How a booking goes
- Pick a tour here. Each card opens our page for that tour, and its booking button goes to the Viator listing.
- Check the date and time on Viator. Choose your port day, then a departure time that starts after your ship arrives and ends well before all aboard. The price and availability on Viator are live.
- Pay on Viator. You enter your details and payment on Viator’s site, not ours.
- Read the confirmation. Viator emails it straight away. It has the operator’s name and phone number, the meeting point and the check-in time. Save it to your phone before you sail, because signal can drop in the smaller ports.
Who holds your money
Viator does. When you book through a link on this site, Viator is the merchant of record: it takes the payment, sends the confirmation, handles changes and refunds, and pays the operator. Alaska Port Tours never sees your card details and can’t move, cancel or refund a booking.
If a boat is cancelled or a refund is late, the people who can fix it are the operator (for anything on the day) and Viator (for anything to do with money).
How this site earns money
Alaska Port Tours is an affiliate of Viator. When you book a tour through one of our links, Viator pays us a commission on that booking. You pay the same price you would pay going to Viator directly: the commission comes out of Viator’s share, not added on top.
The commission doesn’t decide which tours we show or in what order. A tour earns its place on a page by its review record and how well it fits the trip the page is about, under the filters set out on how we choose tours. Tours that pay a higher commission get no better position. Tours we would skip are named as skips, whatever they would pay.
All links to Viator on this site are marked as sponsored links. Nobody pays us to be listed, and no operator has reviewed or approved what we say about their tour. Our editorial policy explains where the information on each page comes from.
What the confirmation says
Read the whole email once, the week before you sail. Most problems on port days start with a meeting point or check-in time that nobody looked at until the gangway.
- Booking reference. Quote it to Viator or the operator in any message.
- Operator name and phone number. Call it if you’re running late or can’t find the meeting point. It’s often a different company name from the tour title.
- Meeting point and check-in time. Check-in is usually earlier than the departure time on the listing. In Juneau and Hoonah, a check-in at the port often leads to a bus or van ride to the boat harbor, so the boat itself leaves later.
- What’s included. Transfers, snacks, park fees and rain gear vary from tour to tour, even between two whale boats in the same harbor. If the confirmation and our page disagree, the confirmation wins, and please tell us.
- Cancellation terms. These are the ones that apply, whatever our page says. More under If you cancel, below.
Where tours leave from
The meeting point on your confirmation is the one that counts. This is how the three ports usually run.
Juneau
Ships tie up along the downtown waterfront. Some berths are a short walk from town; the AJ dock is about a mile south, with a free shuttle into downtown, and the line for it can be long on busy days (Wandering Hewitts, in their whale watching video).
Most whale watching boats don’t leave from downtown at all. They leave from Auke Bay, north of town, and the operator buses you there from a check-in point near the docks. Travelers put that ride at 15 to 30 minutes. One crew met its group beside the cruise line’s excursion area on the pier (Island Time). If your tour starts soon after the ship arrives, be near the front of the line to get off. Our Juneau shore excursions page sorts the tours by how much of a port day they take.
Sitka
Most ships dock at the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal, about six miles out of town. A free shuttle runs from the terminal to Harrigan Centennial Hall downtown, about 12 minutes each way (Visit Sitka). Many independently booked tours meet at Centennial Hall or elsewhere downtown, so the shuttle is part of your timing. Some morning tours meet at the terminal itself. The Sitka excursions page compares the boat and land tours that work from either point.
On days with several ships in, travelers report shuttle lines of 20 to 30 minutes, and close to an hour coming back (Bon Voyage Cruise and Travel). Ships that can’t dock may anchor and bring passengers in by tender boat, which adds time again.
Icy Strait Point and Hoonah
Icy Strait Point is a private cruise port built around an old cannery, with Hoonah town about a mile and a half away. Ships come in at one of two landings, linked by a free gondola, and a third ship may anchor and tender in (Adventures Are Out There).
Some tours meet at the excursion hub at the port and drive you to Hoonah’s marina; others meet at the marina itself. One family met at the hub, rode a short shuttle to the marina, and used a wristband as their pass for the shuttle back (MH Family Adventures). Take2Travel met at the Hoonah marina instead. Check which one yours is, and how you get back. Our Icy Strait Point and Hoonah guide walks through the port layout and the town.
Cancellation, weather and your ship
If you cancel
Cancel on Viator, in your booking, not by emailing the operator. Many listings give a full refund up to 24 hours before the start time and nothing after that. Private charters and some small boats set stricter terms. Your confirmation shows which applies.
If the operator cancels
Wind, sea state and fog close boat trips and flights here, and boats break down. In the traveler videos we watched for Juneau, 2 of 9 trips had a whale tour cancelled: one because the boat broke (Wandering Hewitts), one with no reason given (Take2Travel). In Sitka, Cruise Ports dropped a planned whale trip on a bad-weather day.
When the operator cancels, you’ll usually be offered another departure or a full refund through Viator. In port for one day, another departure often isn’t possible, so take the refund and ask the operator if they know a boat with space that afternoon. The Wandering Hewitts found a walk-up spot at the pier within the hour.
Rain on its own rarely cancels anything here. Southeast Alaska is a rainforest, and tours run in it.
Getting back to the ship
This is the risk that matters most on an independently booked shore excursion. The ship sails at all aboard whether or not you’re on it, and if you miss it, getting to the next port is at your own cost. A ship-sold excursion is different: cruise lines generally hold the ship for their own tours running late.
So leave a buffer. Pick a departure that brings you back to the dock at least an hour before all aboard, more on a multi-ship day in Sitka. Some operators publish a return-to-ship promise in the listing text; read it before you pay.
For the day’s marine forecast, the National Weather Service office in Juneau publishes forecasts for Southeast Alaska’s inside waters.
Accessibility
The hard part in these ports is often the ramp, not the tour. Alaska’s tides are big, and at low tide the walkways down to floating docks get steep.
Travelers flag it in two of our three ports. Jeffrey Martin describes a steep ramp at low tide on his Juneau whale trip. At Icy Strait Point, MH Family Adventures found very steep ramps both at the landing and down to the boat at Hoonah’s marina, and said they were hard on bad knees.
Before you book:
- Read the accessibility notes on the Viator listing. Operators state there whether a tour suits wheelchairs, strollers or limited mobility, plus any age, weight or pregnancy limits.
- Message the operator with the specific question. “Can a guest with a walker board at low tide?” gets a more useful answer than “is it accessible?”
- Ask whether the bus or van to the boat has a lift, and whether seating on the boat is indoors or on an open deck.
If an operator can’t give a straight answer, choose a different tour.
Who to contact about what
| If it’s about | Contact | How |
|---|---|---|
| Running late, can’t find the meeting point, anything on the day | The operator | Phone number on your Viator confirmation |
| What’s included, pickup, ramps, kids, dietary needs | The operator | Phone or message through your Viator booking |
| Changing the date, cancelling, a refund, a payment problem | Viator | Your booking on Viator, or the Viator Help Center |
| A tour cancelled by the operator | Viator for the refund, the operator for a same-day alternative | As above |
| Your ship’s schedule, all aboard, tender times | Your cruise line | The ship’s daily planner or guest services |
| A wrong fact on one of our pages | Alaska Port Tours | Our corrections page |
| Anything else about this site | Alaska Port Tours | Contact us, replies within 3 business days |
Write to us when you want a page fixed or want other travelers to know about a problem.
FAQ
Is the price on Viator higher because I came from this site?
No. You pay the same price as anyone booking that tour on Viator directly.
Should I book through my cruise line instead?
It depends on your margin. The ship generally waits for its own tours running late, not for ones you booked yourself. On a short port call, the ship's own tour is the safer choice.