haolenate

May 8th is quite early in Seward for the larger operators - NCL may not have any excursions, but the local operators might. Check out Alaskaexcursions.net as they have a handful of Seward excursions. Regarding the train, GTJ nailed it on the head. *IF* the cruise line offers a cruisetrain, it will depart from the cruise terminal and take you straight to Anchorage - the price is anywhere from $129 to $169. The Alaska Railroad only has a limited number of "single dome" railcars - as these are used primarily for the private charters, with sometimes the older classic coaches used when the cruise line needs more capacity. You can ONLY buy seats on this train thru your cruise line/travel agent. The Alaska Railroad *public* train is only once a day, and offers 2 classes of service - Adventure or Goldstar. The cruise lines don't typically offer transfers on the public trains.

The numbers decrease to the RIGHT - walking towards lagoon (going EAST). Cabanas are only per DAY. Divina came in at 130PM the day before and we didn't try to use it, the guests services guy said only 1 was rented though. Seems like a waste for only a few hours. Cabanas go all the way around the lagoon.

We arrived at 2PM and had 1.5 days there, so we took note of the cabanas and their locations. I'm glad we did, because people moved lounger chairs near the cabanas on the beach and I'm guessing it was not the same experience we had. I was hoping the cabanas would be setup like Norwegian, but they aren't. Still a *fantastic* value though!

Seems like a very bad experience for you - especially if it takes you THAT long to reach your travel agent. I wish I could help - in the States, MSC has made a "wall" between them and Italy, and we have a good relationship with the US team and things tend to be a bit more smoother. But I can tell you the amount of bureaucratic vomit MSC makes us go thru isn't pleasant. I wish I could give you more advice, but knowing 1. Germans over-engineer everything and love their processes and 2. the Italian office tends to work on "their" time --- it may be a bit before you see anything. And fwiw, I'm still waiting, 5 months, for a promised refund from Holland America from issues in August.

they make you get back onboard by 1130PM.

Payments with MSC are *very* manual (I'm a travel agent) - so I'm guessing any refunds are probably the same way. @Fitzget - next time, do NOT tell the cruise line a cabin mate isn't going. Let them appear as a no-show. What happened was, whoever handled your booking (assuming NOT a travel agent, we know better), cancelled the other person and redid your friends booking as a SOLO. $75 sounds like the 20% solo supplement charge.

should be $28 to $33 each way for Ft Lauderdale.

Ask for cabana 29 and higher. The others are right smack in the middle of the big crowds at the beach. 28 is the one right in front of the buffet, lower numbers to the RIGHT, higher to the LEFT.

1st time going to Belize City on a cruise - been there a million times (well, almost) as an independent traveler and 3 or 4 times at Harvest Caye with Norwegian. Just wondering how the tender process was at Belize - I know the ships drop anchor about 2 miles off shore and everyone gets tendered in. Any ideas on how long it took, and how long before departure time the last tender is? I'm looking at chartering a plane with Tropic Air to take us to Caye Caulker.... Thanks!

Hey friends, Just wanted to chime in on a lil 'secret' that's not very well published or talked about anywhere else. BRIGHTLINE has *FREE* shuttles from their stations (Miami, Ft Laud) to their respective cruise ports. AND, you can prepurchase parking at the Brightline garages for $7/day. Granted, the free shuttles are only TO the port, taxi's back aren't that bad. I just did this a few weeks ago on Divina in Miami, and the taxi was about $14 and took all of 5 minutes. The free shuttles are a very nice treat, and its great to not have to deal with the turnpike or I-95 for those of us in Florida (I'm a partial resident.. commute between Alaska & Florida)

(travel agent here) I've spent some time with the MSC staff based in Pompano Beach, FL and they're working on getting the "mothership" to make changes for the US-departures, and the Embarkation time is one of them. You can totally ignore it. Just be at the port at least 3 hours prior to set-sail. They like to leave early. This isn't like Norwegian where you can chance it and show up 90 minutes before (whistles...).

Travel agent chiming in here (and one that's good friends with my MSC US rep): Most of MSC's documents are still all based on the European clientele and they're still fairly new to marketing to US-based cruisers (and yes, some changes are coming to the US ships which most of you will like - mostly all soft-product type changes). While YES, its true - you should NOT travel without a passport on these cruises - you will be fine with a birth certificate and Enhanced Drivers License (EDL). I personally don't and won't sell a cruise to anyone without a passport - too much can go wrong, and if you get stuck somewhere WITHOUT a passport (eg: Belize, Dominican Republic, etc) - you are held in a customs bonded facility (think jail without the bars) until another MSC ship comes along that can repatriate you. And its at YOUR expense. You can NOT fly to the US without a passport, no ands ifs or buts. The consulate won't help you (now, lost or stolen passport is a different ballgame).

Anyone know the temperature of MSC in Miami if we want to board AFTER our allotted check-in time? I'm just getting ready to hop the train to Miami and would rather take care of some business at the lounge @ the train station before heading over to the port (on Brightline). We leave Miami at 7PM, but my embarkation time is 1:00PM. Phone support said that check-in is cut off at 4:30PM. Does that mean I can leisurely make my way over to the terminal *like other cruise lines?

I really really should have known better than to spend a few hundred bucks @ the spa and be told "oh, we don't have this on board, it will be delivered". That was on July 30th. November 13th and still nothing - I sent e-mails off to 3 Carnival e-mail addresses, and everyone is telling me to contact the other one. (tradesupport, guestcare, timetospa). Has anyone else had problems getting your items ordered? It really shouldn't take 3 months (and sadly, I've found the items I ordered on eBay for significantly less...) I've got my chargeback form filled out and ready to shoot off for the entire Sail & Sign amount... knowing how backed up Carnival is, they won't dispute it in time.

Sorry I've been away, its conference and convention season - sadly not over, have one left (CruiseWorld) and then I can take a break (and a cruise!) Few notes: this project was under Howard Sherman, not Frank Del Rio. But they liked Howard's work enough that he's now the head honcho of the Oceania division. And yes, this *is* a software SAAS that runs on top of NCL's booking system, same as the airlines PSS systems. They are all independent databases and are separate for security reasons and also credit card data & storage (PCI). Thank the Germans for that one. The system has a HUGE variety of algorithms to run based on input from NCL and how its designed, and a human in Miami (well, humans) at the corporate office sets the different parameters for the cruise (eg: the SKY may run Profile "B" while GETAWAY is on Profile "D", Pr1ma is on "A", etc. and it can change for each cruising date as well, depending on what they are getting). Julig22 - seems you get what I was trying to state earlier. The system takes into account your OWN cabin, and its current bid value, and the options you are moving into, in order to get the most revenue for NCL. There's also algorithms that CAN and DO include your Latitudes Status, onboard spend history (passenger score), and what you paid for your cabin. If the system was merely taking a bid for an upgrade and processing it, almost any computer programmer can design that. But there's a reason our friends in Montreal have had such great success with this in the airline business (and I've oversaw the implementation of it with one). Each company has its own business rules and how its to be ran; Plus just offers the software and training, but the airlines (or cruiselines, in this case) is the one driving it.