We went on a whale watch which was a Princess excursion. The trip started on a bus for about 40 minutes and then a boat ride into a bay. The water was very calm. There was a naturalist onboard who was giving a running commentary of what to look for. The first whale we saw was an Orca, but it was quite a ways away. We figured that this was going to be the norm. About 5 minutes later, the Orcas we saw from a distance, surfaced about 15 yards off the ship. It was fabulous.
Next we found a pod of Humpbacks. There must have been about a dozen of them. They were about 200 yards from the ship (by law, you can't get too close to them). First, one of them jumped out of the water (the naturalist was surprised at this-quite unusual). Then, to top it off, they twice performed a bubble-net feeding, which is quite rare to see. This is where they blow a ring of bubbles around a school of small fish to confuse them. Then they come up the center of the ring with their mouth's open swallowing the school. Needless to say, we were all quite excited.
This excursion ended with a visit to the Mendenhall Glacier. Spectacular.