rj59

In practice Alaska tends to be more casual, because there are usually only two sea days and days in ports can be long. If you go out of Seattle, the ship doesn't get into Victoria until 8 pm the final evening, so most people want to eat and get off the ship. More luggage space is taken up with cold-weather clothing also, so less room for fancy wear. My own practice is to wear Dockers jeans or some other kind that are black or gray, which look like regular pants, so I'm not judged. For Alaska, the first night should be even more casual, since you're sailing out the beautiful Puget Sound or up the inside passage of Vancouver, in summer with long days, so people like me want to be outside enjoying the scenery, not dressing up.

If you're ballroom dancers, I'd recommend Princess, since they often have ballroom dancing in their piazza. Even better is Celebrity, at least older ships with a Sky Lounge, where every evening they have recorded ballroom dancing music. I've seen serious Asian ballroom dancers on most Princess and Celebrity cruises I've been on. Cunard will also have dancing in the ballroom where they do afternoon tea, quite a spectacle on their formal nights. Unfortunately, HAL is build around live music venues and doesn't have a traditional atrium, so there really aren't good venues for dancing.

I've sworn off Celebrity, Royal, Carnival, HAL, Princess, and Cunard, but have always booked them again. My solution to horrible weather? Don't sail across the ocean on long cruises. My solution to embarkation lines and over-capacity ships? I have two cruises booked on HAL Zaandam, with a max of 1400 passengers. My solution to bartenders? Turn down the beverage package for FAS, especially after experience with rude bartenders on Joy and the fury every time I had to wait while they poured from a flat open can of Coke Zero into a glass. After-season shop items? That's when everything goes on clearance sale, so that's the best time to shop. It's unconscionable for NCL not to have Azores hoodies, though, or Transatlantic-themed designer barf bags.

I found when I cleared 2 days before a cruise in January that I never got a boarding pass in the app, and I only saw one online the day before the cruise, so I had the same adventure trying to get into the terminal in San Diego with a basic boarding pass with no boarding time. I also found that they didn't have me in the facial check-in machines, and once I was sent to a counter, they couldn't print out a boarding pass in order to get onto the ship. So total panic on my part, especially when the agent wrote on a sticky 'he's in the system' and told me to show it to ship security. Once I got to the ship, they just looked me up and I went on board and fortunately nobody else was in my $350 signature suite :). You mentioning not seeing your booking caused me some panic, because I saw that mine disappeared last night too and presumed they had canceled me. I just called, and they confirmed that I was canceled and don't have penalties, and they sent me a confirmation. I'm really disappointed that they didn't bother notifying me either way, but it's a lesson learned, to be on the phone at 48 hours, since they're not doing their job by sending the notifications they promise on the standby page. I'm a little bummed I'm not going, since it's supposed to be unseasonably sunny and warm in Ketchikan, but I'll have plenty of other opportunities to enjoy playing the standby lottery--maybe Eurodam this weekend as a start.

I foolishly waited for them to contact me, so now I guess I have to call in the morning. I'm not sure if I want to take the train in the morning, sit with my bag all day in hope of a last-minute no-show, and then face the heartbreak of watching Noordam sail away while I head back for a train home. In any case, I'm on Zaandam on May 29, non-standby, so I'm covered either way, and if I cancel and get my money back I can just try again later in the summer. It definitely is hugely stressful, though, especially if you have to deal with parking, transportation, pet sitters, and HAL not following through on their promise to notify you 2 days in advance either way.

Absolutely no worries. The airport is a 10-minute Uber/Lyft/taxi ride away. I usually do walk-off disembarkation and am off by 7:30, through customs, and walk across the street to take a bus to the airport, and am usually there by 8 (they have facial recognition customs, so no more waiting for agents). If I have a later flight I sometimes walk all the way to the airport. What will hold you back is if you have tons of luggage doing walk-off and wait forever for an elevator to get to the exit floors. Another secret I found is that they announced deck 1 forward as one of the exits, but everybody went to the midship one, so I took the stairs forward down to 1 and there was no line at all, and it probably made the elevator ride quicker. To make it even quicker, you could walk across Harbor Drive and have an Uber/Lyft pick you up heading in the direction of the airport, so you can escape the waiting inside the port area. Or just hop in a taxi right outside.

The program is designed for those who live within driving distance of a port, even if you can get around it, as I did by flying from Seattle to SD the morning I got on standby. You're also gambling there won't be a flight delay, missed connection, or cancellation, 1-2 days notification means an overnight flight and rushing to get on a ship and dealing with jet lag. It would also mean opening them up to Europeans, which would really complicate things. I think demand is so high for Europe/bucket list trips that there are fewer cancellations, with people investing more in airfare, excursions, and the fare itself. HAL also ensures the fullest ships by being able to offer cabins for no-shows up to 90-minutes before sailaway, which isn't possible for people going to Europe, whereas I can drive to Seattle the day of standby and if I don't get on the ship, I just drive home.

You're missing the leap in fares the rest of the summer, and fares in Mexico and elsewhere the rest of the year, when they appear. These last-minute fares also don't have many cabins available--I did some mock bookings and there were only one or two inside and oceanview, and only guarantee balcony. That said, another argument for non-standby is that you can get military, shareholder, and other OBC, which they don't give on standby.

Are you sure it's tendering and not busing somewhere? The inlet there is so narrow that a ship not docked would block all the other ships. Maybe it docks on the other side of the inlet? I know NCL ships dock at a nearby town called Wards Cove and get bused into town. I have had some weird tendering in Skagway--we were docked at the pier with the rockslides on Celebrity, but they made us tender from the water side to drop us off in town, for safety.

Smoothness depends largely on how many passengers on various ships are in port. Koningsdam on a Saturday might have a lot, whereas my Zaandam at the end of May only has a few small ships, so it should go smoothly. There's no way for port personnel in Vancouver to monitor check-in times, with all the ships and points of entry. I hate having to walk down into the basement, so now I go into the upper level from the side door and have carried my bags, but now it seems they wisely have drop-offs there, which also alleviates my worry of the basement porters putting my bag on a different ship. The problem for Koningsdam will be later in the summer, when there will be more passengers and more ships on a Saturday, along with regular tourism in Vancouver. So yesterday there was just Koningsdam and Zaandam, 4000 passengers if full, but on alternate Saturdays the rest of the summer it will have Royal Princess and Koningsdam, with 5200, probably more of the ships are over 100% occupancy.

I'm waitlisted for the Tuesday cruise too. My last chance to get to the ship is the 10:30 Amtrak from Bellingham on Tuesday, so if it's not cleared that morning, I'll call to cancel, if they haven't denied or cleared me before that. I don't have my hopes high, because last week the cruise was listed as sold out, whereas when I cleared for Koningsdam in January, there were lots of cabins available a few days before the cruise. I did a web search and several Vancouver news sites were promoting the standby program, which means more interest and thus less likelihood of getting on a cruise, especially with Alaska being so popular (crazy that a 5-night at the end of April with no glacier options would be sold out). But being between Vancouver and Seattle, I can just keep rolling the dice until I get lucky.

It's the huge demand and limited labor/boats. Alaska has huge cost of living, so attracting enough workers/boats during the summer season with possibly thousands of passengers visiting Juneau each day means having high prices, especially with a cruise line cut. I've gone whale watching in Puget Sound and out of Victoria, where prices are under $100. I've seen dozens of humpback whales for free on return trips, the day of a Victoria visit, since there are a lot of them near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. As soon as you see Vancouver Island, look outside on a balcony or the promenade--I go back and forth to each side of the promenade, and on a Princess cruise a few years ago saw a dozen or so humpbacks right next to the ship, splashing and frolicking in the water, and then playing in the wake. In the winter, I get free whale watching sailing into Cabo.

The best way to see Mendenhall is to buy a ticket for the Blue Bus when you get off the ship, where there are tour kiosks. It will take you to a park where you can go on a short hike to see Mendenhall, as well as a waterfall. Mendenhall is at the end of a lake and is receding quite a bit, so the best option, I'd say, is to just visit the park and see it that way, with the added beauty of the lake in front of it and the waterfall and hiking in the woods. The advantage of the Blue Bus is that it runs every 15 minutes or so, so you can just return when you want and not be tied to a schedule. They also have a tourist center in the park, different offshoots of the trail to get different views, and if it's later in the summer, there's a creek by the parking lot where you can see salmon returning.

I've seen the seafood feasts on Princess and Celebrity and Cunard, and the people look a little silly, sitting there in bibs. I really do miss the pea soup on an open bow, even if it's freezing, and I really love that HAL makes such an effort to provide excellent regional dishes (and now entertainment) based on itinerary. So on Koningsdam recently I was happy to see lots of local dishes, although I also remember pre-Covid that they did a huge Mexican buffet night once, as well as a deck salmon cookout in Alaska, and in Mexico they'd have 'Mexican ambassadors' along to do language classes and dancing/singing

I'm happy it's still around, but irritated I haven't been invited to one since restart. Before shutdown, all 1-star and above were invited, and it was a special occasion and really fostered loyalty, with free drinks and tiles handed out, and a speech from the captain. I've mostly done Koningsdam since restart, so maybe on a larger ship they only invite higher loyalty levels, to keep crowds down. I have Noordam in 10 days (if I clear standby) and Zaandam multiple times, so maybe on a small ship they'd have one for even 3-star peons like me.

The buffet will have decaf round-the-clock, and you can bring some sort of thermos if you want to keep it hot wherever you're at (I like Zojirushi tumblers). Just make sure you pour into a coffee cup and then into a personal bottle. The two cafes both have excellent decaf lattes and other drinks, and one perk of their loyalty program is a discount on espresso drinks. If you're a serious coffee connoisseur, then you could bring your own coffee and an Aeropress, and then just get hot water from a machine or room service. It just leaves a puck of coffee you can push into the garbage, so no real mess. My practice is also to visit local coffee shops in Mexico and Alaska, which are good for local ambience, resting after a day of walking, and free wifi usually.

The OP is talking about doing a cruise search, the follow-up screen shots are showing selecting number of passengers once a cruise is selected. I just noticed the same thing, since I've searched Princess cruises easily in the past by a drop-down selection for number of passengers. That made it easy to find cruises with reduced single supplements, such as one on Sapphire this May for $260 or so, and for N/S Alaska ones that are under $600. Now I can't do that, which is a slap in the face to solo cruisers, just as is Celebrity/Royal charging solo passengers more than twice the double-occupancy rate. I had 4 Mexico cruises booked with Princess, but instead I'm going with studio cabins on Quantum of the Seas, and 11 nights on Zaandam for the same price as 7 on Discovery, with 2000 fewer passengers. HAL has also implemented a really solo-friendly option, a $49/nt standby program with no single supplement, so I went in January for $350 and was given a last-minute deluxe suite. I'm Elite on Princess and they were my main cruise line after restart, but I just see better value and experience elsewhere now.

They've been steadily diminishing over the past decade or so. When I started on HAL, they had an all-you-can-eat lobster feast on formal nights in the buffet, now you can't even get free lobster on board. Then they decided to go for corporate partnerships, and got rid of singers/dancers, because they cost too much and only performed a few times per cruise. They signed up for any corporate partnership who would give them money, which resulted in banal sameness for every music venue--same program, every ship, every cruise. Then steady food cutbacks, like smaller portions, one lunch menu, cutting out cold soups, making creme brûlée a secret request item, taking out the nice snacks at the coffee shop (I used to sweet-talk the baristas into saving me chocolate-covered strawberries every evening). It's like airlines, though, in the relentless push to be profitable they raise revenue by any means and cut costs. For new cruisers, it probably all seems great, and that seems to be the hugest market, as well as younger people and families. Those of us who have been on HAL longer feel the cutbacks more, just as those who have been flying for 30 years remember blankets and pillows and free luggage, seat selection, and meals on most flights. Personally, I switched from HAL loyalty 5 or so years ago for Princess, but now they've made cutbacks and increased fares, while HAL has introduced a solo-friendly standby program, so I'm back to HAL. Being stressed by overfull ships has also made the smaller, quieter HAL ships more appealing now, whereas before they were just too boring. I'm really looking forward to non-corporate entertainment, too.

Do you not have enough money for a taxi from your hotel to the ship? Why would you add hours to getting on the ship and huge hassles of loading luggage and people on a bus? They also don't let buses go until they have enough people to fill one, so you might be sitting in the airport waiting for flights to arrive, instead of being on the ship. If you want an even more pleasant time, stay in Haarlem the night before your cruise, which is a lot cheaper and less crowded than Amsterdam and has a lovely downtown. It's also closer to the cruise port than Amsterdam or the airport. When I took a Rick Steves tour, we stayed in Haarlem and just took the train to Amsterdam, which was cheap and easy.

Once they assign a room they usually send you upgrade offers. If you don't like your cabin, you can also call them and see what they can offer, or try it when you board. The problem is that most lines have paid upgrade or bid to upgrade programs now, so they don't have an incentive to upgrade you right away, if they can make money out of it. That's especially true with full ships now--I was on Koningsdam in January and they had a sign at the front desk saying 'we're full, no upgrades'.

Just enjoy a day in Vancouver and catch the evening train to Seattle. I booked the San Diego-Vancouver leg and they sent me a notice specifically saying I couldn't continue on to Seattle. From what others told me on Eurodam when I left Vancouver last fall, it was just full of partiers trying to scarf down as much booze and food as possible on their day on board.

It depends. I always travel solo, and get military and shareholder OBC, a minimum of $150, which has always covered gratuities. The only cruises I've seen that are comparable to standby are Pacific coastal ones, which I've done at least 20 of over the years, since they've usually been under $100/nt for a solo inside, and last fall I was on Eurodam for 4 nights at $220 or so. There are also some Zaandam to Alaska for decent solo prices--I'm going at the end of May for $750, with $200 OBC, or could go standby for $350 and and no OBC, so gratuities wouldn't be added on. I'm going standby on Noordam for 5 nights on April 30, already paid for Zaandam before standby for Alaska was announced, so I like having certainty for that cruise, but that also leaves all summer open for other standby attempts, since I live between Vancouver and Seattle and am retired. It creates interesting problems, though, since normal fares for Westerdam/Eurodam from Seattle are sky-high and will be full of kids, as will Koningsdam, but Zaandam has the lowest fares, meaning lowest demand, but also only 1400 passenger spaces. So I'm trying to gamble and guess on which ship and time to go, whether I want to repeat Zaandam and have smaller crowds and Glacier Bay and inside passage, or try bigger ships with potentially a higher chance of someone canceling.

In my experience, you might not want to check in too early. The problem is that once you go through security and customs, the waiting areas for boarding are quite small and limited, so every time in the past when I checked in before 11:30 boarding time, they made everyone sit in rows shoulder-to-shoulder, close to the people opposite you, with luggage cluttering everything, so it was uncomfortable. I'm not sure if they changed that post-covid. If you're 4-star or higher or in a suite, I think you get a different waiting area. there are lovely outdoor spots next to Canada place with views of the bay, and the "Flight over Canada" flying simulator on top of Canada Place cruise terminal is enjoyable. There's also a big food court across the street, with a Tim Horton's and lots of ethnic fast food and wifi, so a nice place to hang out.

That's weird, I applied in Stockperks and was denied. It said it was a promotional fare not eligible for stockholder OBC. The same thing happened on Carnival several years ago, when they started randomly denying stockholder OBC, since the CCL shareholder page says anyone sailing at a 'reduced rate' fare isn't eligible. I think I got denied once, which made me cancel some cruises, so they evidently figured out angering loyal shareholders isn't a bad idea

HAL is the worst ship for entertainment, because they don't have any production shows at all, just a few dance shows. Their food is good, far above NCL, although they followed their cost-cutting measure of having a single lunch menu in the dining room for sea days. They also got rid of on-board lecturers in favor of corporate TED talks, where the cruise director reads a script from a teleprompter. If you want decent entertainment, good food, and a huge number of guest lectures, try out Cunard. They have an older crowd, like HAL, the only one with a strict dress code on formal nights, but they usually have 2 different lecturers on board. They have things like dance classes, a fancy afternoon tea, a really excellent pub, and a 2-story library with thousands of books, which no other line has now. Their ships are very similar to HAL ships, so when I went on it I mostly knew where everything was. They have pretty good 10-night Alaska itineraries, some out of Florida, and of course their classic ocean liner between England and NY on the Queen Mary 2.