mrandmisadventures
Sep 2019
We took the last Northwestern Fjord tour of the season and it was the best tour that we have ever done, and we travel quite a bit. The staff were excellent, the captain Chris was SO knowledgeable and funny and you could tell that he really was passionate about his job. The rest of the crew, Ria, Gail, and Sam were awesome, as well.
The boat, the Alaskan Explorer was really nice. There were plenty of bathrooms and places to sit, and it was warm inside. The galley had a refillable cup that you could purchase for $8 or $9 that had free refills for the whole day, which was worth it. I drank a lot of hot chocolate to stay warm.
The food was good, too. Breakfast was cinnamon rolls, lunch was a grilled chicken wrap with chips and a granola bar, and at the end they served chocolate chip cookies. It was awesome.
When we boarded, everyone wanted to sit up on the top level. We sat downstairs where it was not so crowded and we had a table to ourselves up at the front of the boat and had great views. I would recommend you sit close to a door so you can get out quickly to snap photos or videos of the wildlife when they make an appearance. The tour was not full so the boat was not crowded, it was nice.
We saw a huge pod of orcas (the AN10 pod, to be exact), the biggest around that had 30+ family members. The orcas swam around our boat for a good long while and we got so many wonderful photos. We were later told by the captain that pod had not been seen for 8 years!!! What a treat! Later on, we saw 2 transient orcas that were actively hunting seals! It was like National Geographic!
We saw harbor seals, otters, stellar sea lions, bald eagles, puffins, and lots of other sea birds. Then, on the way back we saw a 75 foot fin whale that was so close to our boat! It was crazy! We also saw waterfalls, and were able to get super close to one. We saw the Northwestern Glacier calve several times, which was awesome. It sounded like thunder when the ice cracked. The crew pulled an iceberg out the water for us to look at and take photos of. It was like the day just kept getting better and none of us wanted it to end.
I highly recommend this tour and would definitely use Kenai Fjords Tours again!