7+ best Alaska cruise excursions + EPIC tours! (Princess + booking on your own) 🏔 Alaska cruise travel blog

Hi there!

The best excursions to take on an Alaska cruise include whale watching, the Bering Sea Crab Fisherman’s Tour, and Misty Fjords National Monument.

You don’t need to book excursions on an Alaska cruise, but excursions really can end up being the best part of your cruise.

The best Alaska excursions are expensive, but they are high quality and unique experiences which makes them worth it.

If you do an expensive excursion, there’s a good chance that it will be one of the major highlights of your Alaska cruise!

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I went to Alaska on Princess cruise ships, so my experience is looking for excursions for Princess cruises.

But of course, most of the excursions can apply no matter what cruise line you are on.

Here is your quick list of the best types of Alaska shore excursions you must consider:

• Whale watching tours
• Seaplane tours
• Glacier tours
• Helicopter tours
• Dog sledding tours
• Snorkeling tours
• Sea kayaking tours

Here is your quick list of the best excursions in specific cruise ports

• Best Skagway excursions
• Best Juneau excursions
• Best Ketchikan excursions

Are the expensive Alaska excursions worth it?!

The best Alaska shore excursions are expensive.

When you first start looking through tours, there may be a bit of a sticker shock!

How expensive are shore excursions in Alaska?

The cost of most of the best Alaska excursions will be $400 and up per person.

But if you start to look through enough of them, you start to get used to it. 🤣😵

There are cheaper excursions for “only” $200 that you are sure to love too, but the most epic Alaska experiences tend to be expensive.

Yes, when you do enough research on the absolute best Alaska cruise excursions, a $200 tour starts to look cheap! 😆😵

If you do just ONE of any of the types of epic Alaska tours as mentioned above, there is a good chance it will be THE highlight of your Alaska cruise!

Because I was booking a lot of Alaska cruise excursions, I read through TONSSSS of different reviews for tons of the expensive Alaska tours.

And for those most expensive Alaska tours, people repeatedly said it was the highlight of their cruise.

This is to say that the expensive excursions that are popular are GOOD because they provide you with an epic experience that will have you remembering your time in Alaska forever.

For example, while I’m sure you will have a good time on a “cheap” Alaska excursion like a gold panning excursion, I am even more sure that flying above the mountains and glaciers of Alaska will be something you will remember even better!

This is not to say gold panning will not be worth it, because this is also a classic Alaska excursion because of the Alaska’s gold rush history! But, I think Alaska’s mountains and glaciers will not as easily be forgotten!

👆 Best Alaska excursions from a cruise ship include seaplane tours in Alaska!

👆 An epic Alaska excursion from a cruise ship is a helicopter tour! You can make it even more epic by doing a helicopter tour with a wilderness landing on a glacier! There are helicopter tours with a glacier walk, and there are helicopter tours with dog sledding on a glacier!

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👆 Best Alaska excursions: Mendenhall Glacier tour! If one reason you are going to Alaska is for the glaciers, then you must do a tour in Alaska that will get you closer to glaciers! Flying isn’t the only way to see a glacier! You can do a canoe tour across the lake to get closer to see the blue ice of a glacier!

How to search for Princess cruise excursions for Alaska

If you do want to look through the offerings of Princess, you can do so by logging into your account at princess.com.

👆 Once you are logged in at princess.com, go to: my account > manage this booking > excursions > view excursions for the individual Alaska cruise ports!

Look for the “customer reviews” for each individual excursion!

You can also look directly at the Alaska shore excursions with Princess without logging in if you just want to browse:

• Princess excursions in Skagway
• Princess excursions in Juneau
• Princess excursions in Ketchikan

But when you want to book, you’ll need to go into your account.

You can also book through the Princess app, but I personally don’t even like the way the shore excursions show up on the app so I wouldn’t even want to look through them!

And then when you are on the cruise ship, you can book through your stateroom TV, and of course directly at the shore excursions desk.

If you are getting on your Princess cruise ship without having booked excursions but are interested in doing so, then there is also a live shore excursions presentation with recommendations on shore excursions to book for all of the cruise ports you’ll be going to.

If you miss the live presentation, then there will also be a replay available on your stateroom TV. If you can’t find it, you can call guest services or do a “crewchat” with them on the Princess app to find out how to find it.

More below about the Alaska shore excursions that I did!

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Best Alaska tours for an epic Alaska experience through shore excursions

I spent a lot of time reading through different tours and reviews, and these are the tours I ultimately ended up deciding that would give me the best Alaska cruise experience!

Also to note, I would have done the Hubbard Glacier excursion if it was offered on my cruise. It was not, because it was too early in the season. Yes, you can get off the cruise ship on the Hubbard Glacier sea day!

The best excursions are in Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan.

If you are going to other cruise ports, also see:

• 26 glacier cruise in Whittier (one of the best glacier tours!)
• Things to do in Sitka
• Icy Strait Point gondola

If you have an Alaska cruise with Glacier Bay, that will also be a highlight of your cruise without even getting off the cruise ship. No excursion needed! (Or available.) You can see more about a Glacier Bay National Park sea day.

1. Dog sledding and glacier flightseeing tour

One of the most epic Alaska shore excursions you can do is a helicopter tour with a wilderness landing on a glacier to do dog sledding!

This means dog sledding on SNOW!

It’s important to emphasize the SNOW part, because there are also dog sledding tours in the summer that are not on snow.

I am sure doing a dog sledding tour without snow will still be memorable, but for the ultimate Alaska dog sledding experience, you need to do a dog sledding tour on snow!

A dog sledding tour by helicopter means that you will get epic views of mountains and glaciers on your way to the dog sledding camp that is on a glacier at high altitude!

Because it’s at high altitude, there is still snow, even in the summer.

See more about an Alaska excursion with dog sledding

• Dog sledding in Alaska

And if you like dogs and/or dog sledding, then you might like one of the onboard Princess cruise activity that happens on Princess cruise ships in Alaska called puppies in the piazza!

2. Juneau icefield seaplane tour with Taku Lodge salmon bake (Taku Lodge Feast & 5 Glacier Seaplane)

I did a seaplane tour in Juneau that included a landing in what felt like remote Alaska.

It was a landing at the historic Taku Lodge (which currently only does day trips and not overnight stays), and it included a salmon bake Alaskan-style lunch.

There was time both before and after the meal to walk around, which I did.

I thought it was a nice quiet leisurely walk through the forest.

Most people stayed around the lodge. If you do the Taku Lodge excursion, I recommend asking how much time you have before food, and then walking around!

From Taku Lodge, you can see the glacier called Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier.

Flying from Juneau, you will get epic views of Alaska on your way to Taku Lodge and on the way back too!

I saw glaciers and blue ice from above!

The tour is advertised as a Juneau icefield seaplane tour, so you will be flying over and seeing part of the massive Juneau icefield with lots of glaciers.

👆 You might be able to see the famous “blue ice” of Alaska during a seaplane tour!

See more about an Alaska flightseeing excursion

• Seaplane tours in Alaska
• Princess excursion: Taku Lodge Feast & Five-Glacier Seaplane
• Wings Airways

3. Whale watching tour

Whale watching tours are one of the most popular types of tours during an Alaska cruise.

There are whale watching tours with different types of boats, and I chose a whale watching tour that had less people.

There were around 20 people on the boat.

It was a whale watching tour on a research boat.

Another whale watching tour company I’ve seen recommended a lot is Harv and Marv.

With a pick-up for the excursion from Juneau cruise port, we took a shuttle to Auk Bay to get on a boat to go see whales.

You know the pictures you see in all the whale watching advertisements of the whales jumping out of the water?!

aka breaching

Well, it’s actually quite rare to see whales like that.

Still, I was happy with what I saw.

Especially since I got a picture of a whale with its mouth open!

We also saw sea lions on a buoy.

I talked to someone who went on a different whale watching tour and their boat went past a whole bunch of harbor seals. I saw the picture and it looked really cool. I wish our boat had gone by it!

The thing about wildlife watching tours is that wildlife sightings are not guaranteed! At least, the variety that you will see.

Most whale watching tours in Juneau do seem to have a guarantee that you will see at least one whale. Although this doesn’t mean that you are guaranteed to get a GREAT sighting. 🤪

But this is just how it goes with wildlife viewing!

Patience is required.

And that’s also what makes it so exciting when you do see wildlife, whether it’s in the water or on land!

👆 Driving from the Juneau cruise port. View from the back of the shuttle.

👆 A whale was spotted. Will it appear again?!

👆 An exciting moment on an Alaska shore excursion: A whale’s mouth!!!

👆 Spot the sea lions!

See more about Alaska excursions

• Whale watching in Alaska

4. Mendenhall Glacier excursion

The Mendenhall Glacier is one of the most popular things to do in Juneau from a cruise ship.

Most people will go to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center to get a distant view of the glacier.

This glacier is retreating which means that it continues to get further and further away year after year.

I did a canoe tour across the lake to get a closer look at the glacier.

You can’t actually walk on the glacier on this tour, but I thought this experience was so great.

We paddled the canoe to shore near the Mendenhall Glacier which means that we got closer to the glacier than the vast majority of people do.

We also got to see blue ice.

There was another tour group who was there about an hour earlier than us, and they were able to witness a big chunk of ice fall off the Mendenhall Glacier into the water!

Our tour guide was in touch with another tour guide and showed us the video.

This process of ice falling off a glacier is called calving, and calving is one of the best Alaska glacier experiences you can see!

Your best chance to see calving on a cruise if you’ll be going to Glacier Bay National Park is at Margerie Glacier!

You can do a Mendenhall Lake canoe tour without a shore landing, but I think it’s better if you had the short walkaround!

This was one of my favorite tours that I did during my 2 Alaska cruises.

👆 Alaska glacier tour guide.

See more about an Alaska excursion

• Mendenhall Glacier tour

5. Snorkel Alaska tour

Snorkeling in Alaska?!?!?!

I was VERY nervous about this, and even upon booking the tour, I was immediately having regrets!

But to reassure myself, I read all the reviews (again), and basically everyone who mentions the water temperature says that you will not be cold because you’ll be wearing a wetsuit and other cold water swimming gear!

And, even as someone that gets cold easily, I must agree!! 

For most of the time in the water, the water temperature didn’t even occur to me!

It was a water temperature of 50 degrees.

I was excited about seeing tons of small little clear jellyfish. And I saw a couple of red ones too.

I was also excited about seeing so many starfish.

Plus, I got the experience of cold water swimming and snorkeling in Alaska!

More about this Alaska excursion

• Snorkeling in Alaska
• Viator reviews + cost
• Tripadvisor reviews

6. Misty Fjords National Monument Wilderness seaplane tour

The Misty Fjords National Monument Wilderness is one way you can experience the largest national forest in the United States.

According to the US Forest Service:

Tongass National Forest is the nation’s largest national forest and covers most of Southeast Alaska.

You Alaska cruise will be mostly if not all in Southeast Alaska. If you have a cruise between Vancouver and Anchorage, then you’ll be traveling more than just Southeast Alaska!

According to the US Forest Service:

Tongass National Forest is the largest, intact coastal rainforest in America.

Misty Fjords is a piece of this treasure.

The US Forest Service also says that Misty Fjords National Monument Wilderness is the “largest wilderness area” in Tongass National Forest.

The seaplane takes off near the Ketchikan cruise port, then flies over Tongass National Forest, and then soon you’ll be over the Misty Fjords National Monument Wilderness.

You can see fjords (of course) and waterfalls as you’re flying.

We then landed on a small island in Punchbowl Lake.

And when I say small… I mean SMALL!

👆 You’ll fly over the largest national forest in America of which Misty Fjords National Monument Wilderness is a part of!

👆 That is the pilot tying up the seaplane to land! It really does feel wild and remote!

More about this Alaska excursion:

• Seaplane tours in Alaska
• Island Wings
• Viator reviews + cost
• Tripadvisor reviews

7. Helicopter tour with glacier walk (Glacier Discovery by helicopter)

You can do a helicopter tour in Skagway to see the Juneau icefield, glaciers, and snow-capped mountains.

Your helicopter tour is made even more epic by doing a wilderness landing on a glacier!

You won’t choose a helicopter tour based on a specific glacier, as that will be up to the pilot and the conditions of the day.

My helicopter tour made a wilderness landing at Meade Glacier.

We walked around on the glacier, saw blue ice, and saw glacier waterfalls!

👆 You might see glacier waterfalls as part of a helicopter excursion from Skagway!

See more about an Alaska excursion

• Princess excursion: Glacier Discovery by helicopter
• Temsco helicopters

8. White Pass Railway + Klondike Highway excursion

One of the most popular excursions in Alaska from a cruise ship is the White Pass train.

This is a Skagway excursion, and it’s one of the most popular things to do in Skagway.

You will take a train up from sea level to the White Pass summit and beyond.

You can do the White Pass railway as a standalone excursion, or there are many different combination tours you can do that includes the White Pass train.

I did the White Pass train in combination with the Klondike Highway.

You can do the Klondike Highway as a standalone excursion without the train, which is one of the cheapest Skagway excursions.

I did a combination tour of doing the Klondike Highway by bus up to the White Pass summit (and beyond!), and then taking the train back to Skagway.

This is a White Pass excursion that requires a passport.

See more about an Alaska train excursion

• White Pass Railway only
• Klondike Highway + White Pass Railway (I booked this one)
• White Pass Railway website
• Chilkoot Charters and Tours

See more about more Alaska tours

You can also do the Klondike Highway by bicycle!

• Sockeye Cycle
• Princess excursion

And those are some of the best Alaska tours that you can do during your cruise!

More about Alaska cruise ports:

• Things to do in Skagway
• Things to do in Juneau

Read more about how I planned out my days on Alaska cruises:

• 11-day Alaska cruise from Vancouver roundtrip
• 7-day Alaska cruise from Vancouver to Anchorage one-way

HAPPY DOING ALASKA SHORE EXCURSIONS!