Day 5 – Juneau
The morning of Day 5 — Juneau day — was busy. We got up early and grabbed some French toast from Beach Blanket (a common theme). We had two excursions today and didn’t want to miss one second of them.
We met up with the first excursion around 7:15 am. We were going to go on the Historic Gold Mining and Panning Adventure! Yeah, it was going to be a very tourist type activity, but we thought the kids would really enjoy it. Who wouldn’t love to say they went to Alaska and went to pan for gold!
We were led off the boat and onto a small shuttle bus. The driver of the bus was also the tour leader. He was a lot of fun to interact with and kept everyone entertained. As we made our way through the town and to the gold panning site, he told us a few stories about Juneau. We arrived at the site after about 20 minutes of driving. He gathered a few supplies from a shed at the front of the site, then led us down the hill to the stream. He gave each of us a pan (pre-filled by our leader) and then gave us a detailed explanation of how to pan for gold.
Panning for gold is fun to try, but the novelty can wear off after a few minutes. Eventually, I ended up helping the girls with their pans, since the water was pretty cold. As we panned for gold, the tour guide told us how the gold would generally get found. The vein would get exposed and eroded into the stream where it would get discovered. The miners would then try to follow the gold up the stream to try to discover the vein. We managed to find gold (a few flakes) in all of our pans, which was not shocking considering the “dirt” was provided with the pans. I will say, everyone really enjoyed the excursion. You could imagine what the early gold seekers felt when they saw gold in their pans.
After everyone had collected their gold, we packaged it up in small vials and headed back to the shuttle bus. The tour guide returned us to the ship around 9:15. We decided to head into town for a couple of hours to take a look around. We had another excursion, but wanted to look around Juneau and grab some lunch.
We walked around the downtown area for a few hours, stopping in various shops along the way and picking up some souvenirs (like Nancy’s Alaskan Brewery t-shirt). Around 11:00, we decided to grab lunch and get on some free wifi to catch up on our email. We ate at Hanger on the Wharf. The food wasn’t cheap, but everything we ate was good and the wifi was fast, so we had no complaints.
After eating, we hurried back to the ship. We had booked a private whale watching excursion. We originally tried to book Harv and Marv’s Whale Watching, more than a year out from our cruise. They were already booked for our day in Juneau though. They recommended we try Rum Runner Charters. We talked to Captain Chris via email and got our reservation booked. We were going to have a private boat. The boat had a self enclosed bathroom on board as well, something we considered important when taking two kids out on the water. We also wouldn’t have to fight to get close to the rail to see or get pictures.
Captain Chris picked us up in a van from the Disney Wonder. We headed down to the boat, which took about 30 minutes or so. He took us down to the Rum Runner and got us settled. We headed out to look for our first whale, passing a large group of sea lions on a buoy. After about thirty minutes, we saw a humpback whale in the distance. It was moving pretty quick and he couldn’t quite catch up to it. We did manage to get a few pictures. He then headed off to a pack that had been spotted not far away. I suspect all the tour operators talk and share the locations of the pods.
After another 30 minutes, we pulled up to a pod of whales. I don’t recall what type these were, but they weren’t humpback whales. There were a few other whale watching boats in the area, but they never got really close to us. We could tell they were loaded down with people though. The boats would heel as the people went from side to side to see the whales. We started on the back of the boat taking pictures and looking at the whales as they surfaced. While Captain Chris couldn’t move us in too close to the whales (for their safety), he did a great of keeping us within range and explaining what they were doing (going under a school of fish and blowing air bubbles under them to herd them). We saw lots of whales come to the surface, blowing water, and going back under. We also went up to the top of the boat and took pictures as well. We had a great time on the excursion.
One of the great parts of taking Rum Runner was the first mate, Moon Dog. She would bark whenever whales were in the area. The kids loved her and spent a great deal of time petting her. Unfortunately, she has passed away since our trip.
After watching the whales for a while, it was time to head back. As we came back in, Captain Chris pointed out an eagle that nests on the #1 buoy outside of the boat yard. We took a ton of pictures of the eagle. We have since seen this eagle on a couple of different television programs about Alaska, including Buying Alaska — which we’ve watch a ton since the cruise. I was really nervous about getting back to the Wonder in time. Captain Chris was cutting it really close. He assured me he had done this a few times, and true to his word, we made it with minutes to spare.
Juneau was a great stop on the cruise. We enjoyed both of these excursions very much. The gold panning excursions let the kids get out and enjoy some kid level fun. Yes, it was a bit staged but we all really liked it. Walking around Juneau let us stretch our legs and see some of the town. The whale watching excursion was pure joy, we got up close to a lot of wildlife. Having a private excursion was well worth the money ($650). I don’t recall what a whale watching excursion through Disney might have cost, but I am not sure it would have been much cheaper — and we certainly would not have had such a private tour.
Here are a few videos that we uploaded from our whale watching excursion:
Planning | Travel | Boarding | Sea Day | Tracy Arm | Skagway | Juneau | Ketchikan | Sea Day | Disembarkation
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