bundtkate

I do not get motion sickness, but used to suffer from chronic nausea and found the Relief Band helped to a degree. It would not eliminate the problem, but it would provide enough relief I could fall asleep. It did not help enough I'd have been able to enjoy a cruise, but different ailments respond differently to various interventions so your wife's experience may be very different from my own. One thing I will mention is that positioning matters. If it's in the right spot, it almost feels like your whole hand is vibrating, which may be bothersome long term. If your wife chooses to try it, I'd give it a go before going on the cruise to make sure that won't bother her. If it does, she'll have time to change plans. Also, FWIW, it was recommended to me by my gastroenterologist who was a researcher at teaching hospital in Kansas City so I presume there is some scientific merit to the gadget. He said Sea Bands didn't work because they only provided pressure on the relevant nerve and that the electrical stimulation provided by the Relief Band was different. I'm far from qualified to debate that, but it worked well enough for me that I feel comfortable saying it's worth a try.

While you can't iMessage an Android user, you can most certainly text them just fine on WiFi. The key is to use MMS (needs a data or wifi connection) instead of SMS (requires a cellular connection). Admittedly, Apple makes this hard to do because they want everyone using iMessage so I always recommend Signal or, if you must, WhatsApp. Since the latter is owned by the data mining blue F site, it's not ideal but it's easier for many and better than nothing. As a bonus, you can place calls on a data connection over either of these apps as well!

Thank you and here's hoping! 🤞 I've heard the stories about Canada Place so I'm sure at least one shorter line would be a blessing.

Do you know if Americans with Global Entry can use this line, by chance? I started traveling to Canada for work fairly often and know we get to use the Nexus lines at airports when returning to the U.S. Curious if the cruise would be the same since technically, we're getting cleared to go to the U.S. in that case too ..

I haven't tried Celebrity yet, but the only cruise line I've found to make acceptable coffee outside the suite areas is MSC and even then it depends on who makes it. Haven coffee on NCL was acceptable, but their cappuccinos were far too hot and had more milk that I'd choose. Even Viking River's coffee was mid at best. I've also never seen a proper tamp on a cruise ship. They have those tampers attached to the machine which is just wrong. You can't possibly tamp with adequate pressure if you're pushing up onto a fixed place tamper. You gotta put it on the counter and put your shoulder into it a bit. But, hey, Celebrity may well be the one that breaks the mold. As a fellow snob going on Apex next year, I'll be keenly interested in your thoughts if you try it out. At home, I have a Breville Barista Express which is actually doing me dirty right now and hasn't pulled a decent shot in a few weeks, but we're working on getting our groove back. I also worked as a barista at an indie coffee shop in the midwest throughout college and law school so after 7 years of free espressos made from beans roasted on site that day, there's simply no hope for me on a cruise. I've found I do best either bringing along an Aeropress with some pre-ground (desperate times ...) vacuum sealed beans or embracing my inner basic millennial and drinking lattes that taste less like coffee and more like dessert.

Ah, thank you both (edit: I mean all 3 of y'all!)! I guess that's what I get for looking at the individual deck images on HAL's site and assuming they'd include all the info the PDF does. Looks like ours is a double! Victory!

Hijacking a bit (sorry, OP!), but how can you tell which cabins are quads/triples after booking? I'm used to this being noted on deck plans, but I'm not seeing it for the Koningsdam and I very carefully chose our stateroom location so an unexpected change would be disappointing.

I can totally do that, but since I'm not sailing until June, I can't say whether or not I'd actually recommend these folks at this stage. I ended up booking through Alaska Shore Excursions. They have a number of helicopter tours and I went with one through Coastal Helicopters that lands on Herbert glacier instead of Mendenhall, basically because the timing and price were right. Since then, I've read that Herbert is a little farther away and thus a less popular choice so it could be nice for less crowding on the glacier and more scenery from the air, but maybe worse because the ride takes longer so less time actually on the glacier. We'll see, I guess!

I'm on Koningsdam so maybe a bit different, but HAL wouldn't let me book a 3:15pm glacier landing and said it conflicted. By my math, I think the Tracey Arm excursion should arrive back in Juneau around 3, but HAL seems to want a bigger buffer than 15 minutes (which is fair). I ended up booking third party because HAL had no available landings leaving after 3:15pm at the time I booked. Assuming that you want to book through HAL, don't waffle and book early. There were landings leaving at 4 and 4:30 at least. I just missed out even though I was still 5 months out. When they say Alaska excursions go early, they mean it! 😅

Ah, that would explain it! I have to agree with @HeddaGarbled that things should always be this way. The crew work hard and gratuities should be part of the cost of cruising so it's nice to see it actually works that way in some places. Thanks so much for the help, y'all!

My husband and I are going on our first X cruise next year sailing out of Southampton. I noticed that the beverage packages have a higher limit for UK and Australia sailings (e.g. up to $17 for premium out of the US, but up to $20 out of the UK). I'm wondering how this impacts the value of the beverage package for our sailing. Does the package cover more when sailing out of the UK, or are drinks simply more expensive on UK sailings thus the higher limit is meant to ensure the same drinks are covered regardless? I've struggled to find any bar menus specific to the UK so I'm inclined to believe they're the same and UK sailing simply include more, but that's counter-intuitive given how lines have recently been tightening belts and limiting inclusions so I'd hate to assume.

My husband and I are now a little less than 3 months out from our first HAL cruise and first Alaska cruise. We are 36 and 39, still chose HAL despite claims of "sleepiness", and have found plenty of active excursions to suit our preferences. One I'm particularly excited about is our Skagway excursion taking the White Pass rail up and biking the Klondike highway down. When originally planning, we were also stuck between HAL (Koningsdam) and Princess (Discovery Princess) and, like you, posted on both the HAL and Princess boards to help make a decision. I obviously landed on HAL in the end and these threads may be rather specific to my husband's and my listed preferences, but I found the feedback valuable so hopefully they help you out too. HAL thread is here and Princess here. A few things that lead us to choose HAL (besides itinerary which isn't a factor for you): 1. Smaller ships. HAL can dock in more (and sometimes better) locations. For example, if Skagway has rockslide troubles again, HAL can dock at the smaller unaffected pier, whereas many Princess ships can't. Sapphire maybe can as an older, smaller ship so you might not be too concerned about this. 2. Enclosed pool. Lido pool area can be enclosed in bad/cold weather and I believe the pool is heated allowing use of the pool in unpredictable Alaskan climates. It also provides another comfortable (warm!) viewing area for scenery due to the large windows around the Lido. 3. Price. We wanted reserved outdoor space and on Princess that meant booking a balcony. On HAL, The Retreat allowed us to book an inside and reserve a cabana as our outdoor space for far less than the cost of a balcony. Cabanas also come with the added bonus of a cabana attendant and some extra included food. There are folks here who think I may live to regret this choice due to cold/wind/rain and cabanas not providing adequate shelter. They may be right that I don't get as much use out of them as I'd like should the weather not cooperate, but I expect a balcony wouldn't be any better and it would have been more expensive so I'm not too fussed either way. 4. Shower curtains. I know, it's piddly, but they are so irritating and when you're having difficulty deciding, every con counts for something. No shower curtains on HAL. Hopefully some of this helps and if you're still stuck come June, well, I'll be sure to post our thoughts on HAL.

I just did this in February! Things may have changed, but I got a reduced deposit ($200, I believe?) and $250 OBC for an IV on a 14-day Apex sailing in Summer 2025. You can do this at Next Cruise, but be careful to let them know which fare you want (all inclusive or cruise only) and double-check your invoice that they booked the right thing. I don't think they're used to this fare structure since they mostly deal with Royal so I ended up with cruise only when I asked for AI. I did the math later and ended up deciding this was actually the better bet for us, but if you know you want AI, it's best to confirm you got it before leaving Next Cruise.

Thanks so much for doing this, Kazu. I love seeing the Bon Voyages (even when they're not for me) and it's just such a thoughtful thing to do. 💜 My husband and I will be sailing June 1, 2024 on Koningsdam 7 day Alaska Inside Passage. Not our first cruise, but our first on HAL and first to Alaska so extra exciting nonetheless. 🙂

Funny enough, my flights actually were ticketed. I had requested early ticketing so I could choose seats (AC won't let you pick until you're ticketed) which is why I very much expected to be able to manage this through AC regardless. I was able to look at and pick a different flight from what AC had accommodated me on so I may have been fine had there been one that worked. I just couldn't cancel entirely and unfortunately AC had no flights available that would allow me to make my connection. This very much may be something that only happened because the stars aligned. I did early ticketing. Air Canada has a bit of a reputation amongst my primarily Canadian coworkers so maybe they don't quite do things like the US airlines I'm used to. My itinerary included multiple airlines and the connection I was going to miss with the change was on United so maybe that made things harder. But either way, Air Canada seems to have wanted me to jump through some extra hoops they didn't make me jump through when I canceled an earlier direct booking for the same reason so dealing with all of this was, imo, a bit harder than it had to be.