olemissreb

Ahhh...great minds huh?

I believe the OP is boarding in San Juan and departure is 8 or 9pm. St. Thomas is day 7 of their cruise. OP - I've never sailed NCL out of San Juan, but I have sailed with Celebrity and Royal and neither of them had assigned boarding times when I sailed. That being said, on Celebrity, we didn't show up until after 1pm (that was when our flight got in) and we essentially walked right on the ship - no waiting. For Royal, my FIL at the time was in a hurry to get to the terminal and so we got there about 11:00ish to long lines. Luckily we were in suites, so we did get to bypass those lines a bit, but we still had to wait till about noon to board though. My sister and I and our boyfriends are sailing this itinerary in March '25 and I don't plan on getting to the cruise terminal until after lunch in the hopes of avoiding some of the lines...plus I love OSJ and no one else in my group has been there, so while we are flying in a day ahead of time, I still want to be able to maximize our sightseeing times. Enjoy the Viva and please come back and post a review for those of us that are having to live vicariously through others until it's our time to board!

patrlr...do you recall when the "dress up if you want" night was? I don't see it in the dailies (or I'm just getting too old and just overlooked it). My sister and I and our boyfriends are on this cruise in March '25 and while the guys probably won't dress up, I know my sister and I will probably want to get all spiffed up just for fun.

Since we had done our own land based tour for a week before the cruise, we booked Gold Dome service on the Alaska RR to Seward the day before embarkation. The railroad sent our bags to our hotel so we could do the Major Marine Kenai Fjords tour (highly recommend as someone else also said). The next day, the hotel held our luggage for us while we toured the Sea Life Center (also recommend with a behind the scenes tour). The train ride was phenomenal...assigned seats in domed car with bar service and food service below, both for nominal costs.

This needs a ❤️ button!

I found that a year out I was able to book my independent excursions. Not sure if that's what you are looking for, but maybe it's a good "rule of thumb"?

Doing this cruise in March '25, so looking forward to your posts about food and excursions. Did you get Vibe passes? Was it worth it for such a port intensive cruise (if you did)?

It may have been 20 people. I just remember it was so much smaller than the big charyer buses the cruiseline folks were on and our little bus wasn't even full, but almost.

Chilkoot Charters....that's who we used too. Not Dyea Dave. And we were on a small maybe 12 person "bus". So much more personal.

We did our excursion thru Dyea Dave and they had someone come pick us up in a van near the cruise ship pier.

We did this independently...train up and van ride back. We went to the Carcross Desert and stopped at a farm with sled dog puppies and you could take a ride on a sled pulled by the dogs. We really enjoyed it.

My sister and I found out the hard way, that while we can travel together, staying in the same rental is not for us because our families were so different. So when we vacationed together, each family would get their own rental, but we'd get together throughout the week to hang out or do things...worked great. We all got to do what we wanted as individual families, but our kids also got to spend quality time together. Now she and I are going on a cruise in March '25 with our boyfriends and while sis and I are going to a couple things together and we'll do at least one excursion as a group, we'll be doing our own excursions too and then getting together at night to share what we did. Best of all worlds. I would not have any problems "surprising" friends or relatives and just doing our own thing and maybe getting together for drinks to share what we did.

$35 is cheap and if it's like the ones I've done on land, it should be a blast. The guys will just have to go hang in the whiskey bar while my sister and I paint...pretty sure they won't complain too much.

Is there a cost for this?

Ooooo this sounds like fun. I know my sister and I would enjoy it, but our SOs not so much (so they can hit the Whiskey bar). Hope they have it on our March '25 cruise out of San Juan.

Thanks. I linked to the International Day Pass on my last cruise in 2019, so that's not an issue for me. I will have to bring this up to the other 3 that I'm traveling with. We may decide there's another way to meet up and stuff like that, but this is an option.

I'm looking at possibly booking a VV cruise for 2025. Can you change the room they assign you or choose your own? I noticed in the dummy booking it said just like a hotel they assign rooms, but I can choose my own room when I stay at Hilton properties so maybe it's more like that? This would be our first trip on VV. I want mid-ship balcony with cabins above and below and not near the elevators (yep I'm picky). 🙂 Any booking help for future reference is greatly appreciated.

In my group of 4, we have 3 iphone users and 1 android (me). We are all AT&T customers and I noticed that AT&T has a special add on feature for people on cruises. Has anyone used that? And does it work just as if you were on land? Or does it work through Starlink? I've looked at it and don't really understand how it works...do we need the ships wifi? We all have FAS, but I may upgrade mine to FAS+.

Bring Him Home ALWAYS brings me to tears. Les Miz is my second favorite musical right after Sound of Music. Not sure I'll get to see Kevin Fagan on my March '25 Viva cruise though to hear him sing it.

Thank you! While we have changed cruiselines for this cruise, we're still stopping in Antigua and I think this is where we are going to send the guys while my sister and I go shopping. IIRC Cedar Valley isn't too far from the dock via taxi, so the guys shouldn't get lost/miss the boat. I hope!

I don't think my BF has taken a train trip like that yet...he just wants to at some point, so I'll try and make it happen only after our cruise. Of course my niece is getting married in Reno in 2025, so maybe we'll be able to make that a train trip and then fly back. So many choices!

I'm totally prepared to go solo or with my sister...which is really what prompted us to book the Viva in 2025. Of course she wanted to bring her boyfriend (for his first cruise), so it was a bit of an easier sell for my boyfriend. I'm hoping he'll fall in love with cruising after that. I've even agreed to look at a train trip since my boyfriend loves trains.

Well, once again, my blue card didn't have the offer. Maybe I'll get it when I've finished paying off the cruise and am ready to pay for gratuities and upgrading my beverage package.

Since I wasn't sure when I'd get back to Alaska, itinerary and port times were the most important for me...then I went with the cruise line that fit our vacation times. We didn't go to Glacier Bay, but we did get to Hubbard Glacier and it was spectacular. Hoping that in the next few years I'll be able to talk my boyfriend into a couple weeks in AK. He says he's not a cruise person, but I guess he'll find out in 2025 when we cruise Viva in the Caribbean.

I didn't have it on my blue last time, but I'll have to check it out again. Maybe I can use it since I need to make a payment on my 2025 cruise.