joally

A big thank you for all your efforts!  We are on the next one heading to the same destinations. 

6 hours ago, Qextor said:

I read in a post one couple who said they could use iMessage without the Voom package, just the ship's wifi (no internet of course, just iMessage).  Is anybody currently onboard willing to try this out?

I noticed this occasionally on our January Explorer OTS cruise. It worked most just after sailaway from each port. Then it was definitely turned off. I could even iMessage friends not on the ship during those times without buying Voom. (And it wasn't data, because it was on my iPad, which doesn't have data.) Not frequent enough to rely on, for sure. 
 

And the $2/day Royal App chat feature isn't set up correctly in the Apple App Store as a "direct messaging" app, so you won't get notifications unless the app is open. So it was useless. 

It’s 10 days isolation and then another 7 days quarantine after that for any companions. They don’t follow CDC. 

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I was confused because of that 2 hr. rule for embarkation day. We’ll aim for 45 min. beforehand on our short Juneau day, since the rental car place is only 10 min. away and we signed up for their loyalty program allowing us express service. 

Norwegian shows us in Juneau from 7am to 1:15 pm. The rental car place doesn’t open until 8. I have read that we must return to the ship 2 hrs before departure. Does that mean we have to be back by 11:15?  That’s only a 3 hour visit on a pricy car rental. 

10 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

When we were on NCL Gem our friend would always order a glass of water with a lemon in it and they provided it with a smile. But as stated if you want to sit there you certainly may.

Ooh, that sounds perfect. Did someone else at the table order a paid drink?  I just don’t want to be embarrassed. 

Thanks for the trip report!  I’m saving your tips. 😊

On 6/26/2019 at 7:09 PM, SightCRR said:

Tom's Port guides are great. Here is the one from Ketch. 

https://www.tomsportguides.com/uploads/5/8/5/4/58547429/ketchikan-02-26-2014.pdf

 

Sightcrr

This is a wonderful resource. Do you happen to have links for his other Alaska ports?  I checked tomsportguides.com and was not able to find Alaska. 

If My husband and I want to hang out and listen to musicians at the various bar venues, can we order a free iced tea or just sit at a table and neither of us order anything? (We are taking the Norwegian Jewel.). Thanks in advance. 

I saved maps from all the ports’ town websites as a pdf to my phone’s offline files. Here’s the one for Ketchikan. 

AK ketchikan_maps_downtown_2016.pdf

12 hours ago, pbenjamin said:

For the 5/27 sailing of the Jewel from Seward the muster drill was at 5:30 with a makeup drill at 8:30. 

This makes sense, because that first night only has dining reservations starting at 6:30 instead of 5:30. 

I would bet the changes are related to TripAdvisor’s changes to become more Facebook-like and relationship-based (following Friends, etc.). I think their hope is to become more trustworthy and eliminate rankings being skewed due to fake reviews by businesses. 

I’m new to CruiseCritic because I’m a heavy user of TripAdvisor forums and when I clicked on their cruises forum it opened CruiseCritic’s forum. (So it’s all owned by the same entity, which I believe is Expedia.)

I see a heart at the top right for my saved topics, but don’t see that saving a topic is possible. It seems that the new post-liking heart icon is unrelated. I have tons of old saved posts in TripAdvisor forums and they’re still there, but I can’t see the old heart icon to save new ones now. Bummer!