Our Juneau/Mendenhall Glacier visit with 300+ photos

[harryfat1]

Hello,

 

This is my part 2 in the photo series of our Celebrity Infinity Alaska cruise on 8/14 to 8/21. Part 1 was the Ketchikan walking tour and this is part 2 on mainly Mendenhall Glacier with few photos of the Juneau dock side area. If you didn’t read part 1, here is the link:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1048718

 

Similar to part 1, I will have narrative and link to my online photo album for future cruisers to get a preview of this excursion to see for themselves if it’s worthwhile. Unlike part 1, this is not the official walking tour, so I won’t have stop number references. Just a sequential ordering of events during our stay at Juneau.

 

Quick background: Second visit to Juneau. Previous visits were city and glacier tour. They only gave us 40 minutes at the glacier, way too short for what we like to do. So this trip, we just did the $14 glacier express round trip and have the flexibility of the return time.

 

Here is the photo link, have this handy in the background as I do the walk through for the day we were in town. First photo starts with the ship approaching the pier and last picture is the coast guard gunboat escorting us out of the harbor and picture of everything else in between. You can either do the slideshow to view everything or just skip to the parts that interests you.

 

http://harryfat2009juneau.shutterfly.com/26?startIndex=0&size=All

 

OK, let’s get started. Woke up early (by my standards) to go on top deck to take pictures of the ship approaching the Juneau pier. Wish I had been up even earlier to soak in the sights as it’s very green and with the morning fog still hanging around the mountains, it has that magical look and feel to it. So if you can get yourself up early the morning your ship approaches Juneau, by all means do so.

 

The Infinity was the fourth ship in town that day, HAL/Princess and NCL were already docked by time we arrived around 8 AM. But we had one of the prime docking spot just right outside the Mount Roberts Tram. That’s where the hub of excursion activities is. You can see the local tour booths people already setting up, but no one has disembarked yet. Took picture of the $7 shuttle express booth that we bought our tickets.

 

For just the shuttle only services, the two big names are the blue and white bus. Seems the company of choice amongst these boards is the blue bus and that’s what we used. They start on both end of the run on the hour and half hour. We got on the 10 AM bus and were at the Mendenhall just before 10:30 where there were some people ready to head back to town at the bus stop going back. Since there were so many ships in town that day, the blue bus started a third bus so that they were running a bus every 20 minutes during the peak rush hour.

 

Just as a side note, the day before on the way to Hubbard Glacier, there was a storm in the whole region and we had a very rocky sailing to the Hubbard and it was raining buckets while we were there and due to low clouds and fog, Hubbard was a total white wash for us. Big disappointment. While on the shuttle bus, the bus driver was saying they were part of the same storm the previous day and rain was coming down sideways for people going to see Mendenhall and it was totally miserable experience for them. Such is the luck of traveling.

 

The shuttle bus is relegated to the furthest away parking lot, so after getting out, we spent time at the Steep Creek trail looking at the various salmons. The glacier area has a good display info at various part. After the salmon viewing, we headed toward the glacier and stopped by the park ranger tent to hear some brief info on the glacier and for people to see what the difference in the glacier ice versus ice in your own refrigerator.

 

There are various stops on the walk way to the glacier and from my discussion with another ranger at the end of the trail, due to the storm/run off, the water level around the lake area is higher than other times of the year. So we couldn’t walk along the side trail to get close to the “white” waterfall as some previous cruisers have done. As you can see from the pictures, many of the trees are under water and there’s no way to walk close to the waterfall, unless you kayak your way there.

 

The reason I call the regular waterfall “white” is that there’s a second waterfall, the more brown color waterfall. I didn’t know about that one until I was there. Maybe I am clueless in my pre-cruise research, but I don’t recall see it in the reviews. But I am sure 5 people will post and say, “Dude, it’s been there for months/years. Get a clue. Where have you been?”

 

Evidently not spending time looking at other cruisers photos to know this one exists. So for you future cruisers that want to avoid the “Dah” moment, look at the brown waterfall pictures in my photo album and know ahead of time where to look for it. It may have always been there and we just missed it on our first visit as we were too rushed. Oh, well.

 

As for the glacier itself, maybe it’s the weather after the previous day storm or after the big let down at Hubbard, but Mendhall looked very blue and beautiful to us even though we had seen it during the previous trip. Maybe I have been on the ship for too long and eaten one too many buffets, but the glacier looks to me like a blue whipped cream with chocolate power sprinkled on top of a lemon cream pie.

 

In total we spent 2.5 hours at the glacier. Much more leisurely to take this route than doing the city tour and glacier together. Highly recommend it.

 

Afterward, we went back to town via the blue bus and back to the ship for lunch. One thing about Celebrity I appreciate is the service – they have an ice water and hot chocolate stand at the lobby for the cruisers that have come back from the shore to have something to drink. Small touch, but very much appreciated.

 

After stuffing our face at a late lunch, we went back to the shops to buy the obligatory souvenirs. They had some nice men’s Alaska jacket for $20 and Red Dog saloon shop (next to the saloon itself on the dock side) had some decent $1 acrylic stuff to bring back for folks back home. It’s a great bargain if anyone’s interested.

 

Before leaving home, I had downloaded a walking tour of Juneau downtown/government building, but because we were getting tired by then, we just passed on that walking tour and went back to the ship for the second time. Showered and rested and went up to deck 11 for the Juneau sail away at 7 PM with the picture of the Coast Guard gunboat escorting us out of the harbor area.

[tee_harbor]

The 'brown waterfall' is new. The glacier is constantly changing and shifting and waterfalls like this are the water within and under the glacier being released. A few years ago, there was another one further to the left that was narrower. This waterfall that you see probably won't be there next year or look the same.

 

Nugget Falls, which is the 'white' one, comes from Nugget Creek and is there all the time.

[alpal1993]

nice job I enjoyed seeing your pictures

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Thank you for the review and the pictures. I also enjoyed your pictures of Ketchikan. We will be in those same ports next July. What other ports did you visit?

 

BTW - you have a beautiful family.:)

[Mrs007]

LOVED image 1252 of your Mendenhall pictures. Do you remember what vantage point you were at to take that picture?

[harryfat1]

Thank you for the review and the pictures. I also enjoyed your pictures of Ketchikan. We will be in those same ports next July. What other ports did you visit?

 

BTW - you have a beautiful family.:)

 

Hi, Ginny,

 

Thanks for the compliment. I see that you found my other thread on part 1 of the series on Ketchikan. We were on the Seattle R/T cruise, calling on Ketchikan/Juneau/Victoria and cruising by Hubbard Glacier. In retrospect, I should have named/numbered my series and called it “Poor man/Cheapo’s visit to various Alaska ports - part 1” as we just walked around on all the ports.

 

Part 3 of the series will be shortest of the 3 ports as there isn’t much to talk about during our walk, except for our story/gratitude to the our neighbors up north in helping us retrieve a lost and found kid’s backpack. I will try to have that by the middle of this week.

 

I see you are sailing on the Spirit next year, which I believe will be sailing from Seattle. We were in Seattle for 1 day pre cruise and I plan to have our walkthrough/tips info/pictures on the West Coast board by this long weekend If that’s of interest to you or anyone else.

 

Finally, we were on the Spirit last December to Mexico and under my signature below, there’s a link to my very long cruise review on the ship.

[harryfat1]

LOVED image 1252 of your Mendenhall pictures. Do you remember what vantage point you were at to take that picture?

 

Hi,

 

Image 1252 was taken by my wife after we were dropped off by the shuttle bus and we were on the trail to see the Salmon and walking toward the main parking lot on Mendenhall. There are effectively two parking lots at the area – the further parking lot is utilized by regular car parking as well as the shuttle buses. The closer parking is used by tours and taxis.

 

So if you arrive at the Glacier via the shuttle bus, then you will most likely walk along the trail to see the salmons if they are running and then get to the spot to take the picture of 1252. If you arrive at the glacier via a tour drop off, you will be at the closer parking lot and then you need to walk AWAY from the glacier to get that shot.

 

Just as a side note, my wife is the photographer of the family. She uses a Canon SLR (Rebel XTi) with Tamron 28-80mm lens as well as a 100-300mm to get her shots. I do the camcorder recording as well as use the Panasonic TZ-3 camera. So her pictures have the digit numbers (i.e. Image 1252) and my pictures are the P series (i.e. P1040707).

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Hi, Ginny,

 

Thanks for the compliment. I see that you found my other thread on part 1 of the series on Ketchikan. We were on the Seattle R/T cruise, calling on Ketchikan/Juneau/Victoria and cruising by Hubbard Glacier. In retrospect, I should have named/numbered my series and called it “Poor man/Cheapo’s visit to various Alaska ports - part 1” as we just walked around on all the ports.

 

Part 3 of the series will be shortest of the 3 ports as there isn’t much to talk about during our walk, except for our story/gratitude to the our neighbors up north in helping us retrieve a lost and found kid’s backpack. I will try to have that by the middle of this week.

 

I see you are sailing on the Spirit next year, which I believe will be sailing from Seattle. We were in Seattle for 1 day pre cruise and I plan to have our walkthrough/tips info/pictures on the West Coast board by this long weekend If that’s of interest to you or anyone else.

 

Finally, we were on the Spirit last December to Mexico and under my signature below, there’s a link to my very long cruise review on the ship.

It sounds as if we have the same "cruise on the cheap" itinerary planned, LOL! I am cruising with 26yo DD and she has to pay for her own excursions, so we are hiking and exploring on our own in most ports. Our itinerary will also go to Skagway and we are doing our big splurge there with the White Pass & Yukon Rail Road excursion through Chilkoot. I'm not clear yet on what we will be doing in Victoria as we will be there just a few hours in the evening.

 

I would be interested in your report on Seattle...so bring it on! You mentioned the Duck being fun. I would like to hear more about that.:) I will check out your review of the Spirit, too.

[coo359a2]

Could you please post the website where you downloaded the Juneau walking tour?:) We're trying for the "do it yourself walkabout". Thanks

 

Loved your Ketchikan and Juneau pictures

[harryfat1]

Could you please post the website where you downloaded the Juneau walking tour?:) We're trying for the "do it yourself walkabout". Thanks

 

Loved your Ketchikan and Juneau pictures

 

Wow, I envy your world traveling schedule from your signature. I wish I can achieve that someday.

 

To answer your question, I printed Frommers walking guide. As far as I know from reading these boards, there is no official Juneau walking map like one at Ketchikan. But I have been known to be wrong every week of the year and today is only Monday.

 

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/juneau/0010010008.html

 

You can also print the map of the downtown area from their site:

 

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/destinationmap.cfm?destID=10

 

Another place I was interested in was the salmon hatchery also mentioned in Frommers. I emailed them for info, it's like $4 per person admission, so it's very reasonable and can be reached by the city bus if you are looking to leave the crowded downtown area.

 

There were 4 ships in town that day and tons of people all over downtown in elbow to elbow foot traffic, so if your day in Juneau has multiple ships in town, look for an alternative to leave the crowded downtown area unless you enjoy mass of people.

[coo359a2]

Thanks Harry for the web site. We did the Inside Passage a few years back and did our version of walking tour in Juneau and Ketchikan. This time will be with kids and grandkids and wanted them to see how it can be in Kietchikan and Juneau. Your review and pictures will be great for them to look over. I much prefer going around on our own rather then on large ship's tours. Our only organized tour will be with Dyvea Dan in Skagway and he only uses a van so it will be a small group.

 

Retirement can be nice but winning a lottery would be great. We have a big "bucket list" of places to cruise. The Fjords are for Ken and AUS and NZ are for me.

[Coolcruise02]

Thanks for your review and sharing your great pictures!

[DCWolf]

We did the same cruise, but the following week.

 

For Seattle, I'd suggest the Doubletree Arctic Club Hotel located downtown. It is a short walk to Pike Market and right across the street from one of the city's main bus tunnels. We used the city buses a great deal. The hotel staff were incredibly helpful in showing us how to navigate the buses and they were a very cheap and easy way to get around the city.

 

our ship docked early Friday morning, so we had most of Friday and all day Saturday in Seattle before taking the red-eye back to the east coast late Saturday night. On Friday we went to Pike Market and just wandered around. It can easily be a 2-3 hour venture. Just give yourself time and eat your way through it. We then went back to the hotel for a nap and later to the Belltown neighborhood for dinner. On Saturday, we took the city bus to the Museum of Flight. It was about a 20 minute bus ride. This is a really neat museum with admission cost of $12. You can spend a good 2-3 hours here. We took the bus back to downtown and then caught a different bus out to the Ballard area of the city. Again, a really neat neighborhood with fun shops and restaurants. We hit the happy hour deals at the Matador right on the main drag in Ballard. Great appetizers for $4 from 4-6 pm - even on Saturdays!

 

The Doubletree was $160 a night, but the location made it worth the extra $$$ to us since we didn't have to spend lots of dough on cabs. This is a very nice hotel, fairly new with a cool theme based on an old men's club in the city.

 

I hope this information helps you out.