Ruth, our guide, was warm and welcoming and immediately checked with us about our interests and expectations. She provided a detailed and informative visit to Ketchikan. We saw a whale, a black bear, eagles, salmon and the totem park. The visit was at a relaxed pace, yet, covered all the important sights. Ruth had entertaining stories to go along with her tour. We came away feeling we had seen a little bit of both the historic as well as the current town. Would highly recommend hiring a guide and car to see the town. A local knows where to go and the sights are to far afield for walking.
Our guide Carol was pleasant and very knowledgeable of the local area and would have gotten 4 or 5 stars. The folks in the office not so much. We had a very short day in Ketchikan. I had called a couple of weeks before our tour and spoke with Chris, one of the owners. My question was where do we meet our guide. He made light of the question, laughed and said that they would meet us in front of our ship with a sign that had our name on it. I typed his answer as he spoke, so I had a reference. On the day of our tour, we lost an hour of time because the other owner told the guide to meet us down the street at an other location. I had provided my cell number, should any concerns come up on the tour day. They did not call me, nor did they answer our calls to them. Carol, our guide, was very resourceful and ended up calling my office number which was forwarded. The mix up and just sitting on the dock was a waste of time we could have used walking around town. Being an experienced traveler booking tours around the world with no issues my 5 traveling partners found this disturbing and were trying to book last minute tours on the dock. We had booked a city tour and Carol was also not made aware of that and appeared perplexed. However, she improvised and adapted to our wishes just fine.