tetleytea

Yeah, it's just like celebrity life.

I have run into our own cruise director ashore, and to him, we didn't exist. Not to say he is a bad person--they are paid to be friendly. When they are on shore leave, they might want a break from it.

The crew incentives and hiring selection look for crew to be friendly. I find almost all crew to be friendly for that reason alone. Although in the back of my mind, I am always wondering whether the same crew would be just as friendly under different circumstances; I would certainly prefer to work with those crew any day. Kind of like the friendly sales reps, and friendly waitresses before they are tipped. It's easy to get a friendly cabin steward. Not so easy to get a cabin steward who would still be just as friendly even if you two met on shore, when you weren't even cruising.

We had dining reservations for every night but ignored them, because the line for No Reservations was so much shorter. My only disappointment was that we got different table-mates for every night but one. In the past when we shared the table with the same people, that's when we started to fare-share the same taxis and rental cars with each other, and to look at each other's suites. The whole table could hang out in a full suite together, and we could open up the balcony and turn on the stateroom TV to sports for the guys. As far as I'm concerned, these parties in the full suites with people you just met ought to start a whole new fad in cruising.

I booked shorex last-minute via Medallion twice, and what I learned is not to expect to get your tickets in your cabin. The second time, I visited the shorex desk and they had them. The first time, no tickets at all, but I showed them my medallion app and they had us handwritten in on some manifest list. The tour guides had to coordinate our last-minute addition, since there were a couple lists they had which we were not on. It all went okay for us, but the potential for something to go wrong was there.

It could be just simple debug. If I have an IT problem, I ask around. If I have slow internet, I ask and see if others are having slow internet, too. If no one does, I reboot my machine and try someone else's. If everyone does, it must be the server. If everyone local does but no one in faraway places does, then it must be the router. Same with Princess. Is a poor app experience a function of your hardware and software version, or is the problem on the corporate end? Is poor customer service just with those particular people you worked with, or is there a systemic problem? In my own experience, the opposite seems to be the case: lots of good individuals out there, but a systemic problem.

I don't just consider the money for the excursions, but also what my other options are. In Seward, probably kayaking Resurrection Bay is my favorite. But Kenai Fjords is certainly up there. In Icy Strait, the other options just aren't many; unless you like to zipline the same zipline over and over, like you were on a ski slope.

I found the lighting in the theaters on the new ships to be amazing. I would be very surprised if they didn't put some audio engineering into the theaters as well. Sound shouldn't be an issue there. Maybe the pools, but not the theater.

I have taken popcorn off the cruise ship in plain view of security before. When I drove into the Yukon from Skagway, I literally showed the Canadian border guard my apple. Nothing. And renting a car in Skagway is definitely a time when you might want to pack a lunch off the ship. Drove into Quebec another time and did exactly the same thing, and again, nothing. Only Vancouver cared. That guy in Australia was flying in from Bali. And I'll bet he lied on the customs declaration. edit: even Hawaii...although I have not personally tried it there, I just read the regulations, and the Hawaii government site says that processed foods from the U.S. mainland are supposed to be ok.

On Norwegian's Free-at-Sea deal, it's not a few dollars' difference. You get 1 free ticket to Mt Roberts if you reserve in advance, and that is not conditional upon you buying a second. I've been to Juneau like 8 or 9 times now, and not to say that it never happens, but I have never seen the fog set in midday. Once it has cleared up, it has always remained clear for the rest of that day. Although there is always Murphy's law.

I just saw the Encore sail off yesterday out of pier 66. It's true, a 9:30 arrival time will leave you waiting, and then waiting more for your cabin to be ready even after you board the ship. I have boarded other cruise lines much later in the day (yet still nowhere near sailaway time), and just waltzed right on board--in fact, there were more staff in the terminal than passengers, standing around waiting for work to do. Boarding much later can work out really well--all that time and hassle waiting in lines can be better spent instead touring the port. You just have to manage where to stow your luggage before that, and how to cover one meal that you'll have to pay for yourself. As far as I'm concerned, just eat a hearty breakfast at Days Inn and then a light lunch at 2pm; then at 5-5:30 dinner.

Probably completely unrelated, but we found dining reservations on Princess don't carry much meaning, either.

If the right Princess vacation planner takes up your case, then you're in luck. I submitted a web form to Princess and straight up asked for someone call me to reserve a cruise, and no one did for 2 weeks. When he finally did, not much got done. Too little, too late. I took my business elsewhere. If not even Princess sales can call me back, I'd hate to know what post-sales customer support is like.

It's obscure, esoteric legal stuff. It's all good. I'm just glad people online know about PVSA.

My most controversial opinion:. taking food off the ship. In a domestic port, I.e. a U.S. port from a U.S. sailing, or another EU port from an EU sailing, I have no issues taking certain foods off the ship. If anyone asks, I'll be honest. Only the Vancouver border guard has ever asked, and that was specifically for fruits. I simply declared it and they took it; no fine. It's the lying about it that's bad. The vast majority of the time, I think the food thing is a cop out, similar to not allowing outside food in a movie theater. Your orange and banana seeds are not going to grow into orange and banana trees in Alaska. You're not going to introduce some foreign birch bark beetle to Los Angeles because you took off a pastry from the ship. Foreign ports (Cozumel first comes to mind) are a different story. Don't take food off the ship there. But in a domestic port, I'm not paying some restaurant $50 because of some customs regulation that doesn't even exist. Show me the real harm done, and then I will reconsider.

On the Seattle sailings, I always wondered what would happen if in Victoria you just...you know...oh shoot, we're 60 minutes too late for the boat, this is terrible, what are we going to do. Guess we'll have to stay with our friends in Victoria overnight and take the Victoria Clipper back to Seattle later.

Princess offering toilet paper they normally charge for as game show prizes--sounds to me like a brilliant idea. Then you could afford to have a lot of winners. I noticed when we did our B2B cruise on Princess this year, the same party of people on a B2B kept winning all the trivia games, because they got the same questions. We could only win the ring toss competition for champagne, and the cornhole competition. Then I sail on Norwegian this same summer, not a B2B, and I win 3 trivia games; 2 of them individual. Wife wins "a free work of art" and $100 off an art auction bid. Both of them pretty useless.

I just jumped ship and sailed Norwegian, and I didn't particularly have any issues with NCL's customer service like I did on Princess. (their art auctions, however ..different story)

What we need is cheaper placebo bear spray. I've got people on my party who are scared of bears, but on the SE Alaska port trails those fears are overblown. Maybe get some Windex and label it as bear spray. Look, we're safe.

On Norwegian, absolutely book Mt Roberts in advance for one person. The reason being, if you're Free At Sea, it's free. But the free tickets can sell out. Then when you dock in Juneau, you can make a day-of decision whether to buy tickets for the others in your party. Note that your odds of good visibility up top generally improve the later in the day you go.

I took my then-girlfriend dog sledding in northern Ontario in the winter, which is way more authentic (and cheaper) than sledding a glacier on a cruise. She was scared to death when we dogsledded on a frozen lake, but she said the good-looking tour guide coaxed her onto the lake. Mixed messages for me--I married her.

Glacier Bay beats Hubbard head-to-head, if you have to choose. I have had to make that choice before.

I will say definitively that Icy Strait is better for whale watching than Juneau or pretty much any other SE Alaska port. We ran across a pod of 6 whales bubble feeding, and they got close to our boat; mostly because I don't think our driver wanted to honor the 100-foot distance. The Juneau captains were much more apt to honor their space--which is the right thing to do, but the whale watching is not quite as good. I think one time our captain scared away the fish and interrupted a bubble feeding midstream. Another factor is that there just isn't that much else to do at Icy Strait, whereas there is plenty to do in Juneau. However, for others on this thread who might not be visiting Icy Strait, whale watching is the first thing I would do in Juneau. And I would ask the tour guide to drop you off at Mendenhall glacier, if you have time. In Seward, I'm really more interested in puffin viewing than whales.

First off, when anybody ever starts off with "I'm sure that is very interesting," it is obvious they didn't hear a word I said. Second, you are spectacularly wrong yourself if you think that, by people paying for an upgrade, that the $$$ obviously compute for them. Obviously not everybody is good with money, has good judgement, or just immediately computes math in their head. Or they fall for marketing ploys or the need for conspicuous consumption. When you're looking at even a regular Free At Sea package where you have to have 3 drinks a day, every day, just to come out head on the gratuities alone, that is where we're at. Let alone Free at Sea itself, let alone paying for yet another upgrade on top of that upgrade. Third, you seem awfully sensitive about it, and when people get that sensitive about it, one has to wonder what makes you so sensitive?. It's a plain, simple statement of fact: if you're trying to lose weight, don't spend hours in the all-you-can-eat buffet line. If you have a gambling problem, don't set foot in a casino on double-points day. And if you have a potential drinking problem, don't plunk down $1000 on an all-you-can-drink package while couped up on a ship. Very simple. Yet for some reason when it comes to this, people want an intentional blind spot. The way the drink package works is very simple: you have to drink X number of drinks (where X is not particularly a low number. Definitely >>3) every day to come out ahead, and that incentivizes you to drink more. Clearly you are planning ahead to drink a lot. Not a little--a lot. It is well-known that the casino operators prey on poor judgment. You get free booze while spinning, they have all the promotions and bright lights meant to entice. We all know how slots work: you stick $1 in, and you get 40 cents out. Fantastic math there. If it was about the entertainment, then why are free slots with pretend money so unpopular on Steam? Because people don't particularly find it a fun game when the money is not real. Yet somehow... would the cruise lines ever exploit poor judgment to make a buck? Oh no, never! After all, who would ever want to just get smashed on the cruise, and not care about the money? So go ahead: I am the bad guy. Families are getting ripped apart, not just by the alcohol, but by the finances. Meanwhile the rest of us on the cruise have to deal with drunken behavior around the night clubs, fueled by the open bar. But I know, I am the one who's wrong, because I'm the one who is actually not doing it and I dared ever state the obvious. If I get challenged to a fight by a guy about to lay himself flat on the floor without throwing a single punch, I just have to deal with it. Because after all, who am I to police? I said something! Oh no!

One has to book excursions through the ship to make it work, and the cheaper excursions which go down to almost free fill up quickly. Otherwise it's best to price vs. booking independently, and all this does is even that out. So you're not really saving $100 per excursion. The MDR meals are already paid for, so the value of the "$85" specialty meals is certainly a lot less than $85. The internet is of no value if the internet service stinks. If this all comes down to drinks, and people are truly drinking that many drinks to make this worth it, then I wouldn't call it the Free at Sea Plus package--i would call it the Future Friends of Bill W package.