ExilePA

5 hours ago, Northern Aurora said:

 

 

 

I don't know the name of the vendor.  I've googled ISP whale watching vendors to look at photos of the vessels used by various operators, and don't see a photo of what I thought was one of their boats (there were at least two as they used two boats for our time slot).  Both vessels had Tlingit names and the company logo had form line and ovoid components typical of SE art.

 

There were three time slots that day and we selected the second one.  As the folks who on the first run out to the inlet were returning they were telling us it was amazing.  We we were heading out the captain told us he wasn't going to pause for just one or two whales, and took us directly to the bubble feeding group.  The vendor clearly found that pod of whales on the first run of the day.

 

Wish I could be more helpful.

No worries, you did more than you had to!   Just one more question -- About how many people would've been on the boat do you think if it had been full capacity?   Trying to find something with no more than 15-20 so we can not feel crowded and enjoy the experience.  Thanks!

On 12/14/2021 at 8:21 PM, Northern Aurora said:

We were in ISP twice in September as we were on B2B cruises.  On the September 17th sailing we had $1200 in non-refundable OBC (and also some refundable OBC).  With that much non-obc we did several ship excursions.  

 

One of the excursions was a whale watching excursion out of ISP.  All I can say is that it was simply amazing.  We did the second trip of the day and experienced ninety (yes folks -- 90) minutes of bubble feeding with breaching including a pair of whales breaching together -- quite the synchronized swimming! Two ships were used so they were not totally full.  Acquaintances who were on the other ship told us that they were told that there is a resident pod in the area.  If that is true folks might want to consider not booking the first trip of the day as the boat captains clearly knew exactly where to go as they had earlier found the pod.

 

The loading dock for the whale watching excursion was right beside the dock.  Two boats were used, and they were both catamarans.  So it was a fast and smooth run out to the whale watching area.  While we have been to ISP several times, and have seen whales both from the ship and shore, this was simply incredible.  I told my husband we will never be able to take a whale watching excursion again as nothing will match what we experienced that day.

Do you by chance remember the excursion name (if it was with RC) or the name of the vendor that provided that excursion?  We have some OBC to use as well and wanted to use it for booking this type of excursion beforehand.  Thanks!

Good evening all!   I have a question for those that my have used the Royal Caribbean train transfer from Anchorage to Seward.

For the most recent season -- We're the train cars on the train chartered by Royal Caribbean the dome style with observation for all passengers?  I have seen conflicting reports from past year where some said they were all dome cars and others saying they were not.  Trying to find a good answer on this one as it will determine if we book our family through Royal or if we maybe opt for the Gold service directly through Alaskan Railroad.

Alright, so a couple of data points for everyone that replied or for people that may find this thread.

Got back few days ago from a Carnival cruise. The self help kiosks for loading gift cards were not working on this ship as they had been on Breeze a few months back. No biggie, had to instead go to guest services to load the gift cards. No limit of "3 per day" as I had read in threads past. I loaded over $4.5k worth of gift cards to my account over the course of 7 days for sole purpose of cashing out in casino.

To start out I loaded $1k. Took about 4-5 spins, won $10 and cashed out. Was warned by the cashier that my card would be blocked from EFT if I did this activity again and said I needed actually play. Cashier didn't give a certain number of spins or how much I needed to play, but I heeded this advice.

Over the course of the rest of the cruise I slowly played 5-10 spins here and there and only loaded $500 through EFT at a time. By the end I had slowly loaded and cashed out over $4k worth of gift cards for cash. After all of my spins I wound up $2 ahead, not bad!

Bottom line, it can be done. They know what you're doing, the computer tells them. Just be smart and space out your plays and don't be in a hurry to cash out.

Many of the card issuers are really clamping down on “gaming” or “churning” and manufactured spend and most have language that states that gift cards and other cash equivalents won’t count as eligible purchases to trigger the minimum spend bonus. Some issuers will even shut your account down. Maybe not likely, but there are data points out there showing it can happen.

 

This is why the ship casino is such a good play, its basically a cash equivalent because Carnival will bill the entire sign and sail and does not provide level 2 or level 3 data to the card companies. You charge your whole sign and sail, carry off the cash from the casino and pay the bill. Easy peasy. The 10% gift cards would be sweet if they work, but I personally wouldn’t gamble a signup bonus on it.

 

This is great to know about the level 3 info. Thankfully it's not an AmEx card, they are the ones really clamping down on the gift cards not counting for bonuses. I also think I'd be okay as the gift cards from AARP would be Carnival and not Visa GCs which is what they key in on. I'm mainly trying to MS the $5k without having to pay fees for Visa GCs and then coverting to MOs.

The main thing that has me concerned is the amount they limit you to load to your account. Seems to conflicting information some people say you can only load 3 before they have to call the mother ship and others say that John Heald has said this is not the case. I was on the Magic a few months ago and loaded 4 GCs to my sail and sing at the kiosk just fine. So....not sure is this something very recently new?

Oh wow, seems to be some interest on this topic! I do quite a bit of MS-ing and just happened to realize I had this cruise coming up along with having a new card with a $5k spend to hit the bonus. What is this 3% I see mentioned earlier in the thread?

Does anyone know if there is a limit to the amount of cash you're allowed to cash out from the casino?

I have a credit card that has a minimum spend of $5k to hit a big sign-up bonus. My thought process was that I would purchase a bunch of gift cards from AARP before leaving.

I would load the cards to my S&S account over the length of the cruise, load to player's club balance and then cash out in casino.

Thoughts? Flaws in my logic? I'm thinking if I do $1k at at a time with a few slot pulls here and there it won't raise any flags?

Good evening all!

Family and I are looking to sail NCL for the first time in July 2019, possibly aboard the bliss.

This would be our first time sailing NCL, but not for Alaska. We are drawn to the ship/itinerary mainly for Glacier Bay. I thought Bliss is a much too big ship to sail into GB, is this not the case? Last sailed Alaska 3 years ago on Royal Caribbean and saw Dawe's Glacier due to Tracy being too icey. Would this happen with GB as well?

Also, as first timer to NCL, what big differences would we see having only sailed RC and Carnival previously?

Thanks in advance!

Anyone know how often they restock or if it's certain days/times?

Does anyone know if there will be other private tour operators outside of the cruise line's that will offer the stingray excursions? Looking for a more private experience than the masses of people. Thanks!

Just boarded Liberty today and can confirm the new menu with charge is in place.

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I'm going to try buying a drink package for upcoming Cruise with this offer and see what happens. Worst case I cancel the package and get refund!

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We thought he and his wife are very well suited for of alaskan cruise last summer. I don't know how well he'd work with a Caribbean crowd though.

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If only Royal would follow the Carnival lead on the bottled water as well. I have to say, John Heald's Facebook presence had lead to some nice changes. I'm surprised RC hasn't done the same with social media.

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We got off with the first group of luggage tags this past week and were sitting at the southwest gate by 8:35

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So, if I'm understanding this right, OBC from RC can be cashed out at the casino minus the 5%?

We sailed on Navigator on March 5 and were successful with water. I taped a "luggage tag" to the top of the case of water and left it with the luggage at the pier. It arrived in our room with our luggage.

Thanks, we'll give it a shot. Worst case, we're out $4-$5 if it doesn't make it.

Yes, another "bringing bottled water question"

With it being spring break, we're leaving out of Port Everglades this coming weekend and am wondering has anyone had success bringing bottled water on the past few weeks? We normally just tape up the case and put a luggage tag on it. Is this method still good the past few weeks at Port Everglades? We've never has issue in the past but some have said they crack down during spring break season. Thanks in advance!

I will be trying the Netgear N300 next week. We needed a range extender for our house anyway so I bought this one and will try it on the ship.

Any luck with the Netgear N300?

Thanks!

Hi, why do I need a clonable MAC Adress? As another person wrote, HooToo device is working without the ability to do this. Anyone know? Thanks.

 

Gesendet von meinem D5803 mit Tapatalk

Were there any config changes you needed to make to the hootoo or did you just hook it up and go? Does the HooToo have an interface that you put your login information in to allow you to connect to the WiFi? Did you have any issues with more than on device at a time going through the HooToo?

I'll be going on Allure in a few weeks and am wondering if any travel routers will work with Voom.

I'm guessing part of the issue may be the Voom infrastructure as well. I can't imagine they're ready to add another 10, 000 or so users overnight.

That's so bizarre. Normally I wouldn't buy it this early. But with 3 kids, that's almost a $12 per day difference.

Is your Indy cruise a 7 day?

Not until next year. Indy 2/20/2017. It's coming up as $5.50 for kids and $8 for adults including gratuity.

Interesting, our Allure cruise for August is showing the full price of $9 something for both adults and kids. Just a little jealous lol

I just went ahead and paid for the kids soda package. It came to $5.5 including gratuity. I really don't understand how they can have different prices for different cruises.

Which ship and sailing were you still seeing the $5.50 for kids prices? I thought almost all had risen the price of children to match adults.

Yes, Thom! And if SOMEONE ELSE actually went through a different security line than SOMEONE, it would truly be a rare miracle if security bothered to connect SOMEONE with SOMEONE ELSE. Yes, I know this from experience. More than one experience. In more than one embarkation port.

 

Okay, I confess. I am a dedicated, though quite functional, wino. It's the 5th food group and I can't help it if I like having all 5 food groups at dinner. DH is the same. There are no more wine packages for us to buy aboard now. Our Platinum wine list is a thing of the past. (Sob! Things change, so you gotta do what you gotta do.) We each bring 2 bottles of wine, we each carry a copy of the set sail paperwork, and we go through separate security lines when we enter the terminal. Once he was asked where his wife was (it's on the set sail paper) and he said (channeling his redneck personna:eek:) that she had to go park the car and she'd be along later. The guy gave him a truly dirty look and sent him on. I've never been asked anything and I never got any dirty looks.:p

 

BUT there's a weird little wrinkle in Texas. If you sail from Galveston, when they see 2 bottles of wine in your carry-on bag, they tell you to take your bag and go to the wine table. I think maybe the people at the wine table are supposed to check your wine to ensure it hasn't been opened??? Or make sure it's really wine??? (But it's Texas, so you never know - maybe there's a Texas tax on it or something???) Anyway, the funny thing is...although we've both turned in the direction indicated by the screener, and we walked that way, neither of us was ever able to FiND the wine table in Galveston. Twice! There was a mob of people milling around, and no wine table that was obvious. Okay, so maybe we didn't really look that hard. Silly people that we are, we just gave up, blew it off, and proceeded on to the check-in counter. So we don't know what you have to do at the wine table in Galveston.

 

So...like they said in the 'Unsinkable Molly Brown', "only drink when you're all alone or with somebody else." I agree with Thom. I see hidden symbolism in this Molly Brown quote and take it to mean that SOMEONE and SOMEONE ELSE could each bring 2 bottles of wine and take their bags through different X-ray machine lines.:p

Judy

We did the same in Seattle! Security said go the wine table, headed that direction saw a long line and proceeded to check in. Not a word was said.