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Juneau Excursions: Mendenhall, Whale Watching, or both?

Juneau Excursions: Mendenhall, Whale Watching, or both?

Old Aug 2nd, 2016, 08:05 AM
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Juneau Excursions: Mendenhall, Whale Watching, or both?

SO and I are going on an Alaska cruise next week. We haven't booked an excursion for Juneau yet and we're not sure which one(s) to pick.

SO loves whales so we were thinking of a whale watching excursion. We also would like to see Mendenhall Glacier, but we aren't big hikers so we don't want to do a full day hike -- we'd just like to get a view of the glacier and take some pictures if possible. We were thinking about a combined tour but we read that some of the combined tours don't spend enough time at the glacier -- can you actually see the glacier from the visitors center and is an hour there enough?
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Old Aug 2nd, 2016, 03:38 PM
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If you want to do both, you will spend about a couple of hours on each activity, which really isn't enough, especially for Mendenhall.
Depending on how much time you have in port, book a private tour and you may see both. Allow at least a couple of hours for whale watching but allow for at least 3 to 4 hours for Mendenhall, and if you have time left, go to Mount Robert.
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Old Aug 5th, 2016, 06:47 PM
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I can't comment on whale watching, but we did the visit to Mendenhall. Actually, we picked up a local city bus and it was easy and inexpensive to get there from Juneau.

We didn't do any hiking, really, just wandered around the glacier area. I'd say two hours is enough; it's quite interesting (particularly if you've never seen one before), with the solid wall of blue ice. You can walk around the area, get closer to the glacier and take some neat photos of the water and glacier. But, that's about all that's there.

Hope that helps. - Musing About Cruising
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Old Aug 6th, 2016, 05:39 AM
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We did the combo Mendenhall/whale watching on our first Alaska cruise, 3 couples. We didn't have enough time at Mendenhall to really see much of anything, and the whale watch pretty much got a thumbs-down from all of us. Mostly we saw birds, a few distant spouts (barely visible only with binoculars), no real good sightings. The inside of the ship was super-heated, and 3 of us actually dozed off from combined boredom and heat. YMMV.

We have regularly included whale watching on vacations, including Tofino, Vancouver/San Juans, Monterey. At Depoe Bay we sat on our balcony and simply watched them just offshore for a week. I think Monterey was the best, as our boat was accompanied by myriads of dolphins and porpoises, and there were quite a few whales who approached us as we sat idle, breaching close by. Tofino was the next best.

BTW, the next time, we took the city bus to Mendenhall and thought that was perfect.
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Old Aug 6th, 2016, 07:04 PM
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Hello,

We did the Mendenhall Glacier & Whale Watching (combo) excursion last summer in Juneau and LOVED it! This was our favorite excursion. The whale watching was incredible. We saw whales, seals, bald eagles, and several other water fowl.

I'll admit the visit to Mendenhall Glacier was a bit rushed, but we did get some great pictures. You can take a very short walk to get a nice view of the glacier. Another short walk will take you on a nature trail where we saw some spawning salmon and a porcupine (up in a tree). Great excursion! We wrote about this on our website - check out the link in my bio and check out the Alaska page(s).

Have a great trip!

- Mike
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Old Aug 17th, 2016, 10:33 PM
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Thanks all for the help! Still traveling and will post a full trip report when I get home, but wanted to share that we ended up finding a great excursion for Juneau called "Whale Watching & Mendenhall Glacier Photo Safari" with Gastineau Guiding. We booked through HAL but could also be booked directly through Gastineau.

I'd highly recommend this excursion to anyone with an interest in photography. We had a very small group (9 people) and saw lots of whales and took great pictures. SO has a nice camera, but I only brought my iPhone (as did a few others on the trip), and our guide Brian explained that it's not so much about the camera as it is about the photographer. Brian also took very nice "Christmas card photos" of every couple on our tour with the glacier as a background.

I think Gastineau also has a similar tour that doesn't have the emphasis on photo-ops (I think it's called "Whales, Glaciers and Rainforest Trails"). I'd also recommend doing the tour earlier in the day -- we did an 8:30 am tour so we were finished by about 1:30 pm and had a few more hours to explore Juneau on our own before returning to the ship.
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Old Aug 23rd, 2016, 07:48 PM
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When we sailed with Holland America a few years ago we did both and loved it. We had been to Mendenhall Glacier before, but if in Juneau you might as well go to it. There must not be many places in the world where you can get to such an impressive glacier by driving to it. The whale watching excursion that followed was a lot of fun. The boat ride was nice and the scenery was spectacular. We had about 20 whale sightings although some of them I'm sure were the same whale that we saw more than once. It was a fun day.
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