Non DCL Review/Photos- Prince William Sound on the Safari Explorer with Uncruise May 2026-

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I wanted to share a bunch of photos and musings from a cruise I recently took up in Alaska. I've tried 'regular' cruising (including a Disney cruise) and it is just not for me... but years ago I found a company called Uncruise and took one of their cruises through Southeast Alaska and fell in love.

For those who are unfamiliar, Uncruise is a small expedition cruise company that mostly operates out of Alaska with minor winter operations in tropics. The boats range in guest #'s from I think around 20 for the smallest and I think... 80ish for their largest boat. The cruises focus on activities such as hiking, kayaking, skiff exploring, and snorkeling directly from the boat. Days (with minor exception) are spent in bays/open water and not at cities/ports. On Uncruise, all activities, all meals, and alcohol are 100% included. This was our second cruise with them and it was a 7 night cruise through the Prince William Sound round trip out of Seward, AK-

We went during late May and had fantastic weather with about half blue skies, half misty days, pretty much the best you could ask from Alaska. We flew into Anchorage a few days early and explored the town/area and drove up to Talkeetna in hopes of doing a Denali flight, but unfortunately we got rained out (twice). Oh well, something to go back for...

Uncruise transported us to/from a hotel in Anchorage to Seward, AK. Our boat was the mighty Safari Explorer with 33 guests on board. Our room was the cheapest being located next to the staircase/outer door on the second deck and while I had thought we would hear the door slamming all the time... I don't think I heard it once-

I want to share the trip not chronologically but by theme. I'm still piecing together the photos, but I anticipate to post the following in the coming... day/weeks-

- Wildlife
- Ice
- The food
- Alaska
- The Boat

Cheers and I hope you enjoy the photos!

 

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Part 1, Wildlife (1/2)-

While exploring the teeny tiny part of Alaska we could drive in a few days, we encountered some moose. The moment I first saw 2 moose dart out from the trees onto the highway was extremely humbling… I suddenly understood why everyone in the Anchorage area was driving exactly the speed limit and no higher. I would not like to have to deal with one of those going ‘through’ the vehicle. We saw several moose during the drive to/from Talkeetna and saw a few more during our motorcoach transfer to the ship in Seward-

The boats for Uncruise are American flagged so in fitting manner a Freedom Chicken saw us off in Seward. Always amusing how when the cruise first starts, seeing a bald eagle is a big deal… but by the last day if you comment “Bald eagle over there on that tree”, most guests are indifferent by that point. “Oh, nice” vs. “Oh my gosh look at it! Wow!”-

Otters, otters, everywhere. Otters are seemingly very common in SE Alaska and I swear there were so many in some places we went that you could hear them dinging off the hull. Many otters would simply float along on their backs (I call it telephoning as they look like old phone receivers) as we’d pass them by glancing at us with varying levels of annoyance. Of interest being raised in California and familiar with our otters here, Alaska otters rarely use rocks while eating/diving which is much more common here in CA. The otters in Alaska live on a veritable buffet and don’t have to smash things as much vs. just grabbing tasty easy things from the sea floor during dives. We saw more than a few with pups sitting on their mothers bellies while they were resting on icebergs (second photo)-

One of my absolute favorite birds on the planet (as they tend to fly like football sized bumblebees) are Puffins. They’re not graceful when taking off/landing, flap their wings incredibly fast, and are just adorable. We spotted both types of puffins that are found in the area including these less common Tufted Puffins out in the open waters of the sound-

One of the goals of this trip was to see Orca. We were skunked during our previous cruise around Juneau and apparently the cruise before and after us saw them, but we did not. Boy did the Orca deliver on this one! We were heading out from an area called icy bay and spotted a pod of about ~6 younger and a couple large ones passing us in the other direction. We proceeded to hang a U to see what they were up to-

They were hunting. We sat and watched them for a bit while they snooped around an area of ice that had several seals. Several seals we could see were remaining perfectly still and not moving whether on ice or floating on the water surface. There was a sudden commotion and a surge of water next to a nearby berg when a seal jumped out trying to scramble onto it!

Mid-climb the poor dude got knocked by an orca and slid off back into the water a bit.

With a quick wiggle and a jello mold leap, he made it onto the ice and safety! The orca then ominously circled him for about 20 minutes and would even appear to leave just to suddenly pop back up again. It was so cool to see and while the orca left a bit hungry, I’m glad everyone made it! Our expedition leader snapped this fantastic photo of the seal side eyeing the orca.

On one day we were chugging along while we were on spotting duty (drinking copious amounts of gin and tonics). We both noticed a particularly black rock near a beach off in the distance. We grabbed our binoculars and stared at it… rock?... bear?... rock? Until the rock moved its head and we proclaimed “Bear!”. This black bear dude was just chillin’ and sittin’-

 

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Part 1, Wildlife (2/2)-

I think… 6 times while we were cruising along through the days, pods of Dall’s Porpoises would been seen coming in toward the boat. The captain would increase speed and the pod would swoop in to ride the bow wave for quite a while. I have some great videos and watching these things off the side of the boat was tons of fun-

One day near a glacier, a massive Trumpeter Swan joined us for part of the day. I’m not a birder but some people were quite happy about it-

Being this cruise visited several glaciers, we were often in ice fields most days navigating the bergy bits and larger ice chunks. Seals were all over the place and would always be ‘bananaing’ or just lounging around. Our expedition lead had a drone and snapped a pretty awesome photo with a seal checking out the weird thing above his head-

We saw several whales on the cruise including humpback, minke, and fin. That there fin whale is a LOT of whale. It would come up for a breath and you would see- back, back, back, back, tiny fin, back, back. Second in size to the blue whale, he was a big boy. We saw a humpback doing absolute acrobatics from a distance one evening. He was off in the distance launching almost completely out of the water and slamming back down creating massive white explosions. A common theme we had throughout the cruise was not seeing a ‘classic’ whale tail. Well, right before dinner on the last night, a humpback that popped up in front of the boat gave us a nice little tail. I guess that means everyone on the boat was now allowed to buy generic whale tail tourist jewelry/stuff-

Alrighty, we saw a TON of other stuff, but those are the highlights. We’ve had two trips to Alaska and have seen tons of wildlife during both. I think we are very lucky.

 

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Part 2, Ice (1/2)-

I hope you like ice... The main reason in making a push to visit Alaska recently was to go see glaciers. Being from an area where ice is more of a thing you get from the fridge than have to deal with, it has always fascinated me. I do actually own an ice scraper and have in fact had to use it… I think 3 times in my life. A few years ago on our previous cruise we spent a few days in Glacier Bay National Park and visited a fjord south of Juneau. Afterward I heard about this cruise through the Prince William Sound and got to booking it so as to see all the glaciers up here. With Uncruise you get much closer to the glaciers, go hiking near them/ to the faces, and can Kayak in the ice fields/bergs all right off the boat. We actually got skunked out of two glaciers on this cruise as being so early in the season there was too much ice in the water and our boat nor zodiacs could make it in to see the glaciers. We were rewarded with fantastic ice gardens though which are always a pleasure to wander around and play in. Nothing like sliding and climbing all over tons of huge chunks of ice to brighten your day. On the water and near the big boys though, it is amazing how the glaciers are so massive they play tricks on your sense of scale/perception. You may think you’re close, but you’re still 2 miles away from the face. In this photo here we’re about ~1/4 mi from the face, but look minuscule to the glacier itself-

We spent our first day in an area called Icy Bay on the western side of Prince William Sound. This is Tiger Glacier. We were able to get a bit closer in this little side of the glacier as the ice was a bit more fortified on all sides-

This glacier is receding and on its right face has come up out of the tidal zone. The water we were in for the last ~200 ft or so of our approach was not on the GPS/nautical charts so we were officially in ‘uncharted waters’-

We could not make it to Chenega Glacier due to the fjord being too iced over but that was the area we were rewarded with the Orca hunt mentioned previously. We made our way to some waters observing ice chunks along the way including this big boy that was about ~2/3 as tall as the boat-

We ended up in a small ice garden in a quiet bay and played around with the ice. Some seals and otters were watching us from the water-

Always fantastic seeing the gnarly chunks randomly propped up by the tide-

When kayaking in the ice fields you can gather up little friends. I personally like munching on them.

The other glacier we could not make it to (and I am sad we couldn’t see) is Columbia glacier. This big boy was putting out a TON of ice into the Prince William Sound and even tanker traffic was commenting on it the week before per our bridge crew. While we couldn’t get to the glacier face, it provided us a fantastic playground half in and out of the tide-

We slid all over the chunks inside and underneath and smashed a few here and there. Our phones were filled up with all sorts of mediocre attempts at artsy photos-

Staring into the deep colored solid pieces is like staring into another world. It’s easy to get lost in the textures-

 

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Part 2, Ice (2/2)-

One of the particular destinations we were looking forward to on this cruise was Meares Glacier. Meares is north of Columbia Glacier and is an advancing glacier. It is advancing due to a combination of a variety of factors which are quite fascinating to dig into. While loss/gain of snow/ice input for glaciers does account for their retreating/advancing, what’s underneath the glacier also can have a lot of control on their retreating/advancing life cycles. Columbia Glacier is one of the fastest retreating glaciers since the early 80s but it was advancing just prior to doing so and the topography/fjord geometry it advanced into triggered its massive retreat. Meares is in a position where it is steadily advancing into the fjord it has done so many a time before. We got on shore near the glacier face and hiked through a forest covered in moss. Where rocks were exposed were beautiful striations (scratches), evidence of the many prior advances-

After a relatively short hike through the mossy fantasy forest to the sound of popping and calving thunderous ice, we came to a sudden and abrupt disruption-

The glacier is spectacularly bulldozing through the forest! Plowing over and uprooting trees and pushing a wall of soil in front of it. This is a site unlike anything I’ve seen before-

The tree’s days are certainly numbered as this thing is going to keep on plowing through shoving them out of the way. The face of the glacier is a mixture of solid mass and also tumbled massive chunks that have collapsed onto the forest below shattering trees as part of the process-

Absolutely fascinating place that was worth the whole trip. The forests on the edges of the valley are being plowed over-

While the glacier is fairly normal out into the middle of the water filled fjord (just around this icy corner). The recent chunks down near the base are ~4 ft in height or so-

Cruise guest for scale. Didn’t want to spend too much time down there…

A few days later we made it up to the northern part of the Sound to see Harvard Glacier and then into Barry Arm to see Cascade, Coxe, and Barry Glaciers. We slowly navigated our way through the ice and spent the afternoon surrounded by ice on all sides. Cascade glacier is quite neat as it truly cascades down the side of the fjord-

The ice around us was full of seals hanging out and watching us as we watched them. We listened to the echoing gunshots and explosions of cracking and falling ice from all 3 glaciers-

Eventually we departed Barry Arm and watched the glaciers disappear into the distance. I do love seeing and hearing glaciers and have already made plans to see more in the coming years… more photos to follow soon!