thehowlingroad

The one time I have been whale watching, it was a boat for 30-ish and I got horribly seasick, in a way that I've never been before. Since then, I've been on 12-person RIBs and snorkeling trips with little/no seasickness-- it's just a matter of taking the Dramamine pill an hour before the excursion. I find that even on larger boats, I don't do well in enclosed spaces. I feel much better when I'm on deck and can get fresh air.

Following and commenting to bump this up further on the board, as we’ll be there in December with Princess and I’m curious about this excursion too. I’ve snorkeled in Cabo twice in Nov/Dec but the weather in Ensenada is very different!

It anchors in the bay so tenders can run through the night, and there were early-morning excursions that started at 7 am the next day. My friend and I did the “down to Cabo and back again” 5-night cruise a few years back and the tenders ran more or less continuously until about 1 am. We hung out late in the International Cafe and watched the drunk and hungry masses swarm to get sandwiches. The dockside bars seemed to have the best time of everyone, though. There was also a random fireworks show that we saw from our tender. We assumed it was from one of the local resorts, as it was professional-grade fireworks and there weren’t any obvious holidays in early December.

there have been consistent issues with the website since last night, that's probably why. travel agents and PVPs have been able to access bookings, but not customers.

When I search for California Coast cruises under the "Deals" section, I get this now: that's an error This request cannot be served at this time. Reference Id:18.96c3ce17.1656006867.84a7648 Before, you could at least look at the itineraries! 😆

Most, if not all, of the Discovery's cruises are listed as "unavailable" right now... same thing with the Royal. Not really sure what's going on, but it's been like that since late afternoon/early evening last night on the west coast.

I received it yesterday and then the booking tools went down shortly after and haven’t come back yet. I suspect there’s going to be a redeployment or schedule changes, if it’s been this long.

A lot of the CA resident fare bookings seem to be down... I'm holding a room on the Discovery right now, but when I go to try and make a new booking, all the fares are unavailable. Maybe it'll be fixed tomorrow...?

I bring mine on every cruise, regardless of itinerary, as long as there's a pool on board. You never know when the mood will strike for a soak in the hot tub, and the pools are often heated, so even a regular swim would be fine.

In June 2010, we saw one whale from the ship and a pod of orcas, but I understand it’s an uncommon occurrence. Humpbacks are often congregating around Icy Strait Point and Juneau by now and most of them aren’t going to be “in transit.” You’ll have much better luck on your whale watch!

We're heading to the fjords and Iceland next month, and we'll be bringing hiking shoes/boots along with our regular sneakers (we are staying in London for a few days post-cruise and don't want to walk around the city in hiking shoes). And it's good to have an extra pair, just in case something renders your hiking shoes unwearable the next day. Sneakers are better than no option at all!

Yes, just about 2 miles RT. For reference, my dad and I did a 1.5 mile hike in Valley of Fire State Park back in February and it took about 45 mins each way (but we lingered in some places, and i think it was a more strenuous trail than Nugget Falls)

Not that I could tell! Maybe take a look at the TripAdvisor reviews for both companies or search the Alaska forum here to see if anyone’s talked about the differences recently (the last thread I could find was from 2013… not particularly reliable now), but it sounds like they run on very similar schedules. I think the main difference is actually between the city bus (which doesn’t drop off at the visitor center, you have to walk in yourself) and the tourist shuttles.

It looks like Juneau Tours (the company I chose in the end) runs the white bus; I had to google that to find out. I think they just use the colors to differentiate between the two shuttle companies.

I bought shuttle tickets from Juneau Tours: https://www.juneautours.com/tours/mendenhall-glacier-shuttle/; the bus leaves every 30 mins in front of the Mt. Roberts tram station, and every 30 mins from the glacier for the return trip. We plan on hiking to Nugget Falls, so we also wanted the extra time that a tour group just wouldn't be able to give us.

To add on to these thoughts: I travel solely with my iPhone 11 Pro; I would recommend getting the Pro models whenever possible if it's going to be your only travel camera. I also bring battery packs (you can get them on Amazon; I am a big fan of Anker) to keep it charged when I need to. If you want to get into photography as a hobby, then sure, maybe invest in a DSLR and a basic lens, but if you're just looking to take nice vacation photos with the family, an iPhone will be perfectly suitable, and in some cases, much more convenient.

In Flam, we're doing the railway and then joining a speedboat tour to see the Nærøyfjord-- it's a World Heritage Site. In Haugesund, we're joining a bus tour to head south to Skudeneshavn, but mostly because our ships docks on a Sunday and the public transit schedule is iffy on Sundays. I hear that the church and city hall there are worth checking out, though.

We're in the "same boat," so to speak; we're cruising in September and not July. We're saving the whale-watching for ISP and choosing Hoonah Travel Adventures, which runs a smaller 18-person boat for certain trips and has a whale-spotting guarantee (I believe it's $100/passenger if no whales are seen during a trip). There are also a couple of other companies in the area that have smaller boats as well. Our reasoning is similar to DaveOKC's and JT1962's; Juneau has more options for excursions and self-guided explorations, whereas ISP really only has the zipline, bear-watching, and whale-watching.

I seriously lucked out last week on one leg of our September trip-- $63 SEA-BUR with Southwest (with a plane change, but I can navigate OAK in my sleep)... but not so much on the LAX-YVR leg. Credit card points helped, but still... anyone who's still waiting for prices to drop, just book now. They're not likely to drop again.

Isafjordur is a tender port. Akureyri is usually a docked port, unless it's very crowded in the harbor that day. Reykjavik is also a docked port, you're right about that.

Really interesting recap of your trip! We're going on the International Friends tour in August too, after our Iceland cruise, and I'm trying to carve out some time during our London stay for the V&A, since we didn't have time during our last trip. Looks like you had a blast.

Air Canada has a one-day sale today, for those of you still looking for airfare to Vancouver. Promo code PFH49Y41. 7 more hours in the sale!

We're looking into booking with them in September too. I like that they have the option of the smaller 18-passenger boat at certain times of the day, rather than the large 30-passenger ones!

We'll be in Haines in September on RCCL. We booked a private guide, but I remember seeing the bear-watching excursions, wildlife safaris, a photography tour, and kayaking on the lake in the excursion list. There's also a bus trip along some notable highway?

From what I'm gathering from various travel blogs and chatter here, the little black flies in Iceland are a worsening problem-- some of them bite, some of them don't, all of them are annoying. I'm sensitive to bug bites and will be carrying bug spray in my bag... should I invest in head netting as well? Any other tips for dealing with the flies or recommendations? We're stopping in Akureyri, Isafjordur, Grundarfjordur, and Reykjavik between July 29-August 1, which seems to be the peak of bug season.