It was really good sleeping in today. Our original plan was to drive the Glenn Highway but since we did that yesterday, today’s activity was a glacier cruise.
We booked the 26 Glacier Cruise ($149 USD / person) with Phillips Cruises & Tours which sails out of Whittier. Even though Whittier is about an hour from Anchorage, we had to be on the road by 9:00am to make our 12:30pm tour. This is because to get to Whittier, you have to go through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel which is the world’s largest tunnel (two and a half miles) that travels through a mountain. It is a one way tunnel that is shared by both cars and trains. So if you do not get there for a certain time, you will have to wait another hour before you can travel through.
After making the trip through the tunnel, we headed over to check in for the cruise. We did not have to board until 11:45am so we had about an hour to explore Whittier. This was more than enough time since Whittier is a small town.
We walked back to the dock after checking out a few shops and quickly boarded the ship. We made our way to the upper deck to our assigned seats. Lucky for us, it was just the two of us at our table and we were literally steps from the door to get outside. Shortly after departing the harbor, lunch was served which consisted of fish and chips.
The tour was five hours and it was narrated by the captain and a U.S. Forest Service Ranger. Every time wildlife was spotted, the captain would slow the boat right down and the ranger would give us some information about the wildlife. We saw Sea Otters, Sea Lions, Bald Eagles, Dall’s Purpoises and Humpback Whales. I was definitely not expecting to see any whales so that was a bonus.
As the tour name suggests, we saw many glaciers. I am not sure if we saw all twenty six of them but we did see quite a few. Some of them we saw just in passing but a few we got right up close. We stopped at Surprise, Cascade and Barry Glaciers. Besides shutting down the engines when we were at the glaciers, the captain would spin the boat around so that people from each side could see the glaciers. We did see some small calving but no really big pieces fell off. There was lots of pieces of ice floating in the water once you got close to the glaciers. The time went by very quickly and then all of a sudden, we were back at the dock. We hurried to the car so that we could make the 6:00pm tunnel crossing.
When we got back to Anchorage, we decided to have dinner at a place that our photography tour guide recommended … The Bear Tooth Grill. The food was delicious and the place was pretty funky.
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