Alaska cruise excursions.

[KEN WEBSTER]

Just booked an alaska cruise for 1st June ,sailing from Vancouver through the inside passage,calling at Juneau,Skagway,the Hubbard Glacier,and Ketchikan.Can anyone advise on excursions from these ports.We shall be staying in Vancouver for 5 days after the cruise,are there any visits or excursions we should not miss?
Many thanks.

[Art]

The usual suggestion. Go over to cruisecritic.com and check on the ports of call board for each of your ports. Lots of information and reviews on the types of shore excursions and the various vendors, including the cruise lines themselves.

There are so many superb shore excursions on an Alaska cruise that it is worth the research effort to find the ones that best meet your interests. My choice for a don't miss excursion is flight seeing on a float plane in Misty Fjords (Ketchikan). I guarantee there are a lot more suggestions; and I won't argue with any of them.

Art

[geekette]

We went dog sledding on Mendenhall Glacier out of Juneau and it was truly one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life. Since you take a helicopter to get up there, you also get your 'flightseeing fix'. Temsco was the vendor.

Ketchikan has 2 major totem pole parks. We went to Saxman and I participated in a clan dance wearing one of their beautiful handmade cloaks. Got to see the shop where they work on totems and got a lot of interesting history about the totems and their symbolism. Next time, I'll go to Bight.

I've always wanted mukluks but at the end of season, nothing was in my size. If you are in the market for any kind of furrier items, Ketch is a good place to look. I did buy beaver slippers and love them.

Unfortunately, our Misty Fjords floatplane trip was cancelled due to high winds.

[Roxi]

This may be too late to help, since you'll be going to Alaska soon! We took a cruise with the similar stops. The only excursion we did through the cruise company though was the rock climbing and repelling in Skagway. The teenagers really loved it and my husband and I liked it too. We couldn't talk the kids into glacier hiking (they said they get enough snow and ice in their own back yard). For the most part I took walking tours from the Lonely Planet book. The salmon hatchery in Juneau was more interesting than I anticipated. We hopped in a taxivan just outside the boat and it took 5 of us there and waited until we were finished, then dropped us off at the Alaska State Museum. From there it was an easy walk. It was so much less expensive than any of the excursions that did the same thing.
We rented bikes in Vancouver and spent the day on the bike trail through Stanley Park. We locked the bikes up and took the ferry over to Granville Island. Vancouver is a great city - I wish we had 4 days there. Your going to have such a great time.