Hi there!
The best cruise ports for glacier tours in Alaska are Whittier, Juneau, and Skagway.
First, you don’t necessarily need to do a glacier tour in order to see glaciers during your Alaska cruise.
If your Alaska cruise itinerary has a glacier sea day, you will be able to see a glacier in Alaska without even stepping off the cruise ship!
The most epic glacier sea day is Glacier Bay National Park.
Other glacier sea days include Hubbard Glacier, College Fjord, and Endicott Arm, among others.
That said, even if your cruise ship is going to the best glacier sea day that you can have, the right glacier tour can make your Alaska glacier experience that much more epic!
The best glacier sea day is Glacier Bay! It is a day full of epic views when you see Glacier Bay National Park on a cruise ship!
If your cruise ship is going to Glacier Bay, it’s possible that it will be the highlight of your Alaska cruise without going on any Alaska excursions!
Still, even if your cruise ship does go to Glacier Bay, you can have another epic glacier experience in Alaska by doing an epic Alaska glacier tour!
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There are amazing tours to see glaciers that you can do during your Alaska cruise as an excursion from the cruise ship.
👆 You might be able to see the famous “blue ice” of Alaska during a glacier flightseeing tour!
👆 A glacier tour is one of the best Alaska excursions to do! 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! This is a glacier tour in Juneau.
Best glacier tours in Alaska not from a cruise ship
These are epic glacier tours that you can’t do from any cruise port. But if you will be staying in Alaska on land, then these are tours to consider!
- Denali National Park small plane flightseeing tour (Talkeetna)
- more epic: GRAND Denali flightseeing tour
- Matanuska Glacier hike (transport from Anchorage, or drive yourself to designated location)
- Grand Knick helicopter tour (transport from Anchorage, or drive yourself to designated location)
- Spencer Glacier kayak tour (from Girdwood or Anchorage)
Epic glacier tour in Seward
See below for some of the best Alaska glacier tours to consider during your Alaska cruise!
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Best glacier tours in Alaska
1. Hubbard Glacier excursion (cruise ship)
You can only do the Hubbard Glacier excursion if your cruise ship is going to Hubbard Glacier.
And if your cruise ship is going to Hubbard Glacier, then you may know that Hubbard Glacier is a sea day.
There are Hubbard Glacier tours?!?!
Yes, you can do a tour on the Hubbard Glacier sea day.
And yes, that means that you will be getting off the cruise ship if you do the Hubbard Glacier excursion!
You can see Hubbard Glacier from the cruise ship.
So is it really necessary to pay $300 to do a Hubbard Glacier tour?
Without anything else to compare it to (like doing the Hubbard Glacier excursion), then you will likely think that you can get great views of Hubbard Glacier without getting off the cruise ship.
Well, that’s because you haven’t seen what it’s like to get up close and personal to a glacier!
There is a BIG difference in seeing a glacier from miles away from a cruise ship, and getting much (much!) closer to a glacier on a small boat!
The Hubbard Glacier wilderness excursion
Now, I haven’t done a Hubbard Glacier excursion myself, yet! (I’m signed up for it for September!) But I was soooo amazed at the difference between seeing a glacier from a cruise ship and seeing a glacier up close when in College Fjord, that I can only imagine it would be the same for Hubbard Glacier! (A College Fjord glacier tour is another one of the best glacier tours, coming up next!)
👆 This is Hubbard Glacier from a cruise ship. You can see Hubbard Glacier from a cruise ship, but you can get a closer up view by doing a Hubbard Glacier tour!
If your cruise goes to Endicott Arm and Dawes Glacier, then look for the glacier wilderness excursion too.
If you are on a Carnival cruise to Alaska, I believe Carnival’s glacier day also has a glacier wilderness excursion, so look for that.
If a glacier wilderness excursion is offered during your cruise, sign up NOW!
These can sell out.
2. 26 glacier cruise (Whittier)
The 26 glacier cruise is a boat tour in Whittier.
I did the 26 glacier cruise as my last Alaska cruise activity.
That is not counting the train leaving Whittier cruise port!
This is to say, by that time, I had seen a lot of glaciers in Alaska!
And even so, I thought the 26 glacier cruise was amazing!
The 26 glacier cruise is a boat ride to see lots of glaciers in Prince William Sound.
I don’t actually know if I saw 26 glaciers.
But really, there are 2 glaciers that are a part of the tour that make it totally worth it.
The 26 glacier cruise goes through College Fjord.
If you are on a cruise ship that ends in Whittier, then you will also have a College Fjord sea day.
Or more like College Fjord evening.
This is the tour where I thought there was such a big difference between seeing a glacier from a cruise ship vs on a small boat!
The grand finale of College Fjord is the Harvard Glacier.
I first saw the glacier from the cruise ship, and then next day I saw it from a small boat.
The small boat got much closer to the glacier, to the point where I felt I was looking at something completely different than what I saw on the cruise ship!
👆 The 26 glacier boat tour goes through more ice which means you’ll get closer to the glacier than you will on a cruise ship!
The other area the 26 glacier cruise goes to is Blackstone Bay.
The grand finale of Blackstone Bay was Beloit Glacier which was also epic.
It felt like we got so close.
You can watch the glaciers by going outside on the boat, or you can see the glaciers from the comfort of warmth inside the boat.
And, the 26 glacier cruise is not just about glaciers!
There is never any guarantee for wildlife, but I also feel like I saw a lot of wildlife during the boat tour!
If you’re doing a one-way cruise to or from Whittier, then the tour company works with the cruise ship timings.
They also do the tours to match the train timings.
You can take a train from Whittier to Anchorage or you can take a train from Anchorage to Whittier.
See more about Alaska glacier tours:
3. Mendenhall Glacier canoe tour (Juneau)
If you want to do a Mendenhall Glacier tour that gets closer to the glacier, then you need to do a canoe tour!
And, you should make it a canoe tour that includes a shore landing and walk!
Most of the Mendenhall Glacier tours take you to the visitor center side which is a distant view of the glacier.
If you do a canoe tour, you will be paddling towards the glacier, closer than most people will get.
You can do a paddling only tour and a paddling tour with a shore landing.
By doing the shore landing, you’ll break up the paddling, and you can walk to see the glacier closer up from land!
When I did the Mendenhall Glacier canoe tour in 2023, the tour guide suggested that they may stop doing the canoe tours because the glacier is getting further and further away.
👆 Alaska glacier tour guide.
So, see the Mendenhall Glacier while you can!
See more about Alaska glacier tours:
4. Helicopter tour with glacier landing and walk
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 tour with glacier landing!
See more about Alaska glacier tours:
5. Dog sledding tour (glacier landing)
One of the most epic glacier tours to do in Alaska is dog sledding on a glacier!
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 aka a dog sledding tour on a glacier!
Dog sledding on a glacier means that will be taking a helicopter to get to the dog sled camp.
This means that you will get epic views of glaciers (and mountains!) from above on your way to the glacier landing at a dog camp that’s at high altitude!
Because it’s at high altitude, there is still snow, even in the summer.
See more about Alaska glacier tours:
- Read Viator reviews: Dog sledding helicopter tour in Juneau
- Where to go dog sledding in Alaska
6. Juneau icefield seaplane tour (Juneau)
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.
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.
See more about Alaska glacier tours:
And those are some of the best ways to experience glaciers in Alaska!
Explore more Alaska tours:
HAPPY DOING A GLACIER TOUR IN ALASKA!
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