Hubbard Glacier —
blue ice, huge scale & one sore head
This wasn't a port day. The ship sailed into position and nature became the entire show — mountains, blue ice and a glacier so enormous that your photos never quite explain what it felt like.
Nature at its most dramatic
Blue ice, mountains all around and everyone wrapped up on deck trying to take photographs that could never quite capture the scale. This was one of those cruise days where the destination came to us.
Aw lads, the head was bursting today after the Scots had us up half the night — singing, dancing, having the craic! Wouldn't have minded so much if they weren't gliding about this morning, cocktails in hand, not a bother on them. Meanwhile, we were clinging to the coffee machine like it was life support.
Eventually we gazed at the Hubbard Glacier for a bit, trying not to fall asleep standing up. Then gave in and collapsed back into the cabin for a glorious, well-earned nap. 💤
Later, dinner at Le Petit Chef — dinner meets theatre meets Disney! Each course came with an animated show projected onto your table. The food was unreal. 😋
Our own Hubbard Glacier photos from the ship.
The one that's actually getting bigger
A little context for what you're looking at from the deck — because Hubbard Glacier isn't just impressive in the moment, it's genuinely remarkable geologically.
That last point matters when you're standing there: while most of the world's glaciers are shrinking, Hubbard has generally been growing and advancing. When the ship position lets you hear a calving event echo across the bay — a sound somewhere between a gunshot and thunder — that's the glacier still very much doing its thing.
One of those days where everyone ends up on deck
Hubbard Glacier wasn't a normal port day at all. There was no getting off the ship, no coach waiting at the pier and no list of attractions to tick off. Instead, the ship itself became the viewing platform as we sailed into the glacier area.
The closer we got, the more impressive the landscape became — mountains surrounding the ship, floating ice on the water and that extraordinary blue colour in the glacier itself. What surprised us most was the scale. You can take dozens of photographs, but it's very difficult to show just how enormous everything feels when you're actually standing there looking at it.
Because we were onboard, we could wander outside for photographs, head back indoors to warm up, grab a coffee and then go back out again. For us — particularly with the heads we had that morning! — that made it a very civilised way to experience one of Alaska's biggest natural sights.
Even if the rest of your Alaska cruise feels mild, standing outside watching a glacier can get cold. Layers mean you can stay on deck longer.
Get your photographs, but don't spend the entire approach behind a screen. The sheer scale is the bit your camera won't capture properly.
One advantage of scenic cruising is being able to warm up indoors, grab a drink and head back outside whenever you want.
The view changes as the ship moves and turns, so don't assume the first viewpoint you find will be the only one worth seeing.
The sound of a calving event carries a long way. If you hear a boom, look toward the glacier face — you might catch the ice landing in the water.
The best deck spots go first. If your scenic cruising starts mid-morning, get out there when the ship first stops rather than after lunch.
A glacier viewing day is essentially a long stint out on deck in cold conditions with occasional dashes indoors. Keep it simple:
Colder than the rest of the cruise
Deck spray & drizzle
Extremities feel it first
Cold drains phone batteries
If you have them — bring them
It's the scale more than anything
For us, Hubbard Glacier wasn't about doing an activity. It was about simply being there and seeing a landscape that felt completely different from anything we'd experienced elsewhere on the trip.
There's something wonderfully strange about having a major cruise day where the itinerary is essentially: go outside and look at this enormous glacier. No ticket queue, no transfer and no rushing back to the ship — just Alaska doing the entertaining.
A scenic day rather than a shore day
Hubbard Glacier sat between Icy Strait Point and Juneau on our itinerary. There was no rushing to a meeting point or choosing a shore excursion: we could watch from the ship, warm up inside and head back out whenever we wanted.
Explore the other stops
These guides all come from the same eight-day cruise, so you can follow our route port by port.