Whale watching…Icy Straight Point or Juneau?

[behappy11]

Hi…our ship offers excursions in both ports. There is only one in ISP but many in Juneau. I don’t know if the ISP ones are sold out so I can’t book, or if Juneau is just a better port for whale watching. Any opinions?

[Ferry_Watcher]

I really enjoyed whale watching at ISP.  We did the ship's excursion, and it was a catamaran that held about 40 passengers.  There was enough deck area to get a good look at the whales bubble feeding, tails up as they dove down, and lots of fins to be seen. Some passengers got bored after a while and went back inside, which left lots of room on deck for the rest of us.  There was a naturalist on board with us explaining what we were seeing. We even had a whale breech (come straight out of the water). It was amazing!

 

When the ship left ISP, we sailed by the area that we were whale watching in, and we could still see fins, tails and spouting from a distance.

 

We are sailing again to Alaska this May, and this time we signed up for a private 6 person whale watching tours : Glacier-winds.

 

https://www.g-wind.com/

  

[behappy11]

48 minutes ago, Ferry_Watcher said:

I really enjoyed whale watching at ISP.  We did the ship's excursion, and it was a catamaran that held about 40 passengers.  There was enough deck area to get a good look at the whales bubble feeding, tails up as they dove down, and lots of fins to be seen. Some passengers got bored after a while and went back inside, which left lots of room on deck for the rest of us.  There was a naturalist on board with us explaining what we were seeing. We even had a whale breech (come straight out of the water). It was amazing!

 

When the ship left ISP, we sailed by the area that we were whale watching in, and we could still see fins, tails and spouting from a distance.

 

We are sailing again to Alaska this May, and this time we signed up for a private 6 person whale watching tours : Glacier-winds.

 

https://www.g-wind.com/

  

That sounds amazing!

[Ferry_Watcher]

9 minutes ago, behappy11 said:

That sounds amazing!

 

Glacier winds run two small whale watching vessels - one carrying 6 passengers, the other 13-14 people.  I remember seeing a couple of smaller boats in the water when we were on the 40 person catamaran, and the smaller boat had cut it's engine and was just floating when we noticed that the whales swam very close to their boat.  It was really cool to see.  Decided right then that if we ever returned to ISP, that I would try to book a whale watching tour on a small boat (even though I know I might not have the same/similar experience that those folks had) 

 

ISP is such a pretty location, you will really like it.

[Crew News]

In my many whale watching excursions in Alaska, my experience is Juneau whales are docile compared to those in ISP.  Lots of tails observed in Juneau but lots of aggressive feeding in ISP.  Juneau does have some frisky baby humpbacks.

 

Juneau

 

 

 

ISP

 

[behappy11]

41 minutes ago, Crew News said:

In my many whale watching excursions in Alaska, my experience is Juneau whales are docile compared to those in ISP.  Lots of tails observed in Juneau but lots of aggressive feeding in ISP.  Juneau does have some frisky baby humpbacks.

 

Juneau

 

 

 

ISP

 

Those photos are incredible! 

[Northern Aurora]

I've found that Icy Strait Point to be incredible for whale watching and have less success in Juneau.  In ISP we once had ninety (yes -- 90) minutes of bubble feeding with total breeches.  It was somewhat exhausting just to watch!

[behappy11]

44 minutes ago, Northern Aurora said:

I've found that Icy Strait Point to be incredible for whale watching and have less success in Juneau.  In ISP we once had ninety (yes -- 90) minutes of bubble feeding with total breeches.  It was somewhat exhausting just to watch!

I can’t imagine! Thank you for helping.

[Tybeequeen2010]

For the past two years, we have seen lots of whales, including a pod of orcas in Juneau.  Humpbacks breaching, spectacular.  Have never done whales in ISP.  We do bears in ISP.  Spectacular opportunity for coastal brown bear watching with Brown Bear Lodge guides.  

[eyern1]

Following, especially since there's not much to do in ISP besides the whale watching, but that also seems much more expensive there. We will be there on May 22 if being that early makes much difference in one vs the others and it does seem early for the bears from what I'm reading.

[alias47]

We did ISP whale watching and did a Mendenhall hike in Juneau.  As some others said, not so much in ISP we saw that interested us. 

[kickboxrca]

I'm interested in this post as well. We have hardly any time in ISP so thought we would whale watch in Juneau ... but if the whale watching is that superior in ISP, maybe we should do it there ...

[Crew News]

17 minutes ago, kickboxrca said:

I'm interested in this post as well. We have hardly any time in ISP so thought we would whale watch in Juneau ... but if the whale watching is that superior in ISP, maybe we should do it there ...

To get to see a whale in Juneau requires a 20 minute bus ride and another 20 minutes to get to where the probability of whales is high.  In ISP, a ten-minute boat ride will get to lots of very active whales.

 

FWIW a whale breached about 100 yards from my cruise ship after I had put my camera back in the bag.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Crew News