jerseygirl629

omg the art on ovation was BEAUTIFUL. I took so many photos of all the different pieces. I loved the specialty restaurants on Ovation. Cons - the lines for everything were SO long. As an example - an hour wait to get on the bumper cars for 3 minutes. Over an hour wait for the flo rider. The free rides on both the North Star and the iFly are first Come first serve, as are dining reservations if you do the UDP. Was bummed we couldn’t book anything online, in advance.

I was on Ovation in August and we still went to Skagway. We had to tender in instead of docking due to the rock slide.

- Ketchikan, my family and I booked the Alaska Hummer Adventure tour via Alaska Shore Excursions on our own. Of course, we could have also booked directly through the hummer company. They were the same price. Our driver was very ad - Skagway, my family and I rented a car from Avis and used Murray's Guide for the drive up the Klondike and back. Ideally, we wanted to book the train and bus combo via an independent tour but, in 2022 the train only went to the border of Canada and came back. We made sure to get back to port with plenty of time to spare (3 hours lol). If you go into Canada via Skagway on your own, just be wary of the time change that happens once you get into the Yukon. - Juneau we booked two through Royal...the small boat that gets close to the glaciers while the ship is in the Endicott Arm, and then helicopter ride and dog sledding on Mendenhall. Didn't want to take any chances booking that one outside the ship as there were too many things to consider (like getting stuck at the glacier due to inclement weather - which almost happened to us yikes).

Thank you SO much for your helpful guide! We used it this past summer and it made our drive so much easier and less daunting - in fact, without it, we wouldn't have had the courage to make the drive on our own!

We canceled an excursion on board and were not given a refund but were given onboard credit instead.

I am from NJ (Jersey shore) and would LOVE to get another mega ship here. I did my first RC cruise this past summer (Ovation out of Seattle) but have previously cruised out of NYC 3x (Not a fan of having to go into Manhattan just to get dropped off/picked up). I was considering booking Oasis but cannot bring myself to do Port Canaveral or Nassau again. In 2010, Carnival went from NYC to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay (Carnival's island), and Nassau. Not sure why Royal can't do something similar?

I believe this is at Lunch Creek Trail. I went there in August 2022.

We cruised on Ovation 08/12 - 08/19. Soooo many people on board were coughing by day 6! My brother tested positive on Monday evening 08/22. Myself and our parents (brother shared a room with my Dad; and our rooms were connecting) remained negative with 0 symptoms (we each tested 2x with a rapid and PCR on days 5 and 7, after last seeing him Friday the 19th). Several people from our sailing (According to the Facebook group) reported either they, or members of their travel party, tested positive in the days that followed. My Mom and I consistently masked in crowded areas; brother and Dad did not. My Mom, Dad, and I wore masks on the flight home; brother did not. Everyone around us on the plane were coughing so, it's hard to say if he got it on the plane or the cruise. We'll never know. Edited AGAIN (lol) to add - - My Mom and I never stepped foot in the Windjammer; My Dad and brother went there twice each. - We ate at specialty restaurants for almost all meals; did not sit near anyone for the most part. On our last lunch (day 7) at Chops, our waiter was not wearing his mask properly and kept coughing. - Ate in the MDR twice for breakfast, not very crowded. -Ate in the MDR once for dinner, on Lobster night. Were not seated too closely to anyone.

If you're on RC Ovation, be sure to get down to the area early to get a tender ticket. We got there around 7:30am for 8am tender ticket hand out and were number 21 in line; we got "Tender Group 2", though they seemed to be filling them and sending them off pretty quickly. We docked earlier than expected and were off the ship and on the tender by 9:55am. We picked up our car at Avis at 10:20am (We walked from the pier drop off to Avis). A friendly tip - make sure you check your cars oil level before leaving the lot; that was an issue for us as the oil light went on about 10 miles into our drive, forcing us to turn around and go back. After figuring out the oil issue (The staff insisted the car was fine) we were back on the road around 11:20am (A bummer, but, we still had plenty of time!). Our final stop was Emerald Lake and we wanted to ensure we had plenty of time to get back so we skipped some stops on the drive up and decided we would get to them on the drive back if we had time. Something to note - we experienced a ton of heavy fog at the summit, preventing us from taking in a majority of the views for about 10 miles or so. It was cleared up by the time we headed back, though. The stops we did on the way there (Using Murray's Guide, and by looking at my photo time stamps) were: Mile 22.9 - Scenic pull off right after Customs / Fraser with interpretive signs Mile 23.2 - Scenic pull off Mile 27.3 (Outhouses, would recommend skipping this as there are bathrooms at the Yukon Suspension bridge! lol.) Mile 29.5 - Yukon Suspension Bridge (we spent about 20 minutes here) Mile 43.6 - Tutshi Dog Sled Tours (we did General Admission and spent about 15 minutes here, wish we spent more though. Sooo cute! lol) Mile 49.9 - Yukon sign Mile 52.5 - Scenic pull off Mile 66.9 - Carcross Desert Mile 73.1 - Emerald Lake We made it to Emerald Lake by 2:22pm (Ship Time - I noticed my phone photos went from a minute apart to an hour and a minute apart! Be sure to keep at least one watch/clock on "ship time" at all times for this! lol. The Yukon is 1 hour ahead of Skagway). We then drove back and stopped at the following Mile 65.6 - Carcross Town (Mostly everything was closed, it was a holiday in Carcross) Mile 59 - Bove Island Viewpoint Mile 14.7 - Welcome to Alaska Sign Mile 10 - Bridal Veil Falls We returned the car around 5:00pm which was perfect for us, as we then had time to walk around Skagway. We were in line to get the tender boat back to the ship by 5:30pm; back in rooms around 6:00pm to get ready for our dinner at 7!

My family and I (4 adults) rented a car from Avis (We were in Skagway on August 15th) and drove up the Yukon. One of our stops was Tutshi Dog Sled camp. It was $5 a person I believe, no reservations required, and no other groups were even there! We got to meet and hold 3 week old puppies, as well as a few other older puppies. They were doing dog sledding past a gate but we didn’t have enough time to do that as we were driving up to Emerald Lake. We did see a few tour busses along our journey who were making similar stops to what we were doing but unsure of what their companies were called.

As the OP, I wanted to report back on my own experience with hopes this helps other cruisers 🙂 My family and I booked the Helicopter Ride and Dog Sledding at Mendenhall Glacier for 08/16 at 2:15pm through Royal Caribbean. We also booked a glacier explorer cruise through the ship for earlier that morning, departing Ovation of the Seas around 7am. Our boat was late arriving into Juneau; We were supposed to be back by 1pm, in reality, we were back by around 1:40pm which was a little nerve wracking as we had to check back into the ship, then check back out for our 2:15pm excursion with a 2:00pm meet time. Luckily, we made it! We scanned our sea pass cards back on to the ship then were just able to walk directly across the ship and get off again - easy peasy. I had emailed Temsco a few days before arriving and they said the camp was not closed yet and as long as weather cooperated, we would still get to go. They said they can cancel up until a few minutes before though, which we were prepared for. When we met Temsco reps to check in at the port, the sky looked very cloudy/foggy and we asked them if the tours were canceled. They said they have not received any word they were canceled and they have been running them all morning due to clear skies. They took our party's weight and we waited to board the bus. It got cloudier and foggier, and started to drizzle. In total, there were 11 people for this excursion. My family of 4, another family of 4, one single rider, and one couple. We were unsure this would actually happen but were crossing our fingers! By the time we got to Temsco, it was raining pretty hard. We watched the safety briefing, signed some waivers, and put on our shoe covers they provided. They said the tours were still on but if the Pilot's feel uncomfortable when we are mid-flight, they can and will turn around and if that happens, we will all receive a full refund. The Pilot arrived, picked us up, and off we went up into the fog and rain. The visibility was low, at least I thought so as a passenger (lol) and the rain was steady. For a bunch of first timers on a Helicopter, my family was pretty nervous as we could barely see anything out the window - which was also a bummer because part of the helicopter experience we were hoping for was great views! We arrived to camp and were escorted off the helicopter. It was raining very hard and very steady. The group who had just finished their excursion got on the helicopter after we got off. We were introduced to the team on the glacier, about 8 people seemed to work up there. We were then put on the sleds; my family was on one, the other family of 4 was on one, and the couple and single rider shared another. As we were going, the helicopters came back again to do another pick up. Our musher asked if we noticed if anyone else got off the helicopter and we all said no. He said that means they must have canceled the remaining tours for the day due to weather and *hopefully* they will be back to pick us up. The weather kept getting worse - we were all cold and drenched but still trying to enjoy this once in a lifetime experience - while also worrying about getting back down! Another staff member said they have not had any groups stranded yet this season but it has happened in the past and if it does, they have tents, cots, heaters, and food for us in case of emergency. I wanted to believe she was being sarcastic but, I think she may have been serious. Our Musher said if we get stuck, they will house us and pay for our flights to meet the cruise wherever the next stop is. Additionally, they mentioned they are scheduled to be up there until the end of September and this was the rainiest it has been in weeks while still operating. Well, we finished our runs and the helicopters still were not back. They took the group to meet new 2 week old puppies, as well as their 4 month old puppies they referred to as "The Avengers". It was great but, we were all cold and drenched! Visibility remained pretty terrible but luckily, we heard the helicopters approaching in the distance. They picked us up right on schedule and we were back at Temsco around 4:45pm, then back to the main dock area by 5:00pm. All tours for the remainder of the day were canceled due to weather. We were absolutely soaked by the end of it; the only dry parts were our feet (Thanks to the shoe covers they provided, LOL) but grateful we got to go at all! Admittedly, we were double booked with a whale watching excursion just in case this excursion never happened. We obviously ended up not doing that so unfortunately lost the money we gave but, that was always a gamble and we knew going in we would either get our money back from Royal for Dog Sledding or, lose our money to whale watching. Ah, well. Photo so you can see how foggy/cloudy/rainy it was. Good thing I brought my GoPro for photos/videos as it is waterproof! If anyone has any questions, please let me know.

I was on the 08/12 Ovation sailing, docking in Skagway on 08/15. They made announcements the day before that tender tickets would be available starting at 8am the morning of 08/15. The app said 7:00am so there was some confusion. My Dad and I went to the wine bar around 7:30am (Figured we would be late...or early..lol), as he was told by a staff member that one person from each stateroom had to be there to get tickets (ie: he could not get all 4 for our family). That ended up being incorrect, at least for us. I asked for 4 tender tickets, they gave me 4, while my Dad just stood next to me. They did not even ask for our stateroom numbers. There was a cruise passenger at the wine bar that started taking people's names down and assigning them a number because people started to congregate and it was unfair for those who got there first, second, third, etc. to be cut in line by people just arriving when they started handing out tickets. This worked out perfectly and it was extremely helpful and kind of him to do so, it kept the chaos to a minimum. Basically, he was sitting in the lounge with a laptop and an excel sheet. When you arrived, he took your name and gave you a number. He told me I was number 21. He made it very clear he did not work for RCI but was doing this to keep things organized; it was greatly appreciated by all who arrived early, as when the staff came down to hand out tickets it became a zoo of people. He then read everyone's names and numbers aloud and people got in a single file line in number order. He gave out 43 numbers then everyone who arrived after those with numbers just filed in line behind us. We were given tender group # 2 and were on the tender by 9:55am (earlier than our 11am expected arrival time into Skagway!). The ride took about 10 minutes once everyone was on board and to get docked. We were at Avis by 10:20am! They let us pick the car up early as we were not scheduled until 11:30am but had a "24 hour rental" scheduled. On our way back to the ship, we got in line for the tender around 5:30pm (Last tender was 7:30pm I believe). The line moved pretty quickly, and we were back on board by 6pm!

I bought it from Royal so not bringing it on myself. I believe 12 pack is for carry on only. 🙂

I am on Ovation next week and we are supposed to dock at the Railroad Dock but the "Aft" section. Wonder what they will do for our sailing. Doesn't seem too safe to have 4,000 passengers walk by the rock/land slide zone. Ack...

I don't own that exact brand that I linked, I think ours are from the dollar store so I am unsure if they prevent from leaking; I have only used them at home in the fridge to keep soda from losing their bubbles. But, I figure in this case it may be handy to bring them in case I can't finish the can in one sitting for some reason.