm. So my questions...is this doable?  Has anyone any insights or experience with the excursion with Misty Bay? Or do you have other suggested tour operators for Bear search at ISP?  I appreciate your sharing of experiences and opinions. 

[naxer]

We did our brown bear search with Hoonah Travel Adventures and highly recommend it.  In fact, bears are what I most wanted to see at ISP.  We ended up seeing 6--one juvenile male, two adult males, a female and two cubs, all from driving around and then getting out of the van at a bridge over a river and an overlook near a stream/river.  This company also does whale watches, and it looks like you can schedule one after another if you go to their website.  If I ever return, I think I would do that.

[Bubbs33]

3 minutes ago, naxer said:

We did our brown bear search with Hoonah Travel Adventures and highly recommend it.  In fact, bears are what I most wanted to see at ISP.  We ended up seeing 6--one juvenile male, two adult males, a female and two cubs, all from driving around and then getting out of the van at a bridge over a river and an overlook near a stream/river.  This company also does whale watches, and it looks like you can schedule one after another if you go to their website.  If I ever return, I think I would do that.

Thank you. Is the tour with Hoonah Travel Adventures, one where you stay in the van? Do you get out in the wilderness? Or walk ?

[naxer]

1 hour ago, Bubbs33 said:

Thank you. Is the tour with Hoonah Travel Adventures, one where you stay in the van? Do you get out in the wilderness? Or walk ?

We did not stay in the van, but got out to stand on the bridge over the river and watched first the juvenile bear go up stream, then come back downstream, and he was followed a few minutes later by the adult male.  When those bears went under the bridge we were standing on, they couldn't have been more than 15 feet away.   Then we drove to the small viewing platform where we got out and saw the mother and two cubs eating salmon in a stream.  Then they went into the woods, and a few minutes later another adult male came down the stream.  We never hiked or anything, and stayed within about within 30 yards of the van.  Other vans were driving around doing the same thing.  And once on the bridge, a bus stopped, but no one from the bus got out.  

 

Edited January 9, 2019 by naxer
clarity

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Icy Strait Whale Adventures does a similar B2B whale/bear search tour.  We are booked for our tour in May.  We are really looking forward to it!

[NEWLKAT]

I have done tours with both Misty Bay Lodge (whale/bear search combo) and last summer with Hoonah Travel Adventures (bear search), I don't know if Misty Bay Lodge has upgraded their van but the vans with Hoonah Travel Adventures was a little more comfortable I think they were more of a transit van and Misty bay a regular passenger van.  I saw bears with both tour companies. You can search on Trip Advisor my sign is NEWLKAT, I have pics and reviews of both companies (unfortunately not the vehicle) I would not hesitate to go out with either company and enjoyed both immensely.  Just a note Icy Strait has one of the highest populations of bears per capita in the world and while there are a lot of bears, sightings are not guaranteed.  On my last tour which was 3 hours we did not see bears until the last 45 minutes to hour. But got a jack pot there 2 sets of moms with cubs. Just one of my favs from our tour last summer out the front window of our van, I was in the second row.  Cub looking us over.

Edited January 10, 2019 by NEWLKAT