Icy Strait Lodge — Restaurant in Hoonah

We rented the Jeep Liberty to drive to what I thought was East Point at the mouth of Freshwater Bay for a picnic with a grand view of the fjords. Barbara was great, she suggested bag lunches and we had the kitchen staff pack us sandwiches. We told Barbara where were going but she didn't seem to know where East Point was. I didn't think too much of this since I downloaded maps to my phone and was confident in the day's oncoming adventure. Oh the Jeep; the Check Engine light and Tire Pressure warning light were on all day long. I checked the tires, the pressure was fine. I was more worried about the fact that they were all-weather and not all-terrain and almost bald and it was raining that day and we were about to out on a barely traveled dirt road/grass/rocky road. Oh and 2 out to the 3 passenger door window buttons didn't work. My wife/mother-in-law and her friend didn't find any of this amusing. As we were heading out I knew it would be a great day. Over and hour in we passed the turn off for Kennel Creek Cabin where we should have turned for our picnic with a view. We kept trudging along, the road getting more narrow by the mile, seeing no other vehicles either, crossing two bridges over small creeks along the way. We finally saw a National Forest Ranger coming the opposite direction and as we talked to him confirming our suspected disappointment of what East Point would or would not be, it was refreshing to know that he knew we were out there. The road got to be so over grown with grass it was taller than the hood of the Jeep. We felt like we were way, way out of the way. Check out Google maps for East Point, you'll see. We finally made it to the end of the road and it was a small turnaround with no view. We hungry, we stopped, ate, had our bathroom breaks, in turn, in the rain. My wife/mother-in-law and her friend didn't find this amusing either. At. All. We headed back and at each of the aforementioned bridges we saw an adult brown bear each feeding in the creeks! Stunning! We ended up pulling off to check out the Kennel Creek Cabin area, gorgeous! When we got back to Icy Strait Lodge, they were closed and only Ed was there. The look on his face when he saw the amount grass stuck to the front the Jeep was priceless. He gave a ride back to the ship while giving us the scoop on Hoonah.

Icy Strait Lodge is the only company in town to rent a Jeep to take on your own. Think about this. We were the only people from our cruise ship to have this experience. Brilliant.

Barbara/Ed, thanks so much. How about some all-terrains on that Jeep??? It got a...

When we arrived in Hoonah we went to the cruise ship “amusement park”. The Ziprider was fun but we wouldn’t even eat in the development the cruise ships designed. (Small portions, expensive.) We planned on two nights at the lodge and at first we thought it might have been too many. Let’s just say, when we left my husband and I both said we’d love to go back. They upgraded our room and we watched the tide go out from a recliner in our room. The restaurant.....well, we ended up eating all our meals there. There were other choices but the food was so good and we just loved Beverly. It was a culture change for us as we observed this small town through the interactions at the lodge. There was a little girls birthday party one afternoon. Wednesday night is Trivia night. There is a pool table that attracts some young people. Overall it became a community place and it gave us an opportunity to meet the locals. We rented a car from the lodge and got directions for the best place to look for bear. We drove to White Stone harbor and actually spotted and heard a humpback whale. Beverly’s husband Carl, was so generous with his conversation and bear picture. We thoroughly enjoyed our time on Hoonah because of the...

We rented a car for a 9am pickup it was a very rainy day and we needed to get a cab from the cruise ship terminal to the lodge only to find out the one cab in town run by the lodge by the way was not operating that day! Luckily our cruise ship shuttle driver was kind enough to the lodge which was a about a 1/2 mile from the shuttle stop (my husband walks with a cane so walking was not an option) we arrived around 8:45 knowing we would need to wee at it until 9 when they opened but 9 came and they did not open no email response no calls answered. Finally around 9:15 Christina showed up my to have to finish the lodge paperwork from the night before before she could process our rental we were very pressed for time being we had to be back on our ship by 11:30 I would not recommend renting a car from here the bad part is if you need a car this is the only place to get it so you are a captive audience like in an airport you...