new_cruiser

Does your ship stop in Skagway and, if so, would you want to take the train or a driving excursion into the Yukon there? That crosses the border into Canada and requires a passport (or enhanced ID - license would have a flag instead of a star). If you decide to get a passport, you might consider choosing a round trip cruise from Vancouver or a one way between Vancouver and Seward or Whittier instead of a round trip from Seattle. These sailings usually have better itineraries - better time in ports and usually an additional Alaska port instead of a stop in Victoria that is often too brief and too late to do much.

Real ID is not Enhanced ID. Enhanced ID is currently only offered by some states on the Canadian border. An Enhanced ID is proof of citizenship and can be used instead of a passport at US land and sea border crossings (but not air crossings). It has pretty much the same abilities as a passport card. A Real ID requires better proof of identity than older state IDs but doesn't prove or require citizenship.

I'd suggest you ask the moderator to delete or close this thread. Start a new thread with the right title

There are many other things to do in Sitka and it's not as good for whale watching as Juneau (and Icy Straight). So, with your itinerary I'd recommend doing yhe whale watching from Juneau. Mendenhall is, IMO, more about a nice hike that gives a view of a glacier and a nice waterfall. Also depending on the time of year, a possibility of seeing bears. Sitka National Historic Park provides a pleasant easy forest hike with totem poles. Depending on the length of your port stop in Juneau, it is possible to combine whale watching and a visit to Mendenhall there.

What would you do if the Tabago stop had to be missed? I bring this up partly because our recent cruise had a stop in Skagway during the day followed by an evening stop in Haines. I was considering an excursion that took the ferry from Skagway to Haines and wondered if it would be possible after the excursion to stay in Haines and join the ship there. I ended up deciding to stay in Skagway for the day. It turned out too windy to dock in Haines and the ship skipped that stop.

I was on an Alaska cruise with 5 family members a week ago. All vaccinated and boosted. All except me tested positive on the cruise or the day after. All recovered fairly quickly, one was asymptomatic. I had mild symptoms but never tested positive despite testing multiple times. As a senior, I'd had multiple boosters, the last one a few weeks ago and that immunity may have kept the viral count too low to test positive.

I've been on one Pacific crossing (Japan to Alaska), one Atlantic crossing (St. Maarten to Lisbon) and one crossing from New Zealand to Australia (much shorter but known for being rough). All were on Windstar Star class ships - 212 passenger for the Pacific crossing and the others after the ships were stretched to carry 312 passengers. The Pacific and Atlantic crossings were both mosrly pretty smooth - no rougher than typical on a Caribbean cruise. The Atlantic was having some really rough conditions on our course as originally planned, but the captain altered the course and changed our mid Atlantic stop from the Azores to Canary Islands to keep us in calmer waters. The one rough day (but not terrible) was the last one coming into Lisbon. The New Zealand to Australia crossing was rougher, but not that bad. The Tasman Sea is known for rougher conditions.

Whale watching from Juneau or Icy Straight Point stays in the Inside Passage so easier for those less comfortable on smaller craft. Also, it is 2 hours or so instead of the 6 hours to get from Seward to Kenai Fjords and back. Much of that 6 hours is in Resurrection Bay and in the fjord, but in between the boat is out in the Gulf of Alaska which is where it can get rough. I've done the Kenai Fjords trip twice. Once the Gulf was fairly calm and once it was a pretty rough ride.

Credit cards are fine.

I like Sitka more than Ketchikan, but in all other respects, the Princess itinerary seems better. You want to see a Mendenhall Glacier, like hiking and also are interested in dog sledding. All are available in Juneau and a full day would be better there. There are kayak excursions in Ketchikan. I was just on Radiance of the Seas and there aren't a lot of teen activities there. The Alaska enrichment was just a couple of lectures. Food was so-so; I wouldn't hurry to do Royal Caribbean again (though service was great - I blame cost cutting measures, not the ship staff). I do like the boat tour of Kenai Fjords and we had some excellent wildlife spotting from it this spring (including very active groups of humpbacks and orcas). But I don't think that outweighs the advantages of the Princess itinerary. Also, be aware that part of the Kenai Fjords boat trip can be very rough depending on sea conditions.

Juneau and Icy Straight are pretty close to each other. I think the whale watching boats from both go to the same feeding grounds so there shouldn't be any difference in whale watching quality. When visiting both ports, doing whale watching from Icy Straight has the advantage of freeing time for othe things in Juneau since there is more to do there.

I guess they have been in a breaching mood this Spring. We saw similar on 16 June. There were three whales breaching a lot including a juvenile (much smaller than the adults). Then the juvenile kept doing it while one of the adults did some fin slapping.

Right. I booked an ocean view guarantee about a month before sailing. A balcony guarantee either was a lot more than I wanted to spend or bot available. Less than a week later, I saw that a balcony guarantee was veing offered for $200 pp more than my ocean view price. I took too long to decide and the price was gone. Later, the balcony guarantee was back and this time even cost less, just over $100 pp more than my OV fare. I jumped on it. That was lower than the low bid price. In between, there were times when balcony cabins showed as sold out so apparently there is a certain amount of shuffling around due to people upgrading. So decide what price you are willing to pay than keep checking the booking prices. If you see something you like, it may not be available long. When the balcony was assigned, it was one with a smaller funny shaped balcony so I called and asked if I could switch - you can if there is another available in the same category. I was able to change to another balcony cabin.

From the before picture, it looks like all ingredients were pre-cut. I've been working on sushi making skills at home. For me, the hardest part is knife skills, especially getting nice slices of fish for nigiri. Did the class include any of that?

When I asked about that at the blue bus kiosk in June 2023, they said they aren't doing that anymore.

The blue bus and other shuttles all drop quite close to the visitor center. The various bus stops are spread over a couple of hundred feet. Also, you probably want to take a look at Steep Creek which is across that area from the visitor center. When the salmon are running, you have a chance of safely seeing bears there. I like that with the shuttles you can spend as much time as you want at Mendenhall. One time I did the Trail of Time which gives a different picture of the glacier and it's past extent. You may be confusing comments about taking the city bus to the glacier with the shuttle busses. The city bus costs much less (maybe a few bucks) but the bus stop for that is quite a ways from the visitor center (something on the order of a kilometer is what I remember).

Maderia is high on my list too. The gardens are beautiful. The people are friendly. We didn't have any Portuguese speakers, but came upon a tiny wine bar where we had pre-dinner wine and snacks. The other patrons seemed be regulars who knew each other. We asked for dinner recommendations and one of them called in a reservation for us. I'd like to go back for a week and explore more of the island.

Not sure where you and your Dad live. If you wanted a passport, there is an urgent passport process that can ge a passport within 14 days of travel. The applicant has to travel to a US passport office in person to do it, so difficulty/expense depends on how close one is to an office. One needs to pay the fee to expedite the passport ($60). It requires an appointment. Appointments seem pretty available if one is calling 13 days before travel, but hard to get if travel date is nearer. One can avoid the in person visit by paying an expediter but that adds lots of cost. Just putting the option out there for you. Not trying to pressure you to go one way or another at this difficult time.

The Kaiser Permanente brochure on International Travel says they cover emergency care world wide. When I was on jury duty in the juror selection for a medical malpractice suit, jurors were asked who their provider was and more than half said Kaiser - so it seems that, at least in my area, many (most?) people have emergency medical coverage out of country. I had surgery and hospitalization for a compound fracture in Thailand. Submitted the receipt to Kaiser and they reimbursed everything but the hospital copay I would have had to pay if they treated it.

I have a dietary issue with some alliums. It was handled similar to your experience with Celebrity - choosing appetizer(s) and entree the night before so they could adapt them. (I didn't pre-select dessert because my food issue doesn't appear in desserts.)

We booked a 9 June cruise a bit over a month ahead. Initially, I booked an ocean view guarantee. Then, 6 May, the balcony guarantee went down to about $200 pp more than my OV fare. It took me too long to decide and the balcony guarantee was gone when I tried. So then I started checking every day or two. On 23 May, the balcony guarantee was back at an even lower price - just over $100 more pp than my OV. I jumped on it. In between, there were times when balcony cabins showed as sold out. There must be some fluctuation in cabin availability due to Royal up bids being accepted and people upgrading outright. But also, sometimes there were cabins available but no guarantee rate and then the rate would come back. You might as well watch the cruise to see if the guarantee comes back. That is probably true for booking a specific cabin because that cabin either is or isn't booked already. But offering a guarantee room is a marketing decision. There were times on my cruise when there were balcony cabins available but no balcony guarantee offered. The same applied to ocean view guarantee. Guarantee cabin availability can come and go depending on how much Royal wants to push selling those cabins. In my case, this was happening within 30 days of sailing when there is no refund for cancellation.

I was worried about MTD but it worked out fine. The first night 7:30 was the earliest available (we wanted earlier). Also, we hated tge table we got - an eight seat oval for the six of us too close to the next table so we were spread out on one side and the two ends. After the meal, I told the reservation person the issue and were booked in a six seater at 6:30 for the rest of the cruise. That worked fine for us.

Yes, Radiance of the Seas, debarked yesterday.

I have a less common food sensitivity and they were very good about it. Each night the head waiter would bring the menu for me to choose for the next night. They were always willing to make what I needed. It worked out better with some dishes than others. E.g. sometimes n es they would just leave the topping off and the dish would be kind of dull. Other times, they would improvise an alternative topping and it would be good. Some in our party were vegetarian and one of the children was disappointed to see a meat lasagna on the menu with no vegetarian version. The head waiter said he would check on what they could do. The next night, there was a very nice vegetarian lasagna for all in our party who wanted it. For what it's worth, I found the food to be lightly salted.

We did a trip some years ago where we flew into Victoria (YYJ). We took a helicopter to Vancouver to board our cruise. The helicopters and float planes land right in Victoria and downtown Vancouver very near the cruise terminal. The downside for some would be that both have baggage weight limits. For Helijet, it is two pieces per person totalling no more than 50 lbs. For the float planes it was way less unless you paid a lot extra. 50 pounds worked for what we usually travel with. We were also told that the helicopter fleet has better instrumentation so they can fly in low visibility weather where the float planes have to cancel flights. I don't know if that is still the case.