Alaska Marine Highway --- Aboard the M/V Taku

We are “driving” to Juneau.  Well, not really.  Juneau is the most secluded state capital – it has roads, but they don’t lead anywhere.  You can only get to Juneau via air or sea.  We’ve chosen the sea route, taking the Alaska Marine Highway from Prince Rupert.  It’s a two-day trip, leaving Prince Rupert at 6pm on the 1st and getting into Juneau just after noon on the 3rd.  Because we had to go through U.S. Customs and Immigration, they warned us to get there 3 hours before departure.  We complied – that’s us, first in line!

Not that it mattered – even though we were first in line, we were one of the last cars to board because we were going all the way to Juneau (most people were getting off in Ketchikan or Sitka).  So we waited and waited…and waited.  The lady behind us actually got out of her car and berated the loading crew for making her wait until the end.  One of the guys patiently explained that they didn’t load the Juneau cars until the end so that we wouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to move our cars at any of the other stops.  She still didn’t seem too happy about it.  Then just before 6pm, they finally let us drive on.

Some Fun Facts:  The M/V Taku is one of the older ferries in the AMHS (Alaska Marine Highway System) – it was launched in 1963 and is still chugging along nearly 50 years later.  It’s 352 feet long, 74 feet wide, and has a draft of nearly 17 feet.  It has a maximum speed of 16.5 knots and can carry 370 passengers (plus 42 crew) and 69 vehicles (depending on length). 

When we got aboard, we checked in with the Purser’s office, as we had reserved a cabin for the two nights we are on board.  For us it made sense – for only $72/night we got our own cabin with a window and private bathroom/shower.  If you don’t want a window or private bathroom, there are cheaper cabin options.  Or, like lots of our fellow passengers, you could just find a quiet corner of the boat to camp out in a sleeping bag.  We hadn’t known what to expect because there weren’t a lot of details on the internet about what the cabins were like.  We were very pleasantly surprised by the quality of our “stateroom” – it was clean and very spacious, with extra blankets, paper cups, hotel soaps, towels, and a closet with hangers for our clothes.

The Taku has three passenger decks.  A quick tour of some of the public areas of the boat includes the observation deck – an indoor area with viewing windows for when the weather is cold and rainy.

There’s a cafeteria that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner – most of the options are reasonably priced considering that they have a captive audience.  For example, a breakfast of an omelette, hash browns, and toast was $8 (and there was a breakfast sandwich available for less than $4).  There are also a la carte items – yogurt, fresh fruit, salads, sandwiches, etc.  The lunch and dinner options are changed daily, but burgers are always available for about $8.

A gift shop sells postcards, Alaska-themed knick-knacks, and M/V Taku souvenirs for die-hard fans of the ferry system.

And we can’t forget the bar – it’s not big, but the bartender is friendly and it’s a good place to meet passengers from all over the world and all walks of life.

Up top is the partially-covered Solarium deck, with heaters and lounge chairs.  A few hearty souls even set up camp out here – laying out their sleeping bags on the deck chairs or on air mattresses they brought with them.  On a nice day, this is a great deck for just enjoying the scenery and the ride.

There are other areas as well – a quiet lounge, a “theater” area (a bigscreen TV where they show family-friendly movies during the day and early evening), and a writing lounge (with a place to plug in your laptop or gadgets if you don’t have a cabin).  There’s also a stack of jigsaw puzzles and boardgames, if you are so inclined. 

So far I’m pretty impressed overall with the boat – it’s kind of like a “poor man’s cruise”.  It’s going to be taking us through the Inside Passage (which is where many of the cruise ships go, through the many scenic islands along the panhandle of southeastern Alaska) but at a fraction of the price.  For us, it cost $141 each for the passenger fare to Juneau – definitely cheaper than a cruise.  The expensive part was transporting the van – that was about $500.  But it was a great way to see some of the harder-to-reach scenery in Alaska.