Icy Strait in the Evening

[Nanner]

We just received notice that our July HAL cruise is stopping at Icy Strait from 6-10 pm after a day of cruising Glacier Bay. I had a great whale watch before at ISP, but that was a daytime stop.  I'm wondering what we can do with just 4 hours besides perhaps walking down to the fish restaurant and hanging out at the cannery.  Any ideas?

[AlanF65]

2 minutes ago, Nanner said:

We just received notice that our July HAL cruise is stopping at Icy Strait from 6-10 pm after a day of cruising Glacier Bay. I had a great whale watch before at ISP, but that was a daytime stop.  I'm wondering what we can do with just 4 hours besides perhaps walking down to the fish restaurant and hanging out at the cannery.  Any ideas?

Ride the new tram if its operational, call Glacier Wind and see if they will do a shorter Whale watch for your ship.

We are in port for 5-1/2 hours and as soon as the 6 of us are at the excursion pickup she is leaving so we get on the water and she will get us back in time.

 

[golfer1903]

This is what I just sign on to the chat to ask also.  Hope they offer something or for anyone that's been there is there stuff to see or do like shops or things within walking distance.  I'm there in may .  May be darker sooner not sure. 

Maybe they will have excursions listed on the website site soon.

[skrufy]

3 hours ago, Nanner said:

We just received notice that our July HAL cruise is stopping at Icy Strait from 6-10 pm after a day of cruising Glacier Bay. I had a great whale watch before at ISP, but that was a daytime stop.  I'm wondering what we can do with just 4 hours besides perhaps walking down to the fish restaurant and hanging out at the cannery.  Any ideas?

There doesn’t seem to be much time to do any excursions. when we are.in iSP we go to the Duck Point restaurant get a table outside by the open fire pit, have a meal and a few drinks while looking out in the bay. 

[Glaciers]

Check your ship's excursion list. That's what you'll have time for.

[donaldsc]

I can never figure out why ships schedule such totally stupid port stops except that they can advertise that they are stopping at ISP.  A 4 hour port stop means that you really have only 3 1/2 hours there as you should be back on board 1/2 hour before the ship leaves.  We did an AK cruise last summer where we went through College Fjord.  It would have been spectacular as College Fjord has some spectacular scenery except for the fact that we arrived at College Fjord as the sun was setting and left when it was dark.  If you look at the port times for many AK ports, the stupid ISP port time is typical and not an exception.  

 

DON

[ronrythm]

You might want to figure in that the sun doesn’t set until after 9:15 even on the last day of July in that part of Alaska. Twilight lasts past 10. So you basically are getting a daytime stop.

Enjoy

Ron

 

[Ferry_Watcher]

It's unfortunate that a CCer described a port -of-call in Icy Strait Point as 'stupid'.  I think it is cool to visit a smaller, less developed area in Alaska - a port that not many cruise ships go to.  Enjoy your few hours there!

[Jimbo]

18 hours ago, ronrythm said:

You might want to figure in that the sun doesn’t set until after 9:15 even on the last day of July in that part of Alaska. Twilight lasts past 10. So you basically are getting a daytime stop.

Enjoy

Ron

 

100% agree, there will still be plenty of light. That time of year, long days and short nights.

[Sea saw 56]

Do check out the sunset/daylight hours for the dates you are in port.

Years ago, one of our first Alaska cruises, we stopped at Haines and booked a 10pm Carriage Ride thinking we wouldn't see much.  It was still daylight at midnight when we re-boarded the ship.  That particular night we couldn't get the curtains in our room to block the light out.  Think it was June.

[donaldsc]

On 11/30/2019 at 6:38 AM, Ferry_Watcher said:

It's unfortunate that a CCer described a port -of-call in Icy Strait Point as 'stupid'.  I think it is cool to visit a smaller, less developed area in Alaska - a port that not many cruise ships go to.  Enjoy your few hours there!

 

My comment on the stupidity of Icy Strait Point was not on the stop but the fact that the stop was from 6 PM to 10 PM.  That means that you really have only 3 hours on land at Icy Strait.  There are a number of port stops on an AK cruise that suffer from this really short port stay problem.  Icy Strait has some interesting stuff to do but you can't do anything but wander around the cannery on a 4 hour stop.

 

DON

 

[AlanF65]

13 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

 

My comment on the stupidity of Icy Strait Point was not on the stop but the fact that the stop was from 6 PM to 10 PM.  That means that you really have only 3 hours on land at Icy Strait.  There are a number of port stops on an AK cruise that suffer from this really short port stay problem.  Icy Strait has some interesting stuff to do but you can't do anything but wander around the cannery on a 4 hour stop.

 

DON

 

I have a 5.5 hour stop there and Glacier Wind is doing a 3.5 hour whale watch and will be at the pick up area early so IF we get off early and are all ( 6 of us) at the meet point early the trip will be longer.

[donaldsc]

4 hours ago, AlanF65 said:

I have a 5.5 hour stop there and Glacier Wind is doing a 3.5 hour whale watch and will be at the pick up area early so IF we get off early and are all ( 6 of us) at the meet point early the trip will be longer.

 

Nanner posted "We just received notice that our July HAL cruise is stopping at Icy Strait from 6-10 pm".  That is 4 hours.  My comment applies.

 

DON

[new2cruise]

We will be there from noon to 10pm  on May 22.  We've already booked a whale watch from 12:30-3:00, so will have lots of spare time in this port.  Any suggestions?

[AlanF65]

14 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

 

Nanner posted "We just received notice that our July HAL cruise is stopping at Icy Strait from 6-10 pm".  That is 4 hours.  My comment applies.

 

DON

Yes your comment is accurate, 4 hours stops are less than ideal but ships sailing longer distance seem to do these shorter stops. A 7 day from Seattle that includes Glacier bay it looks like this is a lot of ports is short time cruise with Juneau, Glacier Bay, ISP,  Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria

 

 

my point is Glacier wind made accommodations and they make accommodations for another tour of a shorter  duration for a 2.5 hour tour from the meetup point.

There are 10 excursions on the HAL site for the 4 hour visit including  whale watch, zip ride, ATV and others.

 

[donaldsc]

My point was that 4 hours port time is not enough port time in any port time.  They are just manipulating the cruise to make it seem as if you are going to meaningfully stop at more places than you are really stopping at.  Cruise companies are really good at that.

 

DON

[AlanF65]

16 hours ago, donaldsc said:

My point was that 4 hours port time is not enough port time in any port time.  They are just manipulating the cruise to make it seem as if you are going to meaningfully stop at more places than you are really stopping at.  Cruise companies are really good at that.

 

DON

Yes the 4 hours is too short in most ports, which is why generally speaking cruises out of Vancouver get more port time / more ports.

Or a Seattle 3 port of Juneau, Skagway / or ISP or Sitka, Victoria. I also think that if it goes to Glacier Bay that's basically like a port in that you are there for 8 hours.  When they leave out of Seattle and do Glacier Bay and Dawes or Tracy arm then the time comes form port times.

 

Really there needs to be more 10 and 11 day cruises but it must not meet the demand of what people want / have time for / are willing to pay.

 

Last Mays  11 night Ovation out of Vancouver was great for ports / port times.

The 14 night that HAL does goes to a lot ports that you don't normally see.

A-