Saw 3 Bears! - Our local Tlingit guide was amazing. She was raised in Hoonah and learned how to hunt from her mother. As a hunter she was an excellent guide, pointing out to us bear tracks in the mud, bear trails, bear scant, all while driving. The bears on this island use the roadways as their trails, and she explained that the bears just sort of magically appear. She was right. End of May is mating season, and as we were driving back to town there sat a male and female brown bear in the road. We stopped and watched them as the male watched us. They were feeding on grass beside the road. We sat on the road with them for a good 15 minutes. The bears then walked towards our van to investigate, so we got a close up view, then disappeared into the forest. It was truly a blessing to encounter those beautiful bears!

Bear Search Excursion - Our bear search excursion was really, really good! Our guide was super knowledgeable, as well as entertaining. The scenery is STUNNING! And it was a bonus that we saw a mama and 3 cubs at the very end of our experience. I felt safe the whole time but I also knew that I was definitely in grizzly bear country!!

Awesome - Kora and her stories were amazing. The nature views were beyond beautiful. You should add “nature experience” to the excursion title

The guide worked really... - The guide worked really hard to make sure we saw some bears. The weather impacted visibility but the guide was great

Dissapointing Experience - Met at meeting point and as a small group trip good to see only 6 of us in mini bus. Guide knowledgeable and tried to keep interest. Travelled for miles to stop at 2 small creeks and 2 rivers the first already had numerous people on Bridge we stayed a while but no activity. Second bridge only people there but again nothing to see. I appreciate sightings are not guaranteed but comments such as vegetation is lush and difficult to see through and it's a warm afternoon which bears tend to rest didn't exactly help. Perhaps we should have been given an option before we left ? A very expensive trip and we all thought not good value for money. Overall very dissapointing

Disappointing and expensive - The clue to this tour is in the title - bear search. As others have said, it’s hard to see how you can find bears while bouncing along dirt roads with noisy ATV’s flying past you. Our guide seemed to have a regular route she drove, if you saw a bear, great, if not, tough. She didn’t want to deviate from her regular route. I also question her knowledge of the bears and their habitat, it was quite basic, apparently the guide drives the van as a second summer job. She was busy waving to all the other drivers we passed! What is telling is that the guide got out of the van several times and allowed us to wander along a trail, at no time was she carrying bear spray - foolhardy or just safe in the knowledge there were no bears. Furthermore when it became apparent we were not going to find any bears and we had wasted half an hour standing on a shoreline watching the opposite shore (again, no spray) our guide suddenly started regaling us with various stories of her own bear sightings. Talk about rubbing it in! Overall a very disappointing and expensive morning, it was galling to have to tip for an unsuccessful search.

Enjoy the trails, see the whales, do not be fooled by the Bear Search Sham - The Bear Search operated by Hoonah Adventures (the only Bear excursion offering from within the Icypoint.com hub that all NCL guests passed through shortly after deboarding the ship), was a terribly disappointing experience. The bill for two came to $338.67. The gentleman at the excursion desk gave such a convincing sales pitch that we couldn't pass up on the opportunity. "The bears are so prolific that we have an armed guard in addition to a bear spray holstering naturalist, to guide you safely through this once in a lifetime adventure." The three podiums offered the same view of the same lake with the same tree line, which were baren of wildlife (short of a slug). The change in verbiage became noticeable immediately following the financial transaction. "This is bear island. You will see huge bears." Immediately upon boarding the bus- "If we get really lucky, we may even see a bear or two!" I do not appreciate intentional deceit and while nature can never be predicted, the demarcated line between the sales pitch to bus boarding verbiage, clearly signified to all onboard, that the high probability of seeing a bear while on the excursion, was in reality incredibly low.

Pass up this tour! - “Long and lonely road” but no bears, should have read reviews, better seeing them in mating season.Which I believe is Apr/Mar which is a little cool for the cruise crowd. Sitting in back of van I could not hear the drivers tour story . Somehow her headset was not adjusted even asking once to turn up the volume .

Tourist Ripoff - As many reviews attest, this is a tourist ripoff that should be avoided. While it is true that animals are unpredictable and no one can guarantee seeing bears, when the experience entails driving down a dirt road at 30+ mph your odds of seeing bears are very low unless they happen to be standing in the middle of the road (not likely). If your idea of fun is sitting in a van for 90 minutes while it flies down a potholed dirt road at a speed that is too fast to see anything, much less bears, then this excursion may be for you. Otherwise, don’t waste your money!

Terrible experience. - This borders on a rip off. We started our tour at 11. The first thing the driver says is the berries are gone, the bears only eat at the river early in the morning or late. She might have said you just threw your $166 a person in the mud. Then she had us standing in the rain on a bridge for a half hour, looking for nothing. The whale tours promise your money back if you don,t see a whale. No way that this outfit could do that, look at the other reviews. And this island has the most dense concentration of bears in the world