Hubbard Glacier
- Amaris Scipione
- Aug 9
- 4 min read
Today we are viewing Hubbard Glacier. It’s cloudy when we wake up and I’m curious if it will be clear enough to see the glacier. We arrive to the glacier according to schedule, but there is a rogue captain without a watch with his ship in our spot. Our Celebrity captain and everyone onboard patiently wait for this ship to vacate. Our patience is rewarded because conditions improve as our ship inches closer to the glacier.
The helipad area of the ship is open for this occasion. It’s an area of the ship that most people don’t see and its wide views make it ideal for glacier viewing. This area of the ship is supposed to open at 3:15pm so we go to another area of the ship to watch us move in until the helipad is open. Word spreads that it opened early and we go upstairs to get a decent spot.
It’s 10-minutes before the helipad is supposed to open and there is a line. It’s not that long and moves slowly. The crew is only letting a few people head back at a time. This part of the ship isn’t really designed for lots of people. There is an awkward thing to step over and steep stairs. It’s not accessible for anyone with mobility issues and Celebrity makes this clear in their communication.
The helipad has lots of people and the railings are lined with people. We’re able to get one spot along the side of the ship. At some point, there is space for me too. We move towards where the Viking ship was and then continue past it. Our ship glides through some of the ice and you can hear it clank on the bottom of the ship. We are getting close to this glacier! The temperature drops probably 10-15 degrees as we get closer and every minute of this part of the voyage is more beautiful than the one before. I’ve visited this glacier before and this experience was much better. I’m visiting Alaska a month earlier than last time and I think the ice is thinner today allowing us to go closer. It’s such an experience to glide over ice towards a glacier. Also, a bald eagle flew over head!
The unfortunate thing about this late arrival was that Melinda and I had to leave the glacier viewing early. We are hosting a cocktail party at 5pm on another part of the ship. We hurry to our cabin to gather our hosting papers and then go to the SkyLounge. We’ve arrived early and my first thought is this is going to be difficult. This place is packed with people watching the glacier. We’re really close to it now! Luckily, we can still see the glacier from here so that part was nice! The concierge team is here too. They show us a roped off section where our party will be and they are in the process of moving people from the roped off section to the outer seats. Our time is nearing and I think our numbers are going to be low. Our cocktail party is now competing with the most beautiful event of the trip.
We do have guests so now we can call it a party! Only seven of the 54 guests show for the party and there are a ton of canapés and drinks for everyone. The nice thing about the small group is that we each get to know the guests well.
Now we really need to get to work. We need to find out if anyone else is joining us tomorrow for our hosted shore excursion. We go back to the room and develop a game plan. Melinda will call starting from the lowest stateroom and I will go door-to-door from the top. We text each other as we gather answers and we contact nearly everyone. The ones we don’t speak to we leave messages on their phone.
Our shore excursion group is small. Our included shore excursion is a city tour of Juneau. There are some pretty amazing alternatives for this port so it’s not surprising that many of the guests have chosen other options. The Celebrity options include Taku Lodge Feast and 5-Glacier Seaplane Discovery, Luxury Whale Watch, Mendenhall Glacier Guide's Choice Trail Hike, Gold Creek Salmon Bake, Dog Sled Summer Camp, Glacier View Sea Kayaking, Juneau Salmon Fishing Adventure, Bike and Brew Mendenhall Glacier Tour, Whale Watching, and Wildlife Quest. I know I’d choose several of these options over visiting a whale statue and salmon hatchery. Which one would you choose?
We end the evening with dinner and cocktails. I try the Chocolate Martini and Melinda tries the Snowflake Martini which were both tasty, but in my opinion not worth the $22 price tag. We make a little stop at the show for tonight, but we only last a few minutes. It’s time to sleep.
