Icy Strait Point
This is a new port for me and I’m excited to check it out! We are eager to leave the ship and find our excursion. There is no cell phone service at this port, so we need to find our starting point the old-fashioned way, and we give ourselves plenty of time. We are docked in the more ideal dock location. There is a steep incline to get into town from the ship. Icy Strait Point is a tourist area which was built for the cruise line. It’s a relatively new port so it is small in comparison to other ports. We see a gondola when we get to land. This connects the other dock to this area and is free to ride. We learn that if you take the green gondola, it not only takes you to the other port, but it also takes you to a red gondola. The red gondola has a cost to it and it takes you to a beautiful view. We didn’t do it so I don’t know how pretty the view is. You also need to take the red gondola if you do the zip lining and the ticket for the gondola is included in the price for zip lining. Zip lining isn’t the normal setup. You are basically in a seat and zip down and then the seats are pulled back up. It looks like a blast! There is also a ropes course that looked pretty interesting as well.
The meeting point for our tour is outside of Icy Strait Point and near the sign to welcome you to the actual town which is called Hoonah. There are so few people who live here, and the town is very small. There is a garbage man standing by the side of the road and I think he is a tour guide. I ask him if we are in the right spot and he says yes. He’s standing there because his garbage truck broke down and he’s waiting for some help. It has a very small-town feel and you get the impression that everyone who lives here knows each other. Our person arrives at the meeting time and then we load into a bus. There are fourteen of us for the tour and every seat is used on the bus. It’s about a mile down the road to get to the docks for the smaller boats. On our way to the boat, I get a glimpse of a whale dropping into the water. It had jumped up high and I had just seen the end of that breach. It produced a giant splash and I am now really excited for the trip! Our bus driver jokes that the tour is over after seeing this!
We unload from the bus and then walk the dock to the whale watching boat. Our boat is called Storm Breaker, and it has an inside cabin with seating for all of us. The windows are pristine for optimal viewing and each seat has a yellow cloth to wipe the windows in the event that they get wet or dirty. There is also a small platform at the back of the boat which you can stand on but is a little tight when everyone is going out there. Our boat has two captains and they tell us that whales have been located, but they are a bit of a drive from where we are right now. We spend a decent amount of time hauling out to this area. Our captain tells us the lingo. “Big Guys” refer to humpback whales, and “Little Guys” refer to Orcas. This is important because we can hear the radio and all the whale watching captains in the area communicate with each other on the location of the whales. Word on the radio is that Little Guys are in the area! I’m so excited!! Orcas are relatively rare and not seen on every whale watching trip.
We see a few Killer Whales and I’ve unlocked childhood memories! There was a SeaWorld located down the street from where I grew up. We often went to the park in the summer for the shows. The Sea Lion show was my favorite, but I also liked the Shamu show too. Seeing these whales in the wild reminded me of seeing them when I was a child. I have to admit, SeaWorld gives a better show than the wild, but this is the more environmentally friendly way to see these creatures. Orcas in the wild are cool to see.
We then go further and see humpback whales! I love seeing their tails fly out of the water. We some several of them, but I had a hard time getting decent videos of them. We did not see a full breach though.
We round out our whale watching trip with a stop to see bears! There are two black colored bears on the shore. They look like black rocks from a distant and would easily have been missed from a cruise ship.
The experience was wonderful and I much preferred our small-boat experience. We saw some of the other whale-watching boats and many of them were large and packed with people. Ours was a nice size and great for being able to see and move around. We were also offered some snacks on the way home. We had some Alaskan hard candy which was tasty and some potato chips.
I’m exhausted after we get back to the ship and end up napping for a couple hours. When I wake up, it’s time to enjoy some nightlife. There is a magician onboard and we watch his show. He was on America’s Got Talent and was very impressive!
We finish the evening with dinner at the main dining room. We have “Any Time Dining” which is a first for me. I actually really enjoy it! It’s been nice not having to rush for dinner and go whenever we want. I was concerned about having a different server each evening because of food allergies, but we asked if we could have the same staff each evening and so far they’ve been able to do this for us each evening. We aren’t at the same table each evening, but having the same staff has been very helpful. The service has been wonderful.
