Apostle Islands Cruises Grand Tour

For our first visit to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, it seemed obvious that we should participate in a cruise provided by Apostle Islands Cruises.

Apostle Islands Cruises offers several cruises and shuttles during the summer (including some that stop at select islands), but in October only the non-stop Grand Tour was offered.

The Apostle Islands Cruises depart from the extremely scenic, charming, and photogenic town of Bayfield, Wisconsin.

I imagine that Bayfield is also charming and photogenic, but it was especially so with the trees' leavings changing colors in early October.

Although not all cruises and shuttles were being operated by Apostle Islands Cruises in October, an advantage of this timing was much smaller crowds in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and in Bayfield.

Because we stayed at the Harbor's Edge Motel, we had only a very short walk to the pier to board the cruise. Bayfield was very quiet in those morning hours. A line did eventually form and the photograph below shows it when it was about half of the total length it would reach.

There were plenty of seats on the ship for our Morning Grand Tour and quite a few empty seats on the lower, enclosed floor.

The Apostle Islands Cruises website states that the Grand Tour is 2.5 to 3 hours in duration and describes this tour:

The Grand Tour takes you on a narrated, informative 55-mile scenic tour. Throughout this memorable cruise, you'll pass extraordinary natural scenery, beautiful historic Raspberry and Devils Island Lighthouses, standing rocks, extensive sea caves, and marine wildlife. Learn the rich history of centuries of human interaction with Wisconsin's "Crown Jewels" on majestic Lake Superior.

The article "Top 7 Highlights of an Apostle Islands Cruises' 'Grand Tour'" talks about the "top 7 highlights [that] make the Apostle Islands Cruises tour so 'Grand'."

Unsurprisingly, the "beautiful islands" (#1) and their "spectacular sea caves" (#4) are among the top seven highlights of the Grand Tour.

One of the top 7 Grand Tour highlights (#2) is Raspberry Lighthouse.

Another Grand Tour highlight (#3) is Devils Island Lighthouse.

Wildlife is another highlight of the Grand Tour (#5) and we saw lots of aquatic birds on this cruise.

The #6 item on the list of highlights of the Grand Tour is related to the history associated with the Apostle Islands such as Historic Manitou Fish Camp.

The Apostle Islands Cruises Grand Tour combines a leisurly boat ride with beautiful scenery and history and allows one to cruise on the largest freshwater lake (surface area) in the world (Lake Superior).

We particularly enjoyed going on this cruise in October with the leaves changing colors.

The highlight of our visit to the Apostle Islands was kayaking on Lake Superior off the mainland (especially kayaking the large sea caves off Meyers Beach with our tour guide and no one else on the water), but the Apostle Islands Cruises Grand Tour allowed us to get much closer multiple islands. It would be fun to visit in the summer and take the shuttles to some of these islands to kayak near the islands.