What is a helicopter glacier tour in Juneau Alaska like? — featuring Cruise Conversations
In this video: Helicopter Glacier Tour in Juneau Alaska 🚁 | Alaska Cruise Adventure
Cruise Conversations · 8 months ago
Do I need prior helicopter experience to do this tour?
No. The video features first-time helicopter passengers, including someone who was nervous but completed the experience successfully. A safety briefing is provided before takeoff, and the flight itself is straightforward—sit, listen, and enjoy the views.
What this video answers
Do I need prior helicopter experience to do this tour?
What to Expect on a Juneau Helicopter Glacier Landing Tour
This video documents a full-day helicopter excursion departing from Juneau, Alaska during a Royal Caribbean cruise. The tour centers on landing directly on Mendenhall Glacier and spending two hours walking and exploring the ice on foot. The video captures not just the flight itself, but also the preparation, the local exploration in Juneau before departure, and the hands-on glacier experience—giving prospective visitors a realistic view of what a 4-hour excursion from start to finish actually involves.
This experience suits active travelers comfortable with physical exertion who want more than a scenic flyover. The glacier trekking portion requires hiking uphill on ice, wearing specialized boots, and following a guide's safety instructions. If you're cruising to Alaska and seeking an unforgettable high-altitude adventure with genuine glacier access—not just aerial views—this is one of the most immersive options available, though spots fill quickly and demand advance booking through your cruise line.
Key Moments
Key Highlights of the Mendenhall Glacier Tour
Scenic cruise through Icy Strait and Daw Glacier before arrival in Juneau, showcasing turquoise glacier-fed waters
Mt. Roberts Tramway hike with elevated views of Juneau port, three cruise ships, and local rainforest terrain—approximately 4 minutes up, with real elevation gain and wildlife warnings
10-minute helicopter flight to Mendenhall Glacier with aerial views of the airport and surrounding landscape
Two-hour guided trek on dense blue glacier ice, including safety briefing and specialized ice-boot equipment provided
Close-up glacier geology explanation: dirt-covered ablation layer and exposed deep blue ice formed by decades of compression
Optional local activities: Alaskan Brewing Company beer, fresh crab at Tracy's King Crab Shack, and Eagle Beach wildlife viewing (bald eagles and owls noted in the video)
Practical Details for Booking Your Glacier Adventure
Total duration: 4 hours from ship departure to return, including bus transfer to airport, helicopter ride, and glacier trek time
Glacier time on ice: 2 hours of actual walking and exploration once landed
Helicopter flight time: Approximately 10 minutes each direction
Physical demands: The glacier trek involves uphill walking and ice conditions; participants described being "out of breath" from the steep terrain
Equipment provided: Ice boots and safety gear supplied; a safety briefing is mandatory before landing
Weather considerations: Tours operate weather-dependent; the video shows helicopters running on a clear day but notes wind and temperature thresholds affect operations
Timing tip: Book popular shore attractions (like the Mt. Roberts Tramway) early in your port time to avoid long queues; the video shows a short wait becoming a 100-person line within an hour
Booking through cruise line: This excursion is booked via Royal Caribbean Excursions; availability is limited and fills in advance
Frequently Asked Questions About Glacier Helicopter Tours in Alaska
Do I need prior helicopter experience to do this tour?
No. The video features first-time helicopter passengers, including someone who was nervous but completed the experience successfully. A safety briefing is provided before takeoff, and the flight itself is straightforward—sit, listen, and enjoy the views. One participant mentions having done skydiving before, but it is not required.
What should I wear on a glacier helicopter tour?
The video does not specify detailed clothing recommendations, but context clues include cold-weather conditions (the FlowRider was closed due to temperatures under 50°F), so layers and warm clothing are sensible. Ice boots are provided by the tour operator. Avoid loose items that could blow away during helicopter operations.
Can I drink glacier water while on the ice?
The video mentions the group's intention to "drink some glacier water while we're up there," suggesting it is possible, though the actual moment is not shown. Check with your guide for safety and cleanliness protocols before doing so.
How long is the actual helicopter ride?
The video states the helicopter flight is approximately 10 minutes to the glacier and 10 minutes back, making roughly 20 minutes of total flight time. The 4-hour excursion duration includes bus transfers to the airport, the flight, and the 2-hour glacier trek.
What is the glacier ice actually like underfoot?
According to the guide in the video, the glacier ice is extremely dense "blue ice" formed from compressed snow over many years. A thin dirt layer sits on top, but underneath is rock-hard, deep blue ice. The guide explains that this ice does not erode the way exposed ice does, making it very firm to walk on—hence the specialized boots.
Can I do the tram hike and helicopter tour on the same day?
Yes—the video shows this exact itinerary. Cruise passengers get an early port clearance (an hour early in this case), which allows time for the Mt. Roberts Tramway hike, local food and beer in Juneau, and the helicopter tour, all before reboarding. Timing is tight, so plan in advance and book both activities through your cruise line to avoid conflicts.
This video is genuinely helpful because it doesn't just show the glamorous moment on the glacier—it captures the full day, including the tram queue, the trek difficulty, the safety briefing, and the geology explanation. You get a real sense of timing, physical demand, and what to expect at each stage, which is exactly what a potential booker needs to decide if this excursion fits their cruise day.
The best part is the guide's explanation of the glacier ice itself: learning why the blue ice is so hard and dense transforms a pretty flyover into an actual geological experience. This is the kind of detail that makes you feel educated, not just entertained, and justifies the cost and effort. I'd enthusiastically recommend this tour to active cruisers who want a once-in-a-lifetime moment and don't mind a bit of physical exertion.
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.
This was one of the most unforgettable days of our 7-night Quantum of the Seas Alaska cruise.
While docked in Juneau, Alaska, we hiked near the Mt. Roberts Tramway, tried local fish and beer in town, and then took a helicopter glacier tour — landing directly on a glacier for an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience.
In this video:
– Mt. Roberts Tramway in Juneau
– Juneau port day experience
– Local food and beer in Alaska
– Helicopter glacier tour
– Landing and walking on a glacier
– What the excursion was really like
If you're planning an Alaska cruise and researching Juneau excursions or helicopter glacier tours, this shows exactly what to expect.
This excursion took place during our 7-night Quantum of the Seas cruise to Alaska.
Video transcript for “Helicopter Glacier Tour in Juneau Alaska 🚁 | Alaska Cruise Adventure” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
Look at this view. Today we're doing our scenic cruising through the Indicott Arm and Daw Glacier. It is absolutely gorgeous. This is the prettiest water we've seen in Alaska, which makes sense uh because we're right by a glacier and you've got the ice melting, but um this is just incredible. Today we've got the
helicopter tour. We're going into Juno doing a helicopter and actually stepping and walking on the glacier as well today. So really, really big day. We can't wait to bring you guys along.
right now. The captain's doing a full 360. You can see back there the ice. That's the glacier. We'll be facing it directly in probably 30 seconds. But wow, this is this is unbelievable. Honestly, it's a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be. >> Yeah.
>> Cheers. >> We'll be walking on one of those things later on today. >> That's crazy. >> So, we are going to flow ride now. Michael and I are going to meet up, head up to the back of the ship. There's going to be incredible views of mountains as we sail through the Fiora on our way to Juno. So, we're going to
capture that while we flow ride. Scotty's just down relaxing and enjoying the views from the room. We'll meet up with her later. Grab lunch and get ready for a big day. You ready to do some flow riding, boy? >> All right. I'm asking you this time. >> You earned your blue. You earned your
blue stripe. It's time. >> Going to do it. >> Look at this background. >> I know. Best view on the ship is right back here where the flow rider is. You got both sides. Also, a warm bath that you can hop in. Bad news, Michael. >> Flow rider's closed. >> They say that if it's under 50°, they
can't run it. So, we're praying that this weather gets a little bit warmer as the day goes on. It doesn't feel cold at all, but we'll see. We'll check back in like what, 30 minutes, and maybe we'll be able to hop on the Flow Rider now. We'll just soak in this view. Maybe go in the hot tub and enjoy it. Dude, that
thing looks awesome, by the way. Especially when we were in the glacier. No, we haven't done it yet. We may do it uh later today if we get the time. All right, we spent what, like hour and a half in the hot tub? >> About an hour. >> Hour. Yeah, Scotty, you did a workout. You looking good. You ready for our
helicopter? We just saw the helicopters come across the mountain here. So, that means they're running. We're good to go for our excursion today. Michael, let's go check if that flow rider's open. I'm preparing for disappointment right now, but uh it could be cool. Getting a quick
flow rider session in. Look at this incredible backdrop that we have here in Juno. >> You ready to get off? >> I'm ready. >> Couple more minutes, heading back to the room, get dressed, and get on our way to Juno. So, we arrived a little earlier than we thought. So, we're going to have uh time
to go up on is it a tram? >> Yeah, a little tramway. >> Tram and do a hike. Maybe get the drone out, get some shots >> hopefully. Fingers crossed. >> And then while we're here, we have to get some crab. Tracy's crab shack, I think is what it's called. So, we're going to check that out and then we're
going up on a helicopter. >> The helicopter. We got like a 4-hour long excursion. 2 hour of that is actually trekking on the glacier. So, we'll bring you guys with us. We'll show you around. Hopefully drink some glacier water while we're up there. And uh we're nervous. We're going on a helicopter for
the first time. You've done skydiving, so you could uh you know how to do that. I don't know how to skydive, so I'm I'm I'm toast. But uh no, we're going to head up there. We'll show you guys around Juno today. We're really looking forward to our day in Juno. We're excited to bring you along.
Here's the helicopters. That's That's where we'll be in probably a couple hours. It's kind of scary, right? I guess they go over to there's an airport uh down this way that we'll have to take a bus to in order to get to uh the spot where we get on the helicopters. There's a bunch of them. They go kind of like in a
line as you can see. All right, we're off the ship. We made it. They cleared us 1 hour early. I think we're supposed to get cleared at 2:00 p.m. Means an hour extra. >> I don't think we got to see the full glacier today just based on the tides and stuff. So, I think that extra time
that we didn't get to do the glacier, uh, we get to explore Juno. So, Scotty, we're heading right up there. That's where we're going. All right, let's do it. Someone else is pulling up in a yacht. Her name is Amore. I told Scotty that would be my yacht's name. Amore if I had a yacht.
Amore. Got a beautiful totem pole. I wish I could like translate what that totem pole like symbolizes. All right, so we have three ships in port today. We obviously have Quantum, our girl. We've got Kunard. I think this is the Queen Elizabeth. And then we have Disney. I think that's a Disney wish back there.
And yes, Scotty, we're getting up on this tram thing. All the way up there on the top of the mountain. Hopefully going to be able to fly the drone up there. All right, we found two of our spots that we're going to hit later on. This is Alaskan Brewing for some Alaska beer. I mean, that seems tough to beat, right?
And then Tracy's King Crab. There's one here. And then there's one on the other side of Juno. So, we'll just go to whatever one is less crowded. But, uh, I feel like we after our hike definitely maybe want to get a beer before we go out on the helicopter tour. Some liquid courage potentially. Okay, I lied. This
is actually the Zandam Xandam whatever. This is a Holland America line. It's not Queen. I think Kunard is back here a little ways. So, there's actually four ships in port today. So, this is Tracy's. This is like the famous place to come get crab here in Juno. Do you just order right here? Oh my gosh, look
at that. That was a lot of crap. I guess he cooks it right here. You go around side here on the window and order. All right, so this is called the gold belt tram. It takes you up about a 4-minute ride to the top, 4-minute ride to the bottom. There's trails and different things you can do up there. Obviously,
our goal is to get a good view of the ship in the port. Obviously, looking down on Juno, see what it's like up there at the top. Two tickets. It's unlimited access, so you can go up as much as you want to go all the way up there. So, this thing is pretty big. It's a lot of people in here. We will be
passing through an Alaska temperate rainforest which averages 90 in of rain and 100 in of snow per year. >> Wow, we're really up here. >> Yeah. >> So, this is like their sky bridge. You have good views of Juno and the mountains and everything all around. So, they said there was a bear. I think it
was a black bear today that they've seen, but there's tons of bears and wildlife. Don't feed the bear, Scotty. >> Don't feed the bear. >> Just uh >> be quiet. >> Just be quiet and do your own thing and they won't bother you. But look at this incredible view. Wow. >> We can still see our bear.
>> And now we're looking for the bear. They said, "You want to be loud." Oh, look at this. It's like carved into the side of the It's super cool. They said if you see the bear, you want to be loud and get big. It sounds like it's a black bear, but it doesn't bother anyone. We got to save ourselves for our 2hour
glacier trek. But I will tell you, this is this is like real hiking here. Because you're going uphill. Elevation gain, it's not for the weak.
We just got the drone up. Found a really good lookout spot up here on the hike. You can tell we're out of breath. It's uh it's pretty pretty steep. So, we're going to continue doing this, then go get a beer. Reward ourselves with a beer and some crab legs. Out of shape. I know. It's
>> all that Sarrento's pizza I've been eating. >> Like an active trip, man. >> Yeah, very active trip. I like an active trip. It's not the typical cruise, you know. >> Gotti, there's the airport way down there. That's where we'll be we'll be going to fly get on our helicopter later. We haven't heard anything yet.
So, it's in an hour. We got about an hour to get down this mountain, get ourselves some crab, grab a beer, and meet up with the Royal Caribbean Excursions team. Look at this incredible line. Literally, when we got here, there was nobody. No one was in line. We walked right on. Now, there's probably 100 people
waiting. Scotty, that's a tip for people that are watching. If you're if you're coming to do this tram, do it first thing in the morning because again, we didn't we didn't wait at all. Those people are going to be waiting for a little bit to get up to the top. Welcome to Alaska's capital city. All right,
let's go. Are we going to crab first? >> Do we have time? I don't know if it's like a quick thing or not. >> We may not have time. We have about 35 minutes. So, we got to meet the group down by the dock. But, uh, it's right here. So, if we can Oh gosh, look at that line. All right, we're going to
have to come back for Tracy at the end of our day because we don't have enough time for that one. Smells really good though. >> Yeah. >> Do you even like crab? >> Not really bad. >> She goes, "Not really, but uh when in Alaska." Cheers. >> Cheers. >> All right. We got our beer. Some bites.
Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Get Give us some uh lemon juice on that. Probably some What is this? Tartar sauce. >> Tarter. Yeah. Dig in. >> Yeah. Let's see. What do you think? Give it a little bite. Is it fresh? They said it's fresh. All right. I can't wait to try it. This is where the nerves kick in. Scotty, you
nervous? >> No. >> Get in this little van. We're heading to the airport. We'll get back up into the sky. >> All right, we're about to head to shore here in Juno today. Right, Kyle? >> That's right. >> We got a rental car rented. We're going to go pick that up and then head over to
Menden Hall Glacier and then see what happens from there. All right, so we made it to Menhal Glacier. There's the glacier, the waterfall we're about to hike to. Amanda, how does it feel? Oh. All right, so we took the Nugget Falls
trail down here to Mendal Lake. Got the glacier there in the background, then the waterfall over there. It's about a mile a walk. Nothing too bad. I think it's just about 45 minutes round trip between the visitor center down here. But it is beautiful. We've seen some people go by in canoes and kayaks on
excursions. Let's check in on Frank and see what he's doing here in Juno for the day. Dude, we're ready to go. We're strapped up. We got our ice boots on. We've got the helicopter fueling up. Ready to take us on the glacier. Can't wait to show you guys what it's like to walk on the
Men Hall Glacier. Jamie, >> what's up, Jamie? >> The safety briefing. >> Yes. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
melting through the ice. Uh it doesn't erode the same as all the other ice that's exposed to the air. So if you kind of scrape away some of this dirt, you see some really deep blue ice right under the dirt. And that's why it's so hard is because uh we don't have that soft ablation layer like everywhere
else. It's just um super dense blue ice under us. >> Most insane excursion we've ever done. This thing is awesome. Can't wait to tell you guys more about it.
All right, so we here at Eagle Beach about a 30-minute ride from Menon Hall Glacier. It's just up the Glacier Highway. State Park is beautiful, though. We actually saw right up here about three bald eagles and an owl. So, that was pretty neat. My dad went to go take a picture of one of them and it
started to fly away further up one of the trees somewhere. But yeah, pretty cool place. Not many people out here. Uh, and if you have a car, it's another great thing to come see and do. So, ending my time here in Juno, I stopped by Almaga Distillery. They produced both gin and whiskey. I had a maple
oldfashioned and a gimlet. Both were real good. Obviously, a place a lot of the locals hang out at. Now, I'm about to head back to the ship, meet my family for dinner, and see where the night takes us. All right, we're back from our tour. We did our helicopter tour. We had 2 hours on the glacier. They strapped us
up with all of our gear. We did a what, 10-minute ride on the helicopter, landed on the glacier, did a 2hour hike. We are absolutely exhausted. Scotty, what do you think? What do you think of this tour? >> It was an amazing tour. It's probably like the coolest thing we've ever done.
Um, definitely highly recommend it. Yeah, we got about two hours trekking on the ice. We got to see like all the different like water streams. We got to drink glacier water. We even saw wolf poop, which even our guide said was like super rare to see. So, overall it was an amazing day in Juno. You want to tell
them what we did before we went on our ice truck? >> Yeah. So, before we went on the ice truck, we did the tram. It's right by the cruise terminal. It was about $60 a person. Takes you up to the top. That's where you did the drone footage as well. It was really awesome. Um, we wish we
had more time there. Honestly, we didn't get a ton of time. Probably had what, like an hour. And then we grabbed a beer at the Alaska Brew House, which was great, as well as some halibet bites. So, overall, incredible day. This excursion was very expensive. We did it through Royal Caribbean. It was around
$800 a person. I think if you book direct, it's like maybe $600 a person. Uh, so we definitely spend more booking it direct and and it was just easier that way. But, um, totally recommend them. You can check them out. They're called Northstar helicopters. Check them out. Great guides. Felt super safe
getting on and off the helicopter. They were incredible. And like Scotty mentioned, got to drink the glacier water. They educated us on how or why things were and why they looked a certain way. So that was really, really cool. We learned a lot about glaciers, what is a glacier, how they work, why
are there rocks and sediment here, and all the different things. It was really, really cool. But uh we've had a long day. We've done a lot of steps, so we're probably going to call it early. Thank you guys so much for watching uh today's vlog. We really appreciate it. We got two more days on this cruise. We'll have
more content coming as well. Make sure you follow, make sure you subscribe, drop a comment. Let us know what you think about our Alaska vlogs. Thank you so much. We'll see you back here again
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