What is a 168 hour Alaskan cruise helicopter ride like? — featuring Nomadic Introvert
In this video: 168 Hour Alaskan Cruise|Epic Helicopter Ride To Explore This Part Of Alaska 😳|Pt.3
Nomadic Introvert · 2 years ago
How much time do you actually spend on the glacier?
The video does not specify the exact duration of glacier exploration, but the tour is booked for 12:45 p.m. departure, suggesting a half-day excursion. Visitors explore multiple viewpoints, including the waterfall and meltwater holes, with a guide directing the group to safe positions and photo spots.
What this video answers
How much time do you actually spend on the glacier?
Is it safe to drink the glacier water?
What happens if weather forces a cancellation?
Can cruise passengers do this tour if they're not early risers?
What are the best views from the helicopter itself?
This video documents a thrilling helicopter tour departing from Skagway, Alaska, during a seven-day cruise itinerary. The adventure takes visitors from the cruise ship dock via shuttle (due to a recent rockslide that damaged the pier) to a nearby helipad, then airborne to explore Mendenhall Glacier and the surrounding ice fields. The entire experience—from pre-flight safety briefing to landing back in town—unfolds over several hours, with the actual helicopter flight and glacier exploration taking up the core of the journey.
This experience is ideal for travelers who want to see otherwise inaccessible glacial terrain, who don't mind early morning departures (the tour operator confirmed the excursion at midday despite uncertain weather), and who are comfortable with both heights and the cold. The video captures both the stunning natural beauty and the practical logistics of booking and executing such a tour while on a cruise, making it valuable for anyone considering adding a scenic flight to their Alaska itinerary.
Key Moments
Key Highlights from the Glacier Helicopter Experience
Aerial views of Mendenhall Glacier and the surrounding 124 glaciers in the region, seen from the helicopter before landing
A 400-foot glacier-fed waterfall with striking blue ice, accessible only by helicopter and featured as a main photo opportunity
Drinking pure, ice-cold glacial meltwater directly from the source while standing on the glacier itself
Exploring a deep blue meltwater hole with visible ice caves, where visitors can peer down into the glacier's interior
Panoramic views of the Denali Ice Fields stretching northward toward Skagway and southward toward Juneau
Early morning departure from the cruise ship at nearly 6:00 a.m., followed by dramatic Alaskan coastal scenery
What to Know Before Booking a Skagway Helicopter Glacier Tour
Weather cancellation policy: Tours are cancelled only for poor visibility and high wind speed, not rain. The operator confirmed the video's tour would proceed despite cloudy and windy conditions.
Early morning timing: The tour departs Skagway at 12:45 p.m. according to the video, but cruise passengers must disembark early (6:00–8:00 a.m.) and arrange their own time ashore beforehand.
What to wear: Bring thermal bottoms, a waterproof jacket, waterproof pants, and gloves. The video shows heavy glacier boots provided by the tour operator that fit over regular shoes for traction on ice.
Additional gear provided: Life vests are issued and required for all passengers before boarding the helicopter.
Physical demands: Visitors walk on uneven glacier terrain and step over crevasses and meltwater holes. The guide offers assistance, but a moderate level of fitness and comfort with heights is necessary.
Shuttle required: Cruise passengers cannot walk directly from the ship to the helipad due to a rockslide that destroyed portions of the dock two years ago; a shuttle bus bridges this gap.
Frequently Asked Questions About Helicopter Glacier Tours in Alaska
How much time do you actually spend on the glacier?
The video does not specify the exact duration of glacier exploration, but the tour is booked for 12:45 p.m. departure, suggesting a half-day excursion. Visitors explore multiple viewpoints, including the waterfall and meltwater holes, with a guide directing the group to safe positions and photo spots.
Is it safe to drink the glacier water?
Yes, according to the tour guide in the video. The water is described as pure, unfiltered glacial meltwater. The guide demonstrates drinking it and encourages visitors to do the same, though some travelers chose not to. It is extremely cold and tastes distinctive.
What happens if weather forces a cancellation?
The video mentions that if the tour is cancelled due to poor visibility or wind speed, passengers receive a refund and can explore Skagway on foot instead. Rain alone does not cancel the tour; only dangerous flying conditions do.
Can cruise passengers do this tour if they're not early risers?
Yes. The video shows the passenger disembarking at 11:00 a.m., well after the early-morning ship arrival, to meet the 12:45 p.m. tour start time. There is time to explore the town of Skagway before the helicopter tour begins.
What are the best views from the helicopter itself?
The video highlights aerial views of Mendenhall Glacier and the Denali Ice Fields, which stretch north to Skagway and south to Juneau. The glacier's brilliant blue color is especially striking from above, and the surrounding mountain terrain creates a dramatic landscape visible both before and after landing on the ice.
This video is genuinely helpful if you're on the fence about a helicopter tour in Alaska. It shows the real logistics—the early start, the shuttle ride, the wait for weather confirmation—alongside the payoff: standing on a glacier, drinking its water, and seeing terrain most travelers never reach. The tour guide is knowledgeable and safety-conscious, and the natural scenery speaks for itself.
What stood out most is how the video captures both the anticipation and the intimacy of the experience. You see the anxiety about whether the tour will actually launch, the awe of landing on ice, and the quiet moments of just taking in the blue water and silence. This is genuinely worth the investment and the early wake-up call—I'd book it in a heartbeat.
Years on the front lines of helicopter tour coordination — not as a travel blogger, but as the person responsible for making every guest experience go right. Managed 2,000+ cruise guests weekly as Shore Excursions staff aboard the Pride of America in Hawaii
Personally coordinated with helicopter tour operators to confirm age, weight, and safety requirements.
Video transcript for “168 Hour Alaskan Cruise|Epic Helicopter Ride To Explore This Part Of Alaska 😳|Pt.3” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
look at all that this morning what a beautiful view to wake up to man that is beautiful it is extremely cold it's colder today than it was yesterday thank God I have thermals and all of that good stuff to keep me warm I do have an epic Excursion planned for today hopefully it doesn't rain if it
doesn't rain I will be able to do my Excursion if it does rain then I get a refund and no Excursion and uh I'll have to settle for exploring Skagway um um the oldfashioned way on foot but man it is simply beautiful out
there it is very early in the morning I can guarantee nobody is up on that deck maybe a few people it is almost 5:00 in the morning it's not even 5 it's like 5:54 okay you might as well say it's 5 but 5:54 in the morning and it looks like that outside Welcome to Alaska um this
morning I'm going to get some work done get some editing done and um then we'll go to deck 16 deck 17 deck 18 all of that good stuff and go exploring um we're supposed to arrive in Skagway at 7 this morning or SE 7 this morning 6 or 7 this morning uh let me see the paper if I can find the paper they give us a
little a little ship itinerary every day and so let me see when we arrive in Skagway uh we arrive at 6:00 a.m. so we got about another hour before we hit Skagway um everybody's going to try to go you know get off the ship early I am not I think they going to let us off the ship at about 8:00 this morning or 7
this morning I won't be getting off that early since my Excursion is not till 12:45 I'll probably get off at 11:00 do a little bit of exploring and then do the Excursion hopefully it doesn't rain yesterday um you guys saw or in my previous video you guys saw that it was raining it rained all day off and on in
uh Juno and right now it looks kind of it looks not kind of right now it is extremely cloudy outside um you can see the blue trying to bust through um the blue skies trying to bust through those gray clouds but man um hopefully it doesn't rain cuz if it does
then no Excursion but right now it looks fine you know so I'm going to hold out for hope that it does not rain uh today but let me get the editing done I still got to charge a two of my camera batteries that I just cannot get to charge for some reason in that poor it's weird but going to get some work done
and then we can go exploring I got about an hour to get as much editing and organization of photos and everything done I got so much to do as I'm getting ready to go to deck 16 I have to show you guys this take a look at this this is a wall of just Beauty check out this man look at that wall of
beauty I cannot put into words I cannot this is from my balcony this is from my balcony Alaska is a whole other planet it doesn't even belong with United States and I'm being completely honest
like Alaska exists purely on its own it it's a whole other planet it it I mean this behind me is freaking insane like all the way down and I'm trying to hurry up and get to the 16th deck so we can see clear better views but man this is this is stunning and we missed it down there you
see down there uh the white snow cat mountains I was taking a shower it's like you you could easily miss something only thing we're missing is seeing a beautiful beautiful Orca come up out of the water day four no elevator challenge I'm doing okay I got my
merrows on today and for those of you telling me that I need to break them in I can't describe it to you but these merils are so comfortable you don't need to break them in I feel like they're already just made to just put on and wear deck 11 five more decks to
go good morning good morning holy CRA all right let's check out our morning views shall we I mean look at this these views every day you cannot beat this th this is we are on another
planet I I don't even know how to describe the camera doesn't do it justice [Music]
we're in Skagway and I am as you can see getting off the ship your girl forgot her mic so I'm going to try my best to talk as loud as I can but look at this beautiful view off the ship man I'm tired hey got us climbing a hill to get up off this uh ship I guess it's all the food they want us to burn off
but we do have to take a shuttle uh into town uh off of the dock because of a landslide that happened two years ago a rock slide that happened two years ago that destroyed uh parts of the deck so now we have to take uh a
bus uh off of this deck the slide the rock slide came down here and destroyed parts of it and now there's construction all right I guess this is is this the bus we get on Straight Ahead yeah there one will be okay we are on our way to a shuttle
I'm telling you I did not want to get up this morning but I need to make sure thank you sir that my helicopter Excursion is still going so I'm leaving early man I'm tired I was about to get on that bus right there which is the mobility bus for like Wheelchairs and stuff but now the uh gentleman from the cruise
ship escorted me to the right bus all right we're getting on the bus so in case someone's been wondering why you can't walk on the dock if I might have your attention off to the right hand side there that slug came down last summer so trying to keep people from getting hit by flying rocks and having really
bad days that's why we have the shuttles now everyone's just a big moving Target we're in Skagway Skagway Alaska is stunning all right so now I'm going to go find the helicopter um Excursion uh people and see if it's still going on or if it's canceled it's pretty windy out I don't know if you can
fly a helicopter in this kind of wind the good thing is it's not raining so as of now uh my Excursion is not cancelled um they said it's still a go I got about 35 minutes until we head out to the helicopter pad I asked them what would get an Excursion a helicopter Excursion cancelled they said when speed
and visibility and I said well that makes sense uh they said the rain has nothing to do with it it's the fog and the wind speed um if you look you can see some of the see it is foggy out but I did see a helicopter like go that way about 10 minutes ago but it is pretty foggy but I'm not a
helicopter pilot and I don't know um if this is good visibility or not so we'll see in about 35 minutes if we're still a go or not before we go up in the helicopter we have to put these boots on over our shoes it just gives us grip on top of the glacier and uh yeah they're pretty heavy
but now we're getting ready to go up and we have to wear this this is our life vest just in case we have to do like a water landing so yeah we're almost uh getting ready for getting the helicopter we are getting ready to get in one of these helicopters either that one or whatever lands here or the
whatever lands here but look how beautiful it is I'm excited so I am ready I have my life Fest that was put on me I have my Glacier boots I do have gloves and I do have my thermal bottoms waterproof pants and this waterproof jacket that
I'll need because it's starting to rain all right you guys will listen up we're going to start calling out names getting you lined up for those helicopters [Applause]
out [Music]
[Applause] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] we have landed now we're going to explore we're on a freaking Glazer I
can't believe it the water how blue we have a a guide e Glacier that's M A de e and it's like one of 120 different oh sorry 124
different glaciers in this part of Alaska there's small ones tucked away in the mountains that you really can't see with the clouds the thing is about this one is it's one of the larger ones it goes all the way North back to Skagway where the Denver Glacier is there's Denver ice Fields where we came from it
goes all the way South down to Jun you know he's taking us somewhere cool
oh my gosh you guys are not going to believe this wow this is stunning take a look at this be prepared to be an awe wow where I'm at shows off that blue color and it's pretty remarkable so I'll
kind of get out of the way here CES not stunning yeah look at that blue color walk backwards part of the area and don't go any this is as far as we go oh we fall down there it's a 400t drop down there so we are staying right here incredible they
could recall these look at call Glacier waterfall so ESS as the glacier melt the water onom on to our next destination we have a really cool tour gu can you believe
that Glacier waterfall 400t rock down that hole that I showed you guys look how beautiful it is out here
one just look at how beautiful it is out here man stunning I saw our helicopter right there look how that water is that beautiful yeah it kind of just get you a nice up close look at you can feel free
like you see how deep it is right here oh that's oh wow that's pretty deep yeah it goes down pretty good make sure that rain is around your wrist oh that's deep I can keep going uh-uh yeah you guys can come around on this side too and that's the best okay all on next all right so yeah you guys can kind
of stay on this side but uh yeah we typically use these rocks some people will kind of do like a push-up on the Rocks that's an option if you want to just squat or if you just want to kneel down you can scoop it up with your hands as well some people just like to put their face in it like a glacial facial
is what they call it so however you like enjoy the water and I've had some people be a little hesitant but I'm not so sure drink from it okay we're drinking from this water all right good how often you drink actual real Glacier this is real glacier water pure y'all can have out water back where yall
are at no no this real oh that's ice cold I'm blocked from my water let's drink it oh that's good how I'm down here while you're down here yeah I guess that is that tastes so
good oh that's good nice sorry y'all can't try it that was good the water you'll drink in your whole life and he gave you another idea to just check this out guys look at that pure glacier water running all the way down
you look at that oh wow yeah you get a perfect shot of that water flowing down Mo you don't have to if you want to if you want assistance I can help you here look at that water I have found somebody's phone in a hole
on I know they cried when they dropped it is this still down there I I did take it out you able to get it lost down but nobody ever yeah and basically when you step over you come back actually on this side once you're done so come on over there you go and you can do the same if you
like again if you're not comfortable don't worry you don't have to do it but here you go we're going to look down in that blue color hole really quick we're just waiting our turn so let's let's do this look at that hole that is incredible all of that water flowing
down there wow look how beautiful this place is just a couple of people from all over the world just wanted to see what Nature has to offer don't do it don't do it places that you can't get to unless you have a helicopter this is
stunning man look at the blue guys it goes all the way down there even a little like cave is in there wow that's incredible and you can hear the water that's incredible look at come on guys got to
go I keep telling myself I'm not going to fall through look at that just think they going to fall through yeah the worst that would happen there is you get your wet well this is an experience where the pay is definitely worth it yeah yeah for sure good yeah I know you guys pay a
good money so I definitely want to make count man man I'm sad it's over all right one last lookit guys we're
leaving it's over all right we're loading back up I'll see you inside
it's called the hurricane it's rum pineapple orange juice and one other thing and it's freaking delicious no one's out here because it's raining and this is when I come out and get my piece we're still in Skagway we don't leave until later on tonight like around 8:00 so I'm going to
enjoy my hurricane enjoy the view and then go get some dinner yesterday I was so exhausted from doing that wonderful walk on the glacier I was it's like all my energy drained when I was on that helicopter flying high above some of the most beautiful Waters I've ever seen in my life landing
on probably the only Glacier I will ever my feet will ever touch in my lifetime hopefully not but that Glacier we went to you can only get to that Glacier by helicopter and that Glacier is massive it's beautiful the water is really blue that is not uh light reflecting the Sun or playing tricks on your eyes that
water is blue because it is the purest form of water untainted uncontaminated water when I say that was some of the freshest water it was like the absent absence of taste I can't describe it it's like it that was life-changing and just the adrenaline that I had from the happiness that I
experienced it just drained all of the energy out of my body and I was so grateful and so blessed to be able to experience something like that and I hope you guys enjoyed the video um we are headed to Kitchen can I think that's what it's called we're not quite there yet but we are still on the Open Seas it's such a
beautiful beautiful foggy foggy morning I mean it's beautiful it's a very very beautiful quiet tranquil foggy morning it's beautiful and we are currently headed that way it rained as you can tell that
wet but last night the Seas were were fine no issues very beautiful but before I end the video I wanted to show you guys um I wanted to show you what I bought back in Juno I did show you one
sticker um but I did not show you guys everything that I bought so I think this is the sticker I showed you guys which I think is super cute um and then I bought this sticker sometimes you eat the bear sometimes the bear eats you and then I bought this epic Alaskan
license plate and so I'm going to put this in my subie my Subaru um these this license plate is going to go inside my Subaru and these stickers I will probably put on my power station maybe I might use that and start putting stickers that I have purchased there I'm not sure but they're to go on my Subaru
somehow but um I want to get the day started uh get going be before we dock in catchy can I think that's how you say it if not I apologize for butchering the name I hope you guys are enjoying the cruise series as I will be filming and working on the last part of the series man Alaska is a beast after that
helicopter ride after the cruise ride doing the cruise and stopping at these different ports and seeing Alaska in person man it it's a beast and that Glacier that waterfall I mean we've seen some pretty cool pretty cool places uh in Alaska so far Juno with Juno is
beautiful with the waterfall Skagway with the beautiful Glacier um walk and now we'll see what we get into and catch you can with that being said I'm going to go ahead and end the video here thanks for tagging along hanging out with me I appreciate it if you're watching and you're not a subscriber and
you like my travels cuz like I said I'm a nomad I'm not conducive and just stuck in a van no not me I'm a nomad so I I travel however and whenever I want and I don't just stay in one place we go everywhere if you like that consider subscribing thanks for watching and as always I will see you guys on my next
video take care peace I had to put my jacket on it was so cold and for those of you who stuck around to the very very end of the video I've got some interesting facts for you guys so the helicopter that I was in on the way to the glacier we were seated according to weight um before we could even get on
the helicopter we had to give them our weight and they charged people who were 250 lbs or more and I I don't know that's just the heavier you are the more you get charged so if you were 250 lbs or more you got charged extra um and where we were Seated on the helicopter they seated US based on
weight to include what we submitted and all of our gear uh so me and another girl were sitting up front by the pilot next to the pilot because we were the smaller of the group and then the other three people in the back they were taller so naturally if they're taller they're more heavier with their
equipment they sat in the back we weren't allowed to bring any uh backpacks or bags or purses or anything like that on the helicopter and you think turbulence on an airplane is bad try turbulence in in a helicopter we experienced turbulence on the way to the glacier it was pretty windy and it
wasn't as like of course they wouldn't have flown if the wind was so dangerous that they felt like they couldn't fly in it but there was turbulence and boy talk about nerve-wracking but eventually I got over it because the views were so beautiful it took my mind off the turbulence and the pilot kept his cool
and he was calm so I was cool um so yeah also too they provided us with boots to walk on the ice and those boots literally go over whatever shoes were wearing they were so comfortable um and they provided us with the trekking pole that you saw in the video as well so I hope you guys enjoyed
a little bit of those fun facts and since you stuck around to the end I'm going to give you guys I'm going send you guys away with some beautiful beautiful clips from my balcony so enjoy I'll see you guys in my next video take care
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