I have recently booked my cruise with Princess and I have good ideas for Juneau and Skagway, but I am stumped on Ketchikan. On my Princess page it says my excursions are unavailable so I can't look at them online. Is it better just to walk around Ketchikan or is there an excursion worth taking? I have tried to find info on this site, but not much is said about it. I have found wonderful information on everything else though.

Hi Vacationbound,

The town is pleasant to walk in. One thing we did that we really enjoyed was to go to the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. Extremely entertaining.

Seeing Totem pole village and Misty Fjords are also popular in Ketchikan.

I would think as you get closer to your tour date you will be able to book excursions on line..maybe in the spring.
Walking the town is great! You can see lots of sights. Creek Street is a short walk.

There is plenty of shoping there.


The Lumberjack shop was fun.


We also enjoyed the Duck tour.

There is a place on the pier that has the best fish and chips.


We enjoyed the vegetation.



We have done the Rain Forest tour, but I would not do it again.

Try the Totem Village tour....very informative...and still lots of time to walk the town....bring rain gear...Happy Sailing...
I'm going back for the third time next year...


Bob E

Thanks for all your input. Gary, I just love looking at your photos. You do a great job! I haven't had halibut since I left California. I will have to stop by that fish&chips place.

Potlatch Park / Salmon Hatchery etc. was a nice tour. We saw a master carver working on a totem pole among other areas of interest.
We still had time to walk around the town before boarding the ship. Bring rain gear. It rained the entire time we were on our excursion. As soon as we boarded the ship, the rain stopped.

Walking up/down Creek street was fun, especially if you stop and watch the salmon work their way up the fish ladder on Ketchikan creek.

Also there is a nice little museum in the public library. Near the library there is a great place to buy the best kettle popcorn in ALaska (or so they claim).

What to do in Ketchikan? Depends on the weather. If it is raining, I suggest an excursion that with take you around on a bus. If, I say again if it is nice, try walking around the downtown area. You must by your curios from Wal-Mart with is 4 miles North of town. We just cruised the Inside Passage in the Diamond 1-8 Sept, 2007. We had a wonderful time. Skagway you must take the train ride or white river raft. Juneau, if you drink beer you must go to the Alaska Brewery, they offer 6 FREE! beers samples. They are all great, but I prefer the Smoked Amber! Yeeha...enjoy!

Max

Any thoughts on Saxman Native Village? It includes a visit to Saxman Totem Park. We're also thinking of a wildlife tour to Misty Fjords--enormous price difference though, which adds up for a family of three. Plus, my husband is a history teacher, so the Saxman Native Village tour interests him. (And I figure since I'm dragging him to the Yukon, I owe him one.)

There will be six cruise ships in port the day we visit, so I suspect that Creek Street will be very crowded.

I enjoyed the Saxman tour quite a bit. It is not very big though, so I would consider making it a part of another tour. Do not miss the Great Alaska Lumberjack show, either. It is fantastic.

I really enjoyed the tour that goes to a lake where you can participate catching Dungeness crabs and then they have a crab feast after that. It is called different thing on different cruise lines. On Princess, it was called Wilderness Exploration and Crab Feast.

We were on the serenade of seas last summer. Once of the best parts of our trip was a float plane trip in Ketchican. We booked with Seawind Aviation. The scenery was great from the plane. He took us around the fjord into the mountains. We landed on a like in the middle of the mountains. Wife got to see a bear, and several killer whales. Check them out. The actually offer us one of there vans to travel around after the flight.

Have fun, Alaska was one of our best trips.

waterart, thank you for the feedback on the Saxman Village tour. And CobiaCaptain, I'll see if HAL offers the Wilderness Exploration and Crab Feast on my sailing -- I vaguely recall seeing it, and will look again.

Sorry vafatboy... no one's going to get me into a float plane! It does sound like a marvelous tour for those who do not share my fear of heights, so thanks for sharing it with us.

There is just so much to do... I may have to return again and again.

The husband and I took a Princess Cruise a couple of years ago and in Ketchican we did the go cart tour through the rainforest and it was TONS of fun. We booked that one ahead of time and we're glad we did because it sold out. Enjoy!

Thank you to everyone for helping me weigh our options in Ketchikan. We finally decided on an excursion -- it will be Misty Fjords & Wilderness Explorer. I imagine we'll see a lot on this 4-hour boat tour. It departs a couple of hours after we dock, so we'll have some time to visit Creek Street beforehand -- maybe have some of the fish & chips Gary recommends!

On another note, there is a great article on Ketchikan in the March/April 2008 edition of Cruise Travel magazine.

Only five more months...