Cruise Alaska: Top Tips For Maximizing Your Day In Glacier Bay

Are you considering or booked on an Alaskan cruise that sails through Glacier Bay? Good, you got lucky and took the one piece of prudent advice I’ve ever given (My sincere apologies to anyone who suffered contact burns from the ab contractor belt I convinced you to buy back in 2001 because my grad school boyfriend was hawking them to pay for his divorce lawyer.  I assure you, this is nothing like that.)! Because, with the exception of Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Pass (#carbaddict), this is perhaps the best purchase decision I’ve ever made, one I’ve repeated around a dozen times, picking up new tricks and tips on each occasion. As such, today’s lecture will cover my top 17 tips for maximizing your experience of this spectacular place.

Planning For Glacier Bay Before Your Cruise

1. Book a balcony.

I don’t typically book balconies because a) I’m cheap; and b) my hair does this in the wind:

But if ever there was a time to spring for a balcony cabin, it’s Alaska. Because you’ll have a winter hat on to contain your hair and it will allow you to more comfortably enjoy Glacier Bay. But don’t worry if you’re not booked in a balcony, I”ll discuss other areas of the ship you can enjoy the beauty of this place.

2. Read John Muir’s Travels in Alaska?

Just don’t pick it up the weekend before you leave, expecting it to be a page-turner. It’s not really that kind of book. For that, I’d suggest The Great Alone, a novel set in Alaska that will keep you up all night both because it’s riveting, but also because it’s utterly terrifying.

No, “Travels in Alaska” is Muir’s account of his three trips to Southeast Alaska and Glacier Bay in the late 1800’s. His descriptions of the landscape are lyrical and detailed and, I think, best appreciated in small doses. I’d start it a month before your trip and read a few pages each evening, perhaps even saving a portion for after you return home so you can experience how the images in your head come to life having gazed upon this magnificent place with your very own eyes. You can pick up an inexpensive copy of the book here.

3. Invest in a quality camera and pair of binoculars.

If you plan to travel a lot, it’s worth investing a few hundred dollars in a high quality pair of binoculars. However, if you’re on a tight budget or don’t plan to use them much after this trip or have a kid who will swing them around his arm like they’re attached to a tetherball pole, you can pick up a decent pair for under $25 that will do the trick and will require only threats to your children of injury and not death if they break them. Here are two top rated options available on Amazon.

You’ll also want a good camera. Trying to photograph wildlife with a phone will result in a bunch of black dots you’ll have to convince your friends are actually whale tails and seal pups. And really, they weren’t that interested in the first place: “that’s nice, but check out this cat playing a keyboard on youtube!”

4. Pack to keep warm.

While at most ports on your Alaskan cruise, you can usually get by with a fleece layer under a waterproof rain jacket, you’ll want to pack something much warmer for Glacier Bay. You may get lucky and have great weather (I did this past summer), but more likely it will be very cold and, sometimes, windy and wet.

I strongly suggest you bring a warm packable puffer coat with a hood (or bring a separate hat), a pair of ski gloves, and an insulated coffee mug to keep your drinks hot. Here are some highly rated and reasonably priced options:

Tips For The Night Before Glacier Bay

5. Order room service breakfast with extra coffee for your balcony.

If you’re planning to watch the scenery from your balcony, you’ll want to get out there early and may elect to skip your usual dining room or buffet breakfast. Instead, take advantage of room service (most lines have a breakfast card you hang on your door the night before) and eat breakfast out on your balcony. Be sure to order extra coffee to keep you warm and alert throughout the afternoon or you’ll be looking at the black dot photo your wife took with her phone while you dozed: “I guess we both should have listened to that crazy Prof. Cruise.”

6. Study and read the national park map and brochure.

The official Glacier Bay National Park map and brochure will be dropped off to your cabin the night before you arrive. Take some time to read it and orient yourself. The park ranger will also refer to it during his/her commentary, so keep it handy.

7. Set your alarm.

While you’re probably sleeping through this lecture right now (I’m known for being a very effective cure for insomnia), sleeping through Glacier Bay will not up your cool quotient in the MDR that night: “you did WHAT?”

Cruise cabins generally don’t have clocks (sometimes the time is displayed on the phone, but it can be challenging to see), so I always bring a small travel clock with an alarm like this one:

8. Make a plan for the kids.

I’m on the wrong side of 40, a self-proclaimed and proud nerd, and would marry the outdoors if it wasn’t so moody in the winter. So I believe everyone should consider Glacier Bay the experience of a lifetime and behave accordingly. But my six-year-old teaching/travel assistant and son has learned to tune out my ramblings on the subject, “blah, blah, plant succession, blah blah,” and, despite my horror at confronting this reality, would prefer to stay indoors at Splash Academy playing video games if given the choice.

Let’s face it, if you have kids with you they may not appreciate the experience as much as you want them to. And I simply can’t allow them to ruin it for you. They’re young, they’ll be back to guilt their own grandchildren someday: “you ungrateful little….” You, on the other hand, have given up cleaning the dirt from your crevices because, “what’s the point, I’m going to be covered in the stuff any day now anyway.”

So dump the kids off at camp as soon as it opens. And don’t worry, if you promised their teacher this was going to be a rich experiential learning opportunity in exchange for “excused” absences, they will get outside to view a glacier and can earn their junior park ranger badge as part of a special kid’s presentation by one of the park rangers.

9. Schedule your morning and pick a viewing location.

If you’re booked in an inside or oceanview cabin (don’t fret, I’ve cruised to Alaska in each of these and have still had a fabulous time), walk the ship and settle on a few possible viewing locations. Have a backup place just in case you don’t snag a good spot at your top choice. Consider that you’ll be outside for several hours and make sure there’s seating available if you have difficulty standing for too long. Usually the captain will authorize opening of a special forward deck (as seen in the photo below), but there won’t be seating available and it tends to be very crowded.

My favorite spot is the promenade deck (an outside deck that wraps all the way around the ship), usually deck 4 or deck 7. You’ll be closer to the water, there’s generally seating available (loungers or chairs), it may be shaded, and it will be less crowded than the front of the ship or the upper decks.

Tips For The Morning Of Glacier Bay

10. Watch for the park rangers to board the ship.

Park rangers will transfer from a small boat onto your cruise ship via a drop ladder before you enter Glacier Bay. This is exciting to watch and I’d recommend you try to catch it. Have a life ring ready to toss in the water, just in case!

On my last sailing to Glacier Bay aboard the Norwegian Bliss, this went down on the starboard (right) side at 6am. No one fell in, but I’m sure my loud, dramatic gasps didn’t nurture confidence.

11. Attend the park ranger’s morning orientation or watch it on your TV.

And take this opportunity to apologize for the gasps.

12. Dress warm and don’t forget your sunscreen and shades.

I worry that my natural beauty or status as a celebrity cruise blogger (go ahead, laugh) will distract from the glaciers, so I always hide myself under this ankle length puffer coat over a faux fur hooded sweatshirt, a thick layer of zinc oxide sunscreen, and my Audrey Hepburn inspired oversized cat-eyed shades. I call this look, “Breakfast at the Lido Buffet.”

But seriously, even if it’s cloudy and cold, you can still get sunburned out on an open deck and there can be a good deal of glare off the water. Dress appropriately for the day’s temperatures and conditions (layers are your friend), but don’t overlook sunscreen and sunglasses too.

13. Watch for whales right before entering the park.

Due to currents leading to a rich supply of food, the waters of Icy Straight, just before your cruise ship enters Glacier Bay National Park, house one of the highest concentrations of humpback whales in Southeast Alaska. It’s sort of like their version of a cruise buffet.

Tips For During Your Sailing Through Glacier Bay

14. Listen to the park ranger commentary

A national park ranger will be providing periodic commentary during your trip through Glacier Bay. It will be broadcast on all public decks and through the television in your stateroom. I’ve found this adds significantly to the experience and recommend you take advantage of it.

15. Write down your questions for the park rangers.

Park rangers will be available during a designated time in the afternoon to answer all your questions. If your memory is anything like mine, you’ll want to jot them down as you think of them: “how can I abandon my family and other adult responsibilities to pursue my dream of becoming a park ranger?”

16. Sit Forrest, sit!

Don’t feel like you have to run to the other side of the ship for Margerie Glacier viewing.  The captain will slowly turn the ship a full 360 degrees to allow all sides of the ship an equal view of the glacier. While the other side is viewing the glacier you can pee and then refill your coffee and then pee and then refill your coffee… 

17. Take photos, but not too many. 

Marvel.  If ever there were a time to marvel, to live in the moment, it’s now. Take some photos, but not too many. Put your phone and camera down and just look. Just breath. Just listen. All the time knowing that there will be a flash drive available for purchase with 300+ photos of Glacier Bay that you can both pretend you took and also pretend wasn’t the cause of the sudden group nap at Thanksgiving: “must have been the tryptophan in the turkey.”

I’ll confess though, this is another example of “do as I say…,” because how often do you get the opportunity to take selfies in your sexiest gear in front of giant glaciers?

Prof. Cruise’s Final Thoughts On Glacier Bay

Actually, based on your droopy lids and discreet glances down at your watch, it seems you’ve heard enough of my thoughts. So I’ll conclude with these words by John Muir (that happen to perfectly capture how I feel about Glacier Bay):

So abundant and novel are the objects of interest in a pure wilderness that unless you are pursuing special studies it matters little where you go, or how often to the same place. Wherever you chance to be always seems at the moment of all places the best; and you feel that there can be no happiness in this world or in any other for those who may not be happy here.

― John Muir, Travels in Alaska

And with that…

Class Dismissed.

Homework (15 points): Check out my other Alaska port posts here. And don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to receive new Cruising 101 content direct to your e-mail (scroll up to the top right if on a computer or keep scrolling down if on a mobile device) and follow me on social media:

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