wondertwinsmom

19 minutes ago, riansgrammy said:

Just a couple of other comments…

The crew was fantastic all week. The cruise director and staff were hysterical. It felt so good to laugh!!! 
 

Upon arriving, I was one of those flagged for the blue lane. Just a minor glitch. I didn’t have a credit card attached to my account. *gasp*. I also had a minor glitch with my medallion. It took <5 min to correct it. Overall, we liked the medallion. 
 

I thought the quality of the food in the buffet better than in the past. Except for the soupy scrambled eggs. The variety was understandably lacking but I get that. Alfredos and the noodle bar are good. We enjoy the crown grill on every cruise. 
 

We always recommend Alaska to anyone interested in taking a cruise. 
 

@wondertwinsmomit was great to meet you!

@CruzinNoony I enjoyed seeing you two again. Safe travels. 

Sooo great meeting you guys too!  Hopefully our paths will cross again one day. I looked for you at debarkation to see if you would send me your bear video. Could you possibly email it to me or something?

11 hours ago, coastcat said:

Hey, next door neighbor! I was in E425, the obstructed balcony with a total lack of obstruction:

 

 

Hello!  Exactly!! Such a great deal to pay the obstructed price for that view 😊 We received your airport transfer voucher by mistake and took it to guest services to make sure it found its way to you… We should have just knocked on the door and brought it over 😉😂

10 hours ago, muffin said:

We are in E 421 for the Mexican riviera this spring! Fun to see it in person even if it is one of hundreds exactly the same!  Following these trips is almost as good as bein* there. How much to rent the bikes?  Thx for all your comments.

The bikes were $25 for 1 hr, $40 for 2 hrs and $55 for 3 hrs 

In a town the size of Skagway, you can cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time.

Enjoy the room this spring-you will love it!

Well naturally we are sitting on the plane with a delay, so I just thought I would throw out one suggestion if anyone is looking for something interesting and reasonable to do in Skagway…. Rent electric bikes from Klondike Electric Bicycles. It was probably the most fun thing we did!!  (We did 3 hrs but you can do any amount of time). We rode out Dyea rd, to the Gold Rush cemetery and to the Yakutania Point trail. They’re SO fun and easy to ride and the owners are the sweetest people ever.

Sorry - can you tell we had a good time?!

14 minutes ago, XBGuy said:

First ever cruise, @wondertwinsmom?  That's terrific.  I am glad to hear that you had a great time.  Your husband is a clear-thinking man--always go for King Crab in at least one of the ports.  OK, Dungeness is darned good, also.

 

Thank you for your reports.

 

Of course you realize that by picking Alaska first, all your future cruises will pale by comparison.

 

NOT!!!!!

 

The worst cruise I ever took was wonderful.

 

 

 

I think there will definitely be more in our future!

37 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

Thank you for the great photos! Have a safe trip home!

Thank you! I will continue to follow the last few a Alaska cruises so hopefully they will post more pictures as well!

Living the life in E421, and our ship as it came in to port this morning! (posted by another CC user.)

Okay, getting on my plane home now so I’m done! 😂😂

The very prepared rescue team in action. So thankful it was a false alarm!

A beautiful but foggy Marjorie Glacier from the deck and then from our balcony

Those famous crab legs, and the prettiest parking spot in Alaska! (Skagway)

Sunrise on the way there, and sunset on the way back!

Okay here is the rest of my re-cap from a first time cruiser. The ship is beautiful and massive- explore every nook and cranny of it! The location of our room was fantastic (E421), it was only a couple of floors from most of the venues (we always take the stairs) and pretty much mid-ship so movement wasn’t bad. It was also pretty close to the rescue boat so we had a Birdseye view of the way they handle a man overboard report. The captain and crew did a great job of that by the way, everyone I encountered was calm and orderly and we all made it to our muster stations and back without anyone panicking. Not the kind of excitement that you want on your vacation but it’s good to know that they have a plan in place when needed.

every single staff member we encounter was fantastic. They all seem genuinely grateful and happy to be back and it shows. I know there are mixed feelings about the medallions but we love them! Having your door unlocked before you get there is a great and we used it  to order food and drinks ALL OVER that ship (even to the meet and greet :), and only had a problem with it finding us in a timely manner once. Also, the crew chat feature is a great way to get any question you have answered without having to go to the guest service desk, Definitely use it!  I was so glad that we went to the cc meet and greet. It was really cool to get to meet some of the officers and because of that, both the cruise director and the captain each remembered us and stopped us in the hallways at different times just to say hello and see how things were going for our first cruise. Food and entertainment were both good but I have to say that our favorite things to do were to go to the game shows in the princess live theater and to the Vista lounge later at night and listen to Ocean Boulevard - they really need to be advertised more on the ship. It’s also very entertaining to watch the people dancing in there, some of them are really quite good!  Our last day at sea was fantastic with beautiful sunny skies and warm temperatures, it definitely made up for the times that were rainy and dreary. This has turned into a bit of a novel so I will stop now but feel free to ask any questions if you have any and have a wonderful trip!!

I had major issues trying to post anything onboard (seemed to be just with CC, the internet in general was okay).  But here is what I had written and then copied on Juneau day.  The rest of the trip I’ll do in a separate post:

Juneau day started out dry and hopeful but quickly turned wet and stayed wet. Before the rain started we made our way into town and my hubby checked “having King Crab Legs in Alaska” off his bucket list.  He said they were delicious, and at $65 a pound I should hope so! LOL

Afterwards we left for our combo Mendenhall glacier/ whale watching tour.  We saw at least 6 whales and a couple of them got VERY close to our small 20 passenger boat. Our guide said he could count on one hand the number of times he had been that close to a whale! Finally it was time to go back to the ship, warm up and dry off. Dinner in Concerto was very good and we were seated by a window with a terrific waiter. Afterwards we went to the Vista lounge and listened to Ocean Blvd play until bedtime 🙂

On 9/4/2021 at 5:32 PM, farsight said:

Thanks, I really appreciate your response! I don't drink alcohol, but that doesn't mean I don't want a little pzazz in my life. 🙂

I'll see if I can get them to go heavy on the jalapeno at the bar.

I’ve had this twice on the current cruise.  It’s really interesting and has quite a kick!

Here now!

Wrote this yesterday but couldn’t get it to post:

I didn’t realize someone in our group had started a live thread- kudos Musky Ike!

We are onboard and this is our 1st ever cruise so I can give you the no frills, no perks view of things. 😂

Like others, we arrived about 30 min earlier than our 11:30 boarding group time, and we were able to go right in.

I love that they are still clapping you through the doors and I was ready with video since I’d seen other’s videos of it.

The meet and greet was great this morning. The captain and several other crew came and were so friendly and welcoming. Cruise director Kevin and assistant general hotel manger Miguel were great and stayed after the others needed to go, and chatted with us for awhile.

We’ve had no problems with the medallion or the app. I’ve used the crew chat feature with great results, and we’ve ordered food and drinks all over the ship and they always find us rather quickly- even ordered a drink delivered to the meet and greet. 🙂 

We did get the ticket for someone else’s transfer to the airport in our room so I need to get that resolved tomorrow.

Overall it’s going fantastic and I can’t wait for Juneau tomorrow!

32 minutes ago, JF - retired RRT said:

You can book them on the ship IF someone cancels. Usually, when the excursion is "closed" it means that it's sold out. You can request to be put on the wait list. We got on a sold out excursion by getting on the wait list.

OK thank you! Sounds like we better make that one of our first stops to either purchase or get on the waitlist then. I actually think the one we were interested in did not have anyone signed up for it because all of the times that were listed said 20 spots available. So maybe they were just removing it as an option if no one signed up. Either way, I will check into it. It was the Summit van tour in Skagway.

3 minutes ago, KLM3164 said:

You can book them on the ship. You can also make changes to your excursions on the ship. We had 2 booked for today but decided we didn’t want to do our 2nd one this afternoon so we canceled it when we got on the ship.

Okay great! Thank you so much!

I have what might be a dumb question ( complete newbie here), I went online to book a last-minute excursion last night and a little red tab at the top said “closed”.

are you able to book excursions after you get on the ship, or are you just out of luck if you didn’t book it in advance?

1 hour ago, KLM3164 said:

More photos from Glacier Bay today. This is Lamplugh Glacier.

It looks like maybe it cleared slightly from the first pictures posted? I will be so excited to be there no matter what the weather! Thanks so much for sharing 🙂

10 minutes ago, KLM3164 said:

It’s a gray day in Glacier Bay and although we have a light drizzle it doesn’t feel that cold to me. I did finally wear my down jacket for the first time on the cruise.

So sad to see your blue skies didn’t hold out for Glacier Bay Day, but hey 2 out of 3 ant bad! Lol

5 hours ago, Trvlingal said:

Is this something you are offered  once on the ship?  And if you have free baggage privilege with your carrier the service is free?  Where do you sign up?  Thanks.

Here is the link to the website:

https://www.portseattle.org/page/port-valet-enjoy-seattle-luggage-free
You can either sign up there ahead of time or on the ship.  We are on next week’s cruise and I signed up last night. There is a box to check near the end of the sign up, if you get free baggage with the airline and an info box for you to explain why. I included my frequent flyer number in that box as well so it could be verified.

6 hours ago, ilovebananas said:

Are the karaoke suites still closed? Or any info about them would be appreciated!

I was just thinking about that the other day.  I kind of understood there being no.karaoke in the beginning before they started requiring tests and masks. But since those protocols are now in place as it seems that restrictions on things like karaoke and the behind-the-scenes ship tours should be allowed now.

11 minutes ago, KLM3164 said:

Docking in Juneau!

That’s the most beautiful looking Juneau   weather I’ve seen it yet! Hopefully the good Lord sees fit to give us the same next week! 😃🤞Enjoy!!

24 minutes ago, KLM3164 said:

We saw him 2 nights in a row and both shows had different material. 

Great thank you!