rj59

You don't have to order a full meal that way. I often use it to order a salad or dessert for late-night snack, especially since there often isn't anything open between buffet closing and the late buffet meal. It's also a way to try a second main course or dessert, either early or late, and still go to the MDR, so you have two lighter meals. Ordering early means it's easier for your steward to pick up plates during evening service, although they also ask you to call to have someone pick up your plates, but then you have to wait around your room. People on other lines seem to just leave plates in the hallway, even on Celebrity and Princess, but that's always seemed wrong on HAL.

Another reason I forgot to mention to avoid a Princess transfer is that if you cross the border by bus, you have to take all your luggage off, wait in line, get processed by immigration, and then all your bags xrayed by very aggressive and often outright rude customs agents looking for any sort of food. So if you're on a bus full of cruise passengers with tons of luggage, who might have trouble wheeling their luggage around and lifting it themselves onto an x-ray machine and then putting it back on the bus, it's going to take up to an hour, especially on a weekend. I also found when returning from Majestic a few weeks ago that scheduled buses have priority over cruise transfer buses, so when I arrived on Flixbus there were 3 buses in line, but we jumped ahead of a cruise transfer buses, and they probably waited half an hour just to get off the bus and into the customs processing, so imagine the irritation and grumbling. On the other hand, if you take the train, they check passports in Vancouver and at a stop at the border where agents just pass through the train and you just pick up luggage in Seattle and make a short walk to airport light rail.

I realized that the $100 credit showing for my cruise is the military benefit, because shareholder credit never shows. It also said 'valid until 2/25', which means it will apply to future cruises automatically. You can confirm by practice booking a new cruise, since it says '$100 military credit will be applied'. So that's definitely a good thing, and more in line with how Princess handles it, and might be even better if they give a $100 for even a 4-night coastal cruise, whereas on Princess it's only $50 for under 7 nights.

I'd go with Westerdam, because of the covered pool, but more importantly, because of the outdoor promenade, which will help keep you sane when you haven't seen land for many days. One possible advantage of Royal might be fewer passengers--I was on a Majestic Pacific Coastal after an Australia-LA passage, and they said they only had 1000 or so passengers on board, so around 30%, but it's still really unpleasant not to have a covered pool area, particularly if you want to eat or watch a movie outside.

That was on the ship in December, which was very irritating, because on the upper deck you could only get around one side, the other reserved for a crew smoking/rest area. It's really a bad look (sort of like the shock of seeing steward carts in the Kdam hallways, something I'd never seen on a HAL ship before), not to mention irritating for those in a lounger nearby possibly having to breathe smoke. I imagine the covering is to protect them in Alaska--or maybe they're charging crew for smoking cabana access.

You can take the train, but it usually leaves after 5 pm, but has spectacular coastal scenery. I like taking Quick Shuttle, which picks up right at the terminal and goes to Seatac, with stops along the way (a bus is slow, because there's no freeway out of Vancouver and no more than 2 lanes until you get closer to Seattle). To me the time savings would be well worth flying, since Alaska and Delta have many 1-hour flights daily. Another secret is to take a bus across the border and fly out of Bellingham (my home), which has Southwest service to Vegas, Oakland, and Denver now, as well as cheap Allegiant Air to West Coast cities. If you have time and want to be adventurous, you can get to Victoria by ferry or quick boat, and then take the Victoria Clipper fast down to downtown Seattle.

Go to the Lido, either side. The other good spot, if breakfast is crowded, is aft outside, which I used on the LA-Vancouver Majestic trip since there were hundreds of Chinese on board, so there were many filling thermoses and water bottles straight from the spout--one guy filled a backpack full of bottles of hot and cold water. Fortunately, there are two coffee machines at each station, and iced tea also. You can also simply order a pot of decaf delivered to your room. They have a good selection of teas in the buffet too, including several variety of Twinings and decaf, so you might try making your own tea in a bottle and then storing it in the fridge, so you have some always available.

This really isn't an issue for LA or San Diego, since they have the facial recognition machines. Seattle still doesn't, and you're getting larger and larger ships out of the terminals in Seattle, which can make embarking and disembarking a nightmare, especially since they have to man the NCL pier also, with the huge Encore and Bliss. That's why I'd advise anyone planning an Alaskan cruise to check port schedules for Seattle or Vancouver, but also for each port, since it will affect tour availability, crowding, and getting a berth near town or having to tender. Of 3 Seattle Alaska cruises last summer, Discovery Princess was the worst boarding experience, since for some reason they made everyone take their own bags in a long line to the luggage scanners, instead of using porters and going straight to check-in. I decided to go small this summer, and picked the smallest ship possible--HAL Volendam, and made sure there would be only one smaller NCL ship in Vancouver for embarkation and only Sapphire Princess at disembarkation, to cut down on lines and stress. The N/S ones on Princess and 10-11 day r/t from Vancouver on Crown Princess are also extremely cheap compared to Seattle, and you get either Glacier Bay or Hubbard on most of them, whereas Discovery never got close to Dawe's Glacier.

Great, fair video 1. The buffet chairs are an abomination. They're heavy, so difficult to move and get frayed so easily. The entire buffet area has too little seating, since the food sections expanded so much. 2. When I went on K. in December, I was going to get the coke package, but none of the freestyle machines worked. 3. The gelato place is wasted space, since anyone can get free scoop ice cream in the buffet. 4. The walking track is ridiculously small and dangerous, with very low side windows that don't offer any wind protection. The upper outside decks are confusing and irritating, since one side you can't get through because of a crew smoking/surfing area (not a good look). 5. The showers are the best I've had, with huge space and (gasp) no shower curtains or gross tub. 6. I was happy to see it possible to get around the outside lifeboat deck, but at the rear it goes to the space of one person, with no mirrors at corners, also dangerous and irritating for the many who are used to walking miles on a HAL promenade.

I found that the Indian vegetarian options are more interesting, larger, and taste better than regular vegan/vegetarian options, so I'd ask for both menus and compare. The other big advantage of the Indian menu is that you have Indian cooks and chefs, so you're going with their specialty and where they can show off creativity--I remember asking the Indian head chef in a HAL elevator about the Indian menu, and he took great delight in organizing a tasty, varied, personal menu based on my likes. I love Prof Cruise, not only her humor, but her hints and menu/drinks guides with photos. I thought I knew all the HAL hints, but I didn't realize that one could still order off-menu creme brûlée--I remember being angry when I didn't see it on Koningsdam last December, and thought it was just another awful cutback (like the single lunch menu for the entire cruise, cutting out their delicious cold soups, and the free chocolate-covered strawberries that used to pop up every evening in the explorations cafe). I'm also happy to see one can still order MDR dishes as room service, something I think really separates them from lines like Celebrity and Princess and is really comforting for a shy solo cruiser like me who doesn't like crowds or what I felt on Koningsdam and other large ships at full capacity of waiters just taking orders and slapping down plates, and a brusque unfriendliness that wouldn't earn them a good tip on land.

Princess applies military benefits automatically, after you've applied, so no jumping through hoops. It's also refundable, so I usually use other OBC and get a check for my military benefit after the cruise. Carnival has military fares, but usually their VIFP deals are better. RC/Celebrity usually offer 5% off the cruise fare upfront. NCL now offers 10% off fares for military, once you verify through id.me, the same system you can use to get 10% off Apple products and to use the social security system online. So if HAL makes it a hassle or doesn't honor their promise to veterans, using fine print or deadlines as an excuse, there are other options.

I've sailed on most lines, and Princess is not only cheaper, but they also don't have throttling or censoring, as other lines do--Celebrity basic wifi is almost unusable, because the speed is throttled so much and will block any video site. One way to cut down on cost is to simply buy for one device, and sign in and out. Another option is the usual response to inflation--cut back or do without. So on my Pacific coastal cruise on Sunday, I'm going to use cell service in SF and Victoria and then either suffer without wifi, or buy a 'remainder of voyage' plan, which is still 50% off for elite, or I also sometimes buy for 24 hours, if I need to check in for a Southwest flight. You can expect some degradation of service as all the ships are much fuller, but I believe Princess is upgrading to Starlink, which might help things. One of the drawbacks of one-level of wifi and more people getting it through Plus, is that more people are using it, expecting streaming-level quality, and so that slows down things for everyone, particularly in areas with poor wifi coverage, like Alaska. Personally, I think it's sort of sad to see people staring at phone or tablet screens while sitting overlooking the sea or in a beautiful piazza--the same older people who I suspect look down on young people for constantly staring at their phones, and I know that personally it keeps me sometimes from participating in activities or appreciating my surroundings or the beauty of the sea, so I find it better to unplug for at least some part of a cruise, even if it causes some discomfort and boredom. But overall, I don't like significant increases in fares or costs for wifi, drinks, or excursions, and if that happens I simply choose other options, since I don't care for the frequent cash grabs, decrease in service, and other blatant attempts to draw down the immense cruise line debts through the wallets of passengers.

Don't use the Princess shuttle from Hobby, either way. The problem is that most people go out of Bush, so at Hobby they wait until they have a full bus, which in my case was over 2 hours at the airport. I booked Galveston Express on the return trip for $30 or so, a smaller van that was quick and efficient and was already mostly full of passengers it picked up first from a Royal Caribbean ship, so there was no wait once it got there and I loaded. Hobby is a small airport, so it's easy to find the shuttle waiting area and they give good directions, whereas on the Princess shuttle there was a long trek to a bus parking area, with all the infirm passengers taking forever to get there and on the bus with their tons of luggage. There was no traffic going to and from the port on a Sunday for Ruby Princess, so it was under an hour each way, I believe, and again quicker going back in a smaller van than in a big bus. You can do practice bookings with Uber and Lyft also to check price, and I think it might be cheaper and more convenient to just get a pickup at a hotel and go to the airport on the return trip that way, so there's no delays, and with 2 people the price would probably be cheaper than any sort of transfer. I used Uber to visit the Museum District near Downtown Houston the day after my cruise, and it was dirt-cheap, and after all the transfer hassles, I wish I'd just gone with them to get to the ship, since I wouldn't have had to go back to the airport at all.

I had to call once, using a number given on past threads here, and a nice woman helped me right away, looking up my email, checking everything with the statement was right, and giving it to me right away. Of course, the question still remains about whether the OBC is worth it for those who bought CCL at a much higher price and could have bought a stock that's been growing and paying dividends. But it's definitely helped make me more loyal to Princess, along with the refundable military benefit, which is now automatically applied. I bought some RCL last year, when its price swooned just because Carnival had some bad earnings, and that got me credit on some Celebrity cruises and a good profit when I sold it.

It varies, but September has higher average rainfall. I'm local, so the first September after restart I kept looking at last-minute cruises that had a positive weather forecast, but I had to wait until the end of September to find a last-minute cruise with decent weather most of the way, and even then we got caught on high seas off Vancouver Island, in between hurricane-force storms, which delayed return to Seattle by 5 hours or so. The Princess ship that left a day after ours was stuck in Seattle the first night, because of similar storms on the open ocean, while our ship left the day before in summery weather and had a good sailing up. Overall, Juneau has twice as much rain in September as in June, and even 2 more inches in August than in June, so you'll get clearer skies and longer days in May and June, and warmer weather but more rain and spawning salmon in August. It's the luck of the draw, but I wouldn't commit to something like a Mt. Roberts tram in Juneau until you get there, since if it's cloudy and rainy you won't see much of anything. I also definitely wouldn't pre-book any sort of sightseeing plane trip in Ketchikan until you get there, because both Royal Princess and a HAL ship had passengers die in plane crashes there in poor conditions.

I doubt there will be sell-outs for n/s cruises--just look at the low prices compared to the r/t out of Seattle. That's because families don't want to fly to Alaska, so even with all the megaships going out of Seattle, all the lines have some sell-outs and high prices. There are also 2 ships doing the n/s route, so they're trying to fill both of them every Wednesday and Saturday. As a back-up, you also have the Crown doing r/t trips out of Vancouver, and some visit Hubbard and some Glacier Bay and some are longer, 10-11 days.

I've been on 20 or so coastal cruises between San Diego and Vancouver, which usually have Canadians dominating, as well as a lot of Asians from Vancouver, particularly if it visits SF. It can be pretty brutally dull if the weather is bad and they close the outside promenade and decks, and everyone sits all day in the packed Lido. They have a captive audience, so they try to make as much money as possible on sales, bingo, and other events. You can get a weird mix of old and young too, since the coastal ones often continue around the Panama Canal. SF charges high port fees, so that will increase the overall cost, although sailing under the Golden Gate can be memorable, as is sailing under the Lion's Gate bridge in Vancouver (and scary if you go on the Konigsdam or a tall ship on another line, which often have to go under at odd times to fit with the tides). The r/t coastal ones are usually just fillers before and after the Alaska season and are different, because they're all about making excursion money and would seem to be dull and repetitive, with the added required stop in Ensenada.

The problem with ordering on board is that they make you sign a slip that requests an additional tip, which is a hassle, and the even larger hassle is the hard sell the first days of a cruise to induce you to sign up for a beverage package or upgrade. On Apex they tried to intercept everyone going through the solarium on the first day of the cruise to sell packages, and the sales pitch at every bar, Cafe el Bacio, and even at dinner. It's almost as annoying as the aggressive begging at dinner for a good review rating, particularly from Indian waiters. I mostly cruise Mexico and Alaska, so instead of carrying soda on board, I just wait until the first port and hit a convenience store--Oxxo in Mexico, and bring back a 2L of Coke sin azucar. The problem with bringing drinks on board at embarkation is that security might be dealing with multiple ships with multiple policies, especially ports that handle Carnival or NCL ships as well, who don't allow any liquids on board.

You could cancel Plus and just pay a la carte for drinks and tips and wifi once you're on board, so you're not just buying stuff you don't want or need. There's a 1L limit on duty free alcohol brought back to the US, not that anyone will check with the face ID customs machines now. I try to use OBC to try things a little out of my comfort zone, as a solo cruiser too. You might try bingo, classes, tastings, some gambling, specialty dining, and maybe there's some excursion activity you're never tried before (I found electric biking in Mazatlan and on a beach in Cabo to be exciting and memorable). I know on a Celebrity ship I used OBC to try a different sushi roll and kind of ramen every day, and I had a much better time with the female servers there than I did in the MDR. Another thing you might consider is asking about upgrading to a mini-suite after boarding, which has a couch by the window.

Coffee is about to get a lot more complicated and probably expensive, since they signed a deal with Lavazza a few weeks ago, which will probably involve price increases and new drink options, and they mentioned integrating it with meals, tastings, etc. To put price in perspective, though, there's no coffee drink on Celebrity that's under $5, and you get a hard-sell to pay for a drinks package every time you try to buy a coffee (as well as the hugely annoying slip to sign with a spot for additional tip beyond 18%). If you walk into a Starbucks or any other coffee place now, any latte is going to be well above $5, just as restaurant rampant price rises make the zero cost of MDR dishes an even better bargain. Personally, I find the perks of Princess superior to me than any other lines, which usually involve discounts to get you to buy things, rather than outride freebies. One reason I've never swapped out the minibar for coffee is that it's so much more valuable to me to make my own cocktails than to use the generous military/shareholder OBC for a daily Americano or latte, and most of the minibottles go home with me and are used for cocktails at home. Another reason I don't swap for coffee is that it usually takes 1-2 days to get anything swapped out, especially with room service completely slammed by the ease of ordering through the app (free room service is also disappearing on all the other lines), and it's rather pointless to get a coffee card full of value if I only have 5 days (fewer on the 5-night Cabo and shorter coastal cruises I like), and I don't want to have another meltdown waiting for room service to do a swap, as I did on a full Discovery last summer. I'd say that if you tally up what those outraged by losing coffee cards pay for their cabins and transportation and excursions or just a nice meal out at home, it's likely to be trivial. I've had plenty of meltdowns over changes and bad experiences on every line and have made the same "I'm never sailing with them again" vow many times, but then I miss ships and things about lines and I find a good deal and I end up coming back. I ask myself "Are you going to run out of money"? No. "Are you going to run out of life?" Yes, so I try to act accordingly and not sweat the small stuff. Except for no more pillow chocolates..heads will roll at Princess after my sternly-worded letter! 🙂

Nice! I was sorry to miss the La Paz/Loreto trips by Diamond and Sapphire, so I'm glad Majestic and Grand will be going there and break up the monotony of just having Discovery there.

It's only free on Discovery, but on the other ships it's still cheap, a good thing because it cuts down on demand--bring your own detergent pods to save more. My hack to get free laundry on all ships was to do enough 3-night Pacific coastal cruises to get to Elite status, which gets free laundry, since Princess is the only line I know of that gives loyalty level based on number of cruises, and not just cruise days, and they are also were generous enough to give 2 cruise credits for every one sailed by a solo like me.

I liked the Beatles--I think they've stood up well over time and definitely have a future ahead of them. I would have really liked the cast of "Footloose" on my Cabo cruise in February, had it not been cancelled because of injuries to multiple cast members.

I'd think the waterfront outside would be much better for Glacier Bay, since you're closer to the water and can roam from side to side easily. Some of the best things are the brilliant blue chunks of ice in the water, and seals/eagles/otters that you can sometimes see on the ice before the ship scares them away. Look at the annual rainfall by date too--August in Alaska is the rainiest month of the summer, and you only have 2 days when you're in port, so you're not going to want to hang out there much, especially since the 2 sea days are on the open ocean and usually with cold, high winds and some very rough seas.

The app has the $5 messaging service, although it's not terribly reliable and doesn't notify effectively, in my experience. I found out on here on a Joy cruise in February that my sister and I could message each other using imessage on our iphones, and she could message people at home without using her internet minutes.