tetleytea

If it was me, my only issue with Cagney's was the lack of outdoor seating (on some ships--Dawn being one, I think).

That's a 25% comp rate, which is about in line with the website I was given (which said the industry standard is 30%), or the website I Googled (which said 20-40%). If NCL is comping more, I think that's smart. There's a big difference between a casino comping a hotel room vs. a cruiseline comping you a cruise (where they think you are going to gamble more).

That is not law of averages at all. Law of averages, expressed in statistical terms, is that your standard deviation asymptotically approaches zero the more identical events you roll into one.

Free at Sea totally works to your advantage, being solo. $50 off your first shore excursion ticket...oh wait, you're only a party of 1 anyway.

I agree with taking legal action.

If I hear, "I apologize for your inconvenience. I understand your frustration" one more time, I'm going to make up voodoo dolls for all my favorite cruise lines and twist their heads off. I don't need their silly canned phrases--I need my actual problem resolved.

Yeah, green was round trip.

If you had only that one day, I would probably go to Stanley Park. Depends on if you like zoos, horse carriage rides, and stuff. A lot of the other Vancouver options, you eat up a lot of your day traveling. Granville Island might be manageable, too; but Stanley Park is right there; you can see it from Canada Place.

I don't know about Alaska, but as they say in Canada: there are two seasons: winter, and construction season.

I've done both rental car and whale watching on the same Juneau port stop, and you just drive in to Auke Bay and go directly on the ship. It's not that far from Mendenhall, no waiting for buses and stuff. Very efficient use of your port time. And if you shop, you can probably get cheaper whale tours, since all they have to do is wait for you to show up.

I agree too--I'm sorry, but an explanation IS required. The cruise lines are making decisions on behalf of paying customers. And, this is Cruise Critic. All rights are reserved to second guess, judge, or speculate about the cruise line at all times. Or praise--it goes both ways.

If you were going to drive to a beach and can't do whales anyway, in Juneau you might as well do St. Therese. Good Alaskan-style beach there. And you get to see those wild muskrats...pikas...whatever those rodents are in the rocks.

Mid-September I am not familiar with, but for a party of that size I would just rent a big car every time (except Victoria). Rent a car in Skagway and go to Carcross. Rent a car in Juneau and go to Mendenhall (cheaper than paying the shuttle per-person). Just drive to Auke Bay and see some whales. There should be a gold panning/gold mining tour in Juneau still. Rent a car in Ketchikan and go to Totem Bight, Saxman, the Raptor Center, the bear viewing area down south (I forget what it's called). Lumberjack show is good for kids and Bering Sea Crab is good for the whole family, but prices are per-person and you don't really need a car for those. Victoria has tons of cool stuff for kids, but I doubt they will be open during the hours you will be there. They would probably find riding the water taxi in the inner harbor to be fun (and it saves you a little time walking from Fishermans Wharf to Inner Harbor). You might be able to whale watch in Victoria, if you wind up having to slash that from your schedule in Juneau. If I'm completely wrong about the kids' stuff being open, they have the Miniature Museum and the Wax Museum. Since you're sailing from Seattle, some of your port stops might be too short for a rental car to make sense. It's just that with your big party, it also does. Only one person has to go to the rental car agency and deal with all the rigamarole, and the cost is not per-person. So I feel like you should do the rental car stuff this trip, in case you go back to Alaska and later opt not to do a car the second time (I did rental car in Skagway first and then White Pass railroad my second time, and I must say the rental car is better). And don't forget to pack binoculars. Or borrow them from a friend.

Thank you for letting us know on CC.

The truth could be somewhere in the middle. NCL makes more money on an at-sea day, they wouldn't please everybody by finding a new port and charging everybody port charges for a port that everybody did not sign up for, and so NCL is not terribly motivated to go scramble and fit something else in. Why not Gotheberg on Wednesday morning?

You have no idea.... 😇

I see fish & chips on the ship menu all the time. Seems like the Sandbar makes sense only with the rental car. I don't see recouping your cab fare with the better deal on fish & chips. But renting a car is a good option in Juneau, for a variety of reasons. I'm glad I have another food place to drive to now, other than McDonald's. 🙂

The itinerary suggests that specific time is Thursday afternoon. They have all that latitude to play with from Tuesday evening onward.

Yeah, there's a shuttle. The line is very long when they first give the all-clear to disembark, since only the people going on a tour don't have to go on it.

I got the sodas, and I didn't particularly notice they were much different than if you got a small at a fast food place. Movie theaters might reasonably charge you $3 for a small.

Gollee. Gratuity...for a glass of soda. And then when you bring that up, the answer is always, "NCL offers an unlimited drink package." The drink package is even more ridiculous for most people. But yeah, my math was wrong, because I didn't consider gratuity on the a la carte. That lowers the come-out-ahead threshold to 4.

OT since this OP is solo, but...well...you know.... Once we got a bathtub in our suite, and we thought the bathtub would be big enough to fit the two of us and it would be really romantic to hop in the bath together. Uh...it was not quite big enough to fit two people. And that was not a romantic experience. Comical, but not romantic.

I'm drooling at that itinerary, but missing Copenhagen is a major ouch. They could at least move out the sailaway time in Rostock. People are going all the way to Berlin from that port and could really use the extra time.

I rode other ziplines (but not Ziprider), and from watching people go in person, it seemed to me Ziprider was like a zipline on training wheels. I could brake on some other ziplines (in fact, you could severely hurt yourself doing it), but I don't know about this one.

Did you see the Alaska State Fair? It's in Palmer (which is basically Anchorage). I'm looking right now for the B&B in Palmer where I stayed at; I was happy there. You get to see giant squash and cabbages and stuff, 100+ pounds for one cabbage. You'll be mingling with the locals. All kinds of things to do in Palmer that cruisers typically don't do (e.g. Hatcher Pass, ATV to Knik glacier, rafting, musk ox farm). When I was in a similar predicament as you, I found much more availability for B&B's in the Anchorage area. Seward was booked up, hotels were less than plentiful.