juneau whale watching question

[danelady]

Trying to figure out whether to book a whale watching excursion thru X or go independent with Orca or Harv&Marv. Has anyone booked the excursion thru X? Who do they use and is it a cattle herd type of tour. Thanks

[uktog]

We went with Orca (Captain Larry) and saw more than the Celebrity exursion, also the timings were much better for us. The ships naturalist Brent Nixon was also on the Orca trip with us as he seems to go out with them a lot to do photography so maybe he knows he will see more with them

A

[Mancuso]

We've done the Captain Larry trip thru Orca and were very happy. After the trip they drove us to our next excursion at no charge. The captain and crew were excellent.

[Norcal Cruiser]

We've gone out with Harv and Marv and enjoyed that as well.I did go out with Celebrities trip once and found it to be more crowded than I like.If you go to the Alaskan board and do a forum search for whale watching in Juneau you will find a ton of opinions on all your options.

[kay0522]

We were in Alaska in July. We booked the tour through Celebrity. While it was crowded, our tour guides were great. After spotting several humpbacks, seals and a bear on shore, we were headed back when our tour boat got a call from another tour in the area. They had spotted a pod of Orcas (unusual for that time of year). We immediately turned around and were able to watch and photo the orcas. They had lots of snacks and beverages on board and we had a great tour. We returned back to the ship a little later that planned, but had such a great time it didn't matter. Don't count out the Celebrity tour. I'm glad we didn't. Have a wonderful cruise. Alaska has been our favorite so far. I envy you and can't wait to return.:)

[snausman]

We use Orca (Capt. Larry) when we visited Alaska on Infinity. We loved the tour and Capt. Larry was a blast. Our boat only had about 15 people on it so that was really nice. We saw some of the ship tours while we were out and they were quite crowded. Go to the Alaska boards and you will get all kinds of info. Have a great time!

 

Laura

[IMNiles]

If you ask this question on the Alaska board you will no doubt get more answers than you can possibly use, but I'll echo the Orca recommendation. We took an Orca tour last August and it was fantastic. We saw the big boat (packed to the gills) that the ship's excursion was on and we were very glad we were on Capt Larry's (relatively) small jet boat. There can't have been more than 25-30 people aboard our boat, if that many. The crew were very good about mingling and pointing things out, and they found TONS of whales on our trip, among other things. The on-board naturalist was great.

 

You will hear strong recommendations, both for and against, for each of the private tour companies, but I honestly think if you pick any of the "top 3" or so you will be in for a real treat. Do be sure to book your private tour ahead.

 

Good luck!

[MVPinBoynton]

There is no comparison between a large ship tour through the cruise line and a personal experience with Harv and Marv. It was so nice to be able to be close to everything and be able to ask all the questions you want. I will definitely use Harv and Marv when I return to Juneau. You can see pics from our trip in our review on our website www.thepreismans.com .

[Drew B]

I did the Harv and Marv tour in terrible weather (extremely cold and pouring rain), and the little boat was not comfortable AT ALL in those conditions. I'm guessing the bigger boats are more built for comfort... I was able to get past that and enjoy the day anyway, but if you are somebody who is on the "delicate" side, a Harv and Marv excursion could be considered "roughing it", depending on the weather.

[MVPinBoynton]

I would definitely not want to be on one of the small boats in bad weather. That includes the bigger ones the cruise lines use. A cruise ship is the right size to be on in a storm. :)