Top Excursions for your Great Alaskan Cruise

There’s plenty of excursions available on your next trip to Alaska, whether you’re traveling through Alaska via an Alaskan cruise ship, or on your own, Alaska offers SO many excursions to do. With that said, the biggest advice we have is: don’t book your Alaskan excursions through the cruise ship. We highly recommend booking through vendors off the ship. This is simply because you’ll save so much money. And if you’d rather go through the convenience of booking through the cruise line and not looking into booking off the cruise ship, then that’s okay too. You’ll find the same excursions either way.

So without further ado; here are our top Alaskan excursions for your next Alaskan cruise. Both from what we have done, as well as, from those we heard about. You really do have the opportunity to talk to others on the cruise ship and get an insight on their experiences.

Dog Sledding Excursions

This is definitely an Alaskan excursion you don’t want to miss out on!

Booking

We booked through Alaska X. So like we said above, we recommend not booking via cruise ship. If you book through the cruise you’re almost always guaranteed to pay more. We saved almost $200 booking directly through Alaska X vs. booking through our cruise ship for the exact same excursion. Now cruise ships will guarantee that they won’t leave without you in case of any delay and all that fun stuff. But the reality of it is, is that if you plan accordingly you won’t miss the departure of the cruise ship. Also, these companies get almost all their business from the cruise ships so know when you need to get back.

When we booked our dog sledding excursion, they even asked us which cruise ship we were on. We then set our pick up location as our ships name. When doing this they pick you up at the end of the pier where your ship is docked. It was seemless!

Now before we dive deep into the excursion we did, we will preface this with, if you do go to Denali National Park you do have the opportunity to see some Alaskan huskies and get a short presentation on dog sledding. And this is for free. You can walk or bus there. They just ask if you feel compelled to, to donate whatever you feel comfortable. Side note; let me tell you these dogs LOVE what they do. I’ve never seen dogs more excited before. Though this mini presentation is cool, we do still recommend booking a separate excursion if this is something that interests you.

The Excursion

We chose the excursion Sled Dog Adventure in Skagway. For this excursion, staff picked us up from the end of the pier where our boat was docked. We then took a 20 minute bus ride to Mushers Camp. Here we boarded a huge 4×4 military vehicle to take us up the mountain to see the Alaskan Huskies. This is a pretty wobbly ride. There is a tour guide on as well to give you all the info. From there a custom made summer sled is waiting for you.

This sled fit 6 people; and we were lucky enough to sit front row. From here the musher, and full team of sled dogs, took us on a ride through the mountains. These dogs are so eager to run. You can tell they love the job and that their whole team loves them. Our musher was amazing. She was so knowledgable. And she even took pictures for us on our personal phones at the half way point. You also get introduced to each of the dogs on your team afterwards.

Once we were done with that we were taken back down to base camp where we were able to learn a little bit more about the Iditarod. Which I found super interesting because truth is, I didn’t know much prior to this trip. Then we got to meet some puppies that were a couple months old and some puppies that were a couple weeks old. We got to hold the weeks old puppies, and obviously that was my favorite part. We had some time to shop in the gift shop before heading back down the mountain and back into town.

This drop off point was only about a 5 minute walk to where our ship was docked. Of course this is also dependent on skill level. We chose to do this excursion at our port stop in Skagway as we had the most amount of time here compared to any other port. 

Sea Plane Ride

Booking

We did this excursion in Ketchikan and we also booked this one not through the cruise ship. This was booked by my mother in law so I’m not entirely sure how it was done; I just know it was cheaper by not booking via the cruise ship. We booked this excursion with Sea Wind Aviation. And we highly recommend them. The pick up location is just of the ships pier. Normally afterwards they do take you back to the city center, however, because this fell on the 4th of July, the roads were closed for a parade. It was, however, very walkable to get back to the city center.

The Excursion

This excursion comes with some really fun mascots, aka 2 dogs (pictured below) that greet you and run around with you while you wait for take off. They are waiting for you when you get back. They also will take selfies with you if you ask! Seriously though, I mean we didn’t ask, but they did join in on our family selfie.

Our plane held 10 people including the pilot and the passenger seat, and each seat had a window seat. The plane takes you up, above, and around the surrounding waters and mountains for a chance to see some really cool stuff. If you get motion sick – come prepared. The plane drops and turns quickly with it being so small, and the pilot wanting to show you all the cool sights. We did have a chance to see some mountain goats; but even though you feel like you’re so close to the mountains, they do look pretty small from your window. They are still are distance away. It’s quite deceiving. So binoculars or a long lens camera would be beneficial.

The sea plane also lands in a bay. This gives you a chance to stretch your legs and take in the beauty that is Alaska. All from a location that few get to visit. 

Mendenhall Glacier Excursion

So this is an option as an excursion. Honestly, I’m not sure what the excursions entail – and I’m sure there’s many different offerings; however I will say that you can get to Mendenhall Glacier for a fraction of the cost of the excursions with just a little more time given to get there.

If you take the public bus for $2 a person – you can get within a mile of the entrance to the Glacier. It is public transit so you will be making frequent stops for the locals – but for $2 and a 45 minute bus ride I think it’s well worth it. Just make sure you remember that it could take you some time to get back to the bus station in town. Take extra time into account when choosing this option, as you will need to make sure you’re back in time to leave on your cruise ship. You should also know that this way only allows you to see the glaciers from a distance. There are excursions that do offer the chance to walk on glaciers, but those must be booked via a touring company/through your cruise ship.

Now after talking with some others on the cruise ship, they were told not to take this option because they were told that the walk could be dangerous with lots of bears. We saw not one bear. And we had a big enough group, and had enough other people walking the sidewalk (which was along a driven road), to where we felt safe. Besides, we really wanted to see a bear, safely, but we wanted to see one. Unfortunately, this Alaskan trip, we did not have the opportunity to.

Whale Watching Excursions

We also did not decide to book this excursion, however many ports offer it. We were able to see orcas and hump back whales from the cruise shop. But given another chance, I would heavily consider booking a separate excursion to go whale watching. I say this because we ran into multiple people who did. These individuals were able to see whales way closer than what we could see from the cruise ship. The pictures, and stories, they had were absolutely incredible.

The excursions offered are plenty! Seriously there’s so many. If we had a bigger budget, we would have highly considered doing some other ones as well. Like actually walking on a glacier…how cool! So really it comes down to your wants and your budget. These are the ones that fit the bill for what we were looking for out of our first trip to Alaska. Thanks for reading along! Be sure to check out some of our port stop itineraries so you can plan your next Alaska Cruise!