I have wanted to go to Haines every since we visited Alaska back in 2016. Unfortunately we couldn’t make that trip work so I was excited to see the place where I heard Eagles were on the beach as numerous as seagulls. It was a great start when we pulled into port because the town was postcard perfect and I got to see an eagle fly back and forth right in front of our window. I didn’t get a picture of it but it was beautiful.
This was only one of two ports we stopped at the entire trip where we had to take a small boat to shore. That was a HUGE advantage to being on a smaller ship by the way because you lose 1/2 hour each way when you have to take a small boat in. Mom and I went together and walked around a little bit prior to her excursion then I was on my own.
Haines had a small shuttle that went through the town, but it was on the slower side and the hills for walking were pretty steep. It also didn’t go very close to the shore unfortunately and the state park was several miles away and too far to go by foot. Basically I found that the cool stuff I wanted to see was too far for me to walk and with no other means of transportation my options were pretty limited. That was unfortunate because I had heard wonderful things about the area surrounding the town but I didn’t really get to see any of that. Instead I walked through the town area and ultimately got off when the shuttle stopped at the Natural History Museum. As small town museums go it was fine, but definitely not the experience I was hoping for.
Aside from the numerous stuffed animals they did have a few birds that were rescued. Seeing an eagle in a cage is definitely not the same as seeing them in the wild, but I do appreciate the work they are doing. They also had some wonderful information on the history of Eagles. In 1963 we were down to 417 breeding pairs now we have 316,000.
All in all it was pretty disappointing, but I cant blame that on Haines. I could have done an excursion or rented a car even, but I was trying to keep costs low. I will say as a general rule that if you want to see animals on an Alaskan cruise you are going to pay extra for an excursion. The good news is my Mom went on several of these and she saw numerous animals every time. You really do get what you pay for when it comes to Cruise stops and I learned some important lessons along the way. Oh one last thing, keep in mind Uber is not really an option. These are REALLY small towns and I am not saying they don’t have any Uber drivers, but it’s definitely not like the Mexican ports where private drivers are numerous and relatively inexpensive.
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