Alaska Cruise Excursions (Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay & Ketchikan)

hello everyone my name is Zach I Am The Traveling Man and I come to you today from Alaska where I'm on my very first Alaskan cruise and in this video I'm going to show you my pork stops in Juneau in Skagway Glacier Bay and a whole lot more so come on if you're ready let's get this Alaskan Adventure started [Music] so I actually have two excursions booked today in Juneau the first of which is the tram the tram is downtown and it takes you up the Mountainside you have a good view of Juno and the Bay down below I'm doing that first and then two hours later I'm actually doing the Mendenhall Glacier now because this is such a tight spacing when I got off the ship there were tons of people at AJ doc AJ Doc is where Norwegian ships well Doc it's not downtown it's a walk or a bus ride away from downtown there were tons of people waiting for the bus I didn't have that time and even one of the shore Excursion crew down there told me they're like you need to walk you need to get there quick go up the trim do it because then I have to come back here catch the bus and my next Excursion because that's about 20 minutes away on a bus so I've got to be really quick today the current time is 305 p.m and uh I've got to be back here at the pier at 4 45 p.m so I'm going to be uh quick and um my time here at the tram if I have a little bit of extra time and I can make it I also want to see some of downtown because this is my time to see as much as you know as I can because my next Excursion is three hours long I think it won't get me back until this evening so an action-packed day plenty to do here in Juneau today so actually here's a nice map of sort of downtown Juneau in the port of Juno a lot of the other cruise ships are docked here at Alaska's team I think the celebrity Millennium is there uh this one here I think is the Holland America ship and then the princess ship here at Franklin dock we're way over here at AJ dog so you see there's no access directly to downtown you have to take the road all the way around or walk all the way to downtown which is what I'm doing now so just wanted to show you a little bit of wayfinding here in case you're coming to Juno and you're going to be docked at AJ doc that is a walk or a bus ride away from the town so I ended up taking the sea walk the historic sea walk there were signs for that and it's bringing me right here to the tram it's uh the station right here you can actually see going up the mountain right there so it looks like we've made it uh probably no more than a 15-minute walk but I was walking very briskly so maybe uh you know 20 minute walk just outside of the tram station there is a lot of different tours that they're selling including well watching Mendenhall Glacier and then there's also the Mendenhall Glacier bus and I've heard that you can book that for just a few dollars round trip actually there's a sign that says 45 round trip but it's cheaper than the cruise lines sell this excursion for that'll be the one I'm going on this afternoon we just wanted to show you that you can book independent Excursion yourself right here in the heart of downtown Juneau and they'll take you over to Mendenhall Glacier it might save you some money [Music] so it's 3 15. I've just made it there is quite a line to actually go up in the tram which concerns me a bit given my limited time schedule but 3 15 when I got in line so we'll see actually how long it takes to get through this queue 100 degrees all right so update it's 45 minutes later now it is now 4 P.M and I have not been on the tram I was in line for 45 minutes and was still probably 200 people away from getting on it and uh it's slow going up slow coming down and I have to be at my Mendenhall Glacier Excursion at 4 45 so um not gonna do this right now maybe later this evening because we are here until 11 tonight so I do have time so I think uh maybe after I get back from Mendenhall glacier I'll come and do this then because I don't want to miss seeing Mendenhall that's very important to me uh and I don't want to be on the tram and miss my other Excursion so I think this is the best option for me now so hopefully we'll get to ride the trim later but uh we're just gonna I'm gonna check out some of Juno downtown then I'm gonna take the bus back to AJ Doc and be there at 4 45 45 minutes from now for my Mendenhall Glacier Excursion [Music] thank you [Music] so I know this right here is probably the most visited portion of Juno it's sort of right here in the downtown right the center of all the port traffic we'll say all our cruise ships and everything you can see right here here's a bus terminal and I'm hoping this is where I catch the bus back to AJ Doc in just a few minutes but all around it you see there are t-shirt shops there's a tanzanite International that's a new to me I've never seen tanzanite International uh only ever Diamond International so we're getting places here there's also a Del Sol here which is wild never expected in this type of climate environment to have a Del Sol but here it is uh and then there's more shops here and then there's also Tracy's King Crab Shack and there was a lot of people in here eating a lot of people waiting to eat here and I've heard really good things online so if you want some king crab while you're here in Juneau this is probably the place to do it [Music] thank you here are all those tours I pointed out too or you could book those independent tours and then right here beside that here is a sign that says AJ dock shuttle so I'm assuming this is where the shuttle is going to pick us up to take us back over to the ship where I can then meet my Mendenhall Glacier tour [Music] now here at Mendenhall Glacier and there's a visitor center here there's Trails here there's so many things to do you can see the glacier just to head up there we will walk down and see that it's about a quarter of a mile walk down this way and we will get up there and see that very shortly but this is the Bus drop off back here so if you're coming here on an Excursion we'll get dropped off here and then you sort of can just walk and go whichever way uh you'll want to depending on what you want to do there's also restrooms and Facilities here as well foreign [Music] by The Visitor Center and then keep coming along the edge of the water I think we're going to be walking you see the glacier back there I think we're going to be walking over here to this one I'm gonna walk all the way around here I think that's the photo point so I do think that the other trail goes over to the waterfall and then this is the photo Point that's only like a third of a mile or something so we're gonna walk over there and check it out and see what views we can get but uh this is very cool uh literally cool too it's like 40 degrees out here and it feels it feels like a snow day you know it's all gray and there's like snow on the mountain tops it feels like a snow day when you're a kid um but it's very cool it's very uh the air is just so fresh out here there's flowers and stuff around it's just like you can smell stuff so much better here I don't know if it's because the air is cleaner or things are just more fragrant here I don't know but it's just a fantastic to take in this atmosphere to it's like all the senses you know you're seeing beautiful scenery you know you fill the cold temperatures you can smell the aroma of the flowers and just the Clean Air it's really neat I'm really enjoying Alaska so far okay so forget everything I just said about walking around there to that photo spot because this just brought me up to a staircase up here I think back around on the other side of the bus depot so uh this is not the way to the photo spot but uh we shall find it I promise [Music] oh [Music] so this is just very cool and such a beautiful place of course right here you can see the mountains and all the rainforest this is actually the tongas national rainforest and we are not far from downtown Juneau and of course Juno being the state capital of Alaska also interesting about Juno Juno is only accessible two ways that is by ship which is how I came or by airplane there is no Road two Juno you can't just drive to Juno from other places in Alaska or Canada or anywhere you have to come either by ship or by plane so everything has to be shipped in of course everything are flown in so very interesting because it is a state capital how secluded it is out here but it's a very beautiful place both the city of Juneau and then also out here at Mendenhall Glacier my first Glacier I'm so excited uh to have seen a glacier of course we'll see more on this trip and in this actual video uh some more glaciers coming up soon snow inside of the visitor center this is a little observation platform they actually have a bike here that says in 1935. you would be able to touch the face of the glacier from right here where I'm standing so the glacier would have extended this far out so you can see in almost 100 years how much the Glaciers are seating and it's continually receding and we know that because of all the fragments of ice and stuff here there's a lot of the glacier that's continuously being lost a lot of that due to a warming climate but you can just see in almost 100 years how much that Glacier has receded back up toward the mountain thank you it's just off the ship now in Skagway Alaska and we are docked The Encore stock behind the Majestic princess this is the Princess ship right here we're behind it and so we didn't have to get on a shuttle and bring the shuttle all the way down to this kind of bus stop here this is also a pickup location for all the excursions they would not let folks walk by foot because it was recently a landslide and let me see if I can get it here right there you see where that netting is there was a landslide back in August of 2022 and so they don't want folks walking by there so they do want you to take the shuttle so the shuttle was only like a two minute shuttle and we were here now and this is the location where all of the excursions are going to be picked up actually booked two excursions today one is the Skagway streetcar I'll do that first then I'll come back and then get on the train and do the uh White Pass Railway so I'm excited to do both of those today it should be a fantastic day here in Skagway it's beautiful so far and I can't wait to see even more as we uh get over into town and start heading out on these excursions foreign [Music] thank you [Music] very Skagway you can of course see the port down there and then right in the middle of the screen right there let's zoom in a little bit you can see the downtown uh area of Skagway and then that's about it the rest of Skagway which is a city of less than a thousand people is right here all the residential homes all just fit perfectly in this little Valley here at the end of the uh of the Fjord down there [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] smile back here at the bus depot and you can see the super long line up there folks lined up to take the four o'clock train which is already here and we're just waiting to board the folks do line up early so if you want preferred seating if you have a certain seat you might want on the train you might want to get here I think they said about an hour so far people have been in line [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] up to the white pass on the White House Scenic Railway and this is pretty cool we're gonna go up to uh I think over 2 000 feet and we're slowly climbing up the mountains here going into interior Alaska we're actually going to cross shortly over into Canada we'll be uh a few miles into Canada before we turn around and head back down to Skagway but this is a historic train ride because this Railway was built back during the late 1800s uh it's part of the gold rush foreign thank you [Music] foreign [Music] from Glacier Bay National Park it's currently 6 30 in the morning and we're we've currently settled into the national park and a park ranger is actually going to be joining us today and they're going to be coming over the PA I think that starts at seven so from 7 7 30 to about 12 this afternoon we are going to be sailing into the bay I know we're going to go on up into the bay and then we're going to actually see several glaciers we're going to pull up next to them to my understanding and get really good pictures of them and videos so uh yeah for about four hours this morning we're going to be here among the glaciers and then we're going to take off sailing down South toward Ketchikan so it'll sort of be a half of a sea day but I do want to show you some footage today from Glacier Bay National Park this is a real treat this is actually the reason why I booked this Cruise because I wanted to come to Glacier Bay I'd heard amazing things and I know that Norwegian is one of just a few cruise lines that actually does come to Glacier Bay so this is going to be a treat today so uh yeah let's go get some glaciers foreign our first Glacier of the day this is Marjorie Glacier and Marjorie Glacier is huge actually if our ship was over there next to it we're still a pretty good ways off from it but if we were over next to it it would actually be taller than our chip and our ship is 19 decks so uh over 20 stories tall March or Glacier is a beautiful you can see all the ice here in the water the ice it's broken off from this glacier [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] I think that we've been in yet here in Glacier Bay this is our last one this is John Hopkins glacier and uh that's coming up here on the right we'll be able to see that in just a second but it is really really beautiful in here all the snow-covered Peaks the skies are clouded back up a little bit but that kind of adds to the ambiance of the experience here it looks much colder than it actually is [Music] thank you good morning Welcome to our final day here in Alaska our final Excursion of the trip and today we're here in Rainey wet Ketchikan Ketchikan is the southernmost port city in Alaska and it's our second to last port of this Cruise tomorrow actually going to be in Victoria Canada but that Excursion is not going to be included in an Alaska Excursion video of course but it is rainy I will say we're actually in Ward Cove and Ward Cove is a seven miles from downtown Ketchikan so I think Norwegian maybe other cruise lines but I know Norwegian only docks at this pier the other one's docked downtown and you can get right off the ship like we did in the other ports and go right into town you can't do that here so we do have to go get on a shuttle and it's about a they said about a 20 minute ride into town I'm going on an Excursion and Excursion just mates here at the ship and then they'll take us today I'm actually going to Totem bite Park uh it's supposed to be really cool I'm really excited to see that and uh so yeah I'm gonna go down it's currently 8 five and I'm supposed to meet at 8 15. so I'm gonna go down to the meeting point get ready for my Excursion and we're going to set off and see what we can see here today in Ketchikan the very last stop of our Alaskan cruise now walking into totem bike State Park and this park was created to restore a lot of the totem poles that they were finding that the natives had left behind it's a beautiful Forest here so far it is of course Very rainy today but that's very typical of Ketchikan and uh it feels very uh authentic authentic Alaska to be here uh in the rainforest on a rainy day [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] that's going to do it for our time in Alaska what a beautiful place I thoroughly enjoyed getting to visit and I absolutely will be back on another Alaska cruise so thank you so much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed it but mostly I hope that it's inspired you to go out and see somewhere in the world that maybe you've never been before if you did enjoy it please go down below give me a thumbs up also consider subscribing to the channel thank you again for watching and I'll see you on the next adventure thank you [Music]

Channel: Zach the Traveling Man

Views: 12,508

Keywords: alaska cruise, alaska vlog, alaska cruise tips, alaska cruise vlog, glacier bay, cruise ship, norwegian cruise line, alaska cruise tips and tricks, alaska cruises, alaska cruise excursions, norwegian bliss, princess cruises, norwegian bliss alaska, norwegian cruise, holland america, tips for alaska cruise, alaskan cruise guide, alaska cruise planning, norwegian encore, ncl encore, celebrity cruises, celebrity cruise alaska, glacier bay national park, alaska glacier

Id: szcFz2HGfzg

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023