Cruise Guide to Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska

Traveling through Alaska by cruise ship is a great adventure that lets you take in the last frontier as its meant to be seen. Untouched, untamed, and wild, Alaska cruises give you the chance to see the beauty of this lovely area for yourself for a unique experience you will always remember. From the local wildlife to the crystalized glaciers, you will have an eyeful anywhere you look.

As a park and preserve, there are over 3 million acres of land that stretches over Alaska and over 2 million of it is wilderness. The preserve helps to keep the plants and animals of the area free from development and protect their natural habitats.

Cruises To the Glacier Bay

Although Alaska cruise ships do not dock anywhere in this area, they will weave through the area to show you some of the snow-capped glaciers and any wildlife that can be seen from the ship. These cruises will spend a whole day in this park and will often have a local ranger come aboard with visitors to help point out interesting sights and any wildlife that may show up.

These rangers will announce what they see in the area to point out anything going on in the area and to tell you facts about the location and animals that settle there.

Information Desks

While onboard your Alaskan cruise ship, the local rangers will have an information desk set up somewhere in the viewing area that can be easily accessed by visitors so that you can pick up literature about Glacier Bay that will give you knowledge about the wildlife and vegetation of the park, and also where to look to find certain animals throughout the day.

If you have questions about what you are seeing, you can ask the ranger while they are with you and they will answer any questions that you might have. The rangers will also bring with them the stamp for the park so that travelers on the ship can ask to have their passports stamped to commemorate their trip.

Glacier Bay - celebrity cruises

Glaciers

One of the main attractions for this Alaska cruise is the ability to see some of the biggest glaciers in the area, including ones that continue to grow despite the others that are rapidly receding due to drastic climate changes. John Hopkins Glacier is 12 miles long and you can get to see the face of it by traveling through the John Hopkins Inlet.

Another few glaciers can be seen by way of Lituya Bay. Here you will get to see the Crillion and Cascade Glaciers as well as the Lituya Glacier. The Lituya Glacier is the largest of the three and is the other continually growing glacier in all of the park and preserve.

Wildlife

The shorelines of the Glacier Bay Park and Preserve can sometimes be full of a large variety of wildlife. With animals like brown bears slipping into the water to grab a fish or a seabird landing on the shore after soaring overhead and passed the water, you can see some incredible creatures who call this area their home.

brown bear at Glacier Bay

Interesting Facts About Glacier Bay National Park

The waters that make up the Glacier Bay can vary wildly with a difference of up to 25 feet between low and high tide. This can make it difficult for smaller boats to travel along the water because the chances of running ashore are higher when the tide pulls away. Large cruise ships don’t usually have any issues due to their size causing them to stay further out in the water anyway.

Also, even though this National Park is only about 1-percent of Alaska’s land, it is larger than the entire state of Connecticut!


Author: Sophie Anderson

Post Date: 16th January 2020


Categories: Ports

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