jlstwinmommy

15 hours ago, Sunshine3601 said:

You should be receiving some goodies, including chocolate covered strawberries (my fav) in the coming days.   

I’m not sure about that. I just got off that ship on Friday. New D member here. I received the fruit plate, although my fruit was at least melons and strawberries. Never got anything else. 

7 minutes ago, njkruzer said:

Many years ago we spent a day or so after a cruise and went to a venue that raised dogs for that ran in the Iditarod.   

We have already been gone for 3 weeks. We cruised up on a Princess ship and spent a week in interior AK and the. Radiance back south. I’m ready to be home now. 🙂

4 minutes ago, njkruzer said:

Thanks.  Did your cruise end today? Hope it went well despite the delays.

Yes. We are waiting at the airport. It was a great cruise despite the slow start. And we were able to do some extra things in Seward so all good. 🙂

15 minutes ago, jcl410 said:

 

Did they ever explain what the problem was with the Azipod?

 

Aloha,

 

John

Nope. Nothing about that. Someone on board heard from a local (I know - third hand) that radiance actually hit a whale. They said a dead whale washed ashore the day after they announced radiance was broken. Ice, whale, it’s all conjecture. 

On 9/21/2023 at 9:40 AM, njkruzer said:

For those onboard who is captain and who is cruise director?  We board 9/29 and stay on for the Canal transit and I think the captain should be changing.   Thanks. 

Captain Roman from Bulgaria. Didn’t catch the cruise director but it was a woman from the UK I think. 

We are currently on Radiance. Obviously, not the trip we had hoped for when we booked, but still beautiful. We have been in AK a couple weeks already though. We cruised up on Majestic Princess, did our own interior tour up to Denali, Talkeetna, Anchorage. Then took the train to Seward. The first day, hubby said he wished he had more time in Seward, well he got it 😂. Did the marine center, took a major marine boat tour, hiked a small hike near town and saw a black bear. Then hiked part of the Marathon mountain trail. Beautiful views. 
 

so far the layout of this ship is much better than Majestic Princess (decided I prefer grand class on princess). The food has been good, the staff have been wonderful. Had dinner at Samba tonight which was amazing. This is my first time on this class and I really like it. I also like voyager class, but Anthem is still my favorite ship of all of them. 😉

There are pros and cons of both cruises. I wish the stop we were making wasn’t Ketchikan as that is the one stop we had done all we wanted, but oh well. It’s been a great 3 week trip and I would do it again. It does feel like we are taking a short 4 day cruise and we’ve decided we wouldn’t book that on purpose. I like the 7-10 days 🙂

Looking forward to cruising the inside passage as that was the main reason for booking this ship south. Majestic is too big and goes around Vancouver island in the open ocean. 

We just got an update that repairs on continuing. Still plan to sail on 9/15. They will provide another update on Sunday. Really hoping they will sail as I am already in AK and booked my air home through RCL. 🫤

I do understand wanting to be near family and I have always booked my kids in a room nearby (we are a family of 5 so usually book a larger suite or 2 rooms).  That said, our last cruise (before COVID), I had booked my kids in an inside across the hall and closer to sailing, there was an aft balcony that became available for the same price.  I went ahead and moved them (my oldest was 21 at the time) tentatively.  They enjoyed having the balcony (and we enjoyed their balcony as well as our suite balcony) and them being on a different part of the ship ended up being no big deal.  We were all back and forth between both cabins.  We were able to get an extra key to their room in case we needed to check on them.  This was on RCL, but I've done the same on Princess before.  

We were there in December on anthem with Indy there with us. Didn’t seem very crowded at all. We didn’t do the water park so can’t speak to that but everywhere else seemed to have plenty of space. 

My FAVORITE cabin.  We had this for our 2019 Quebec to NYC cruise.  It has spoiled me for sure.  😂

I did the "barcode trick" for my December Anthem cruise.  I found that once the muster station was assigned, the cabin number did appear when I added my setsail pass to my Apple Wallet.  I'm not sure how Androids work, so not sure if it is the same.  The app did not show my cabin until a week before we boarded, though the barcode trick worked about 2 months before I boarded.

Good luck!  If you have a muster station assigned, I'm sure they have assigned a cabin.  

DH and I went to the beach club in December (we were on Anthem). I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t pay over $100pp. We were fortunate to get it during the Black Friday sale for $89pp. It was a very nice lunch, quiet area. My husband enjoyed snorkeling on the beach while I enjoyed the pool. We’re got there early enough to get one of the day beds near the pool. It was nice, but certainly not worth $200+ pp. 

We did Quebec to NYC cruise in 2019. It was great. We got there a day early and rented a car to explore outside the city and then turned in the car and boarded the ship and had 2 days to explore old Quebec before the ship left port. Our favorite cruise thus far. 🙂

I was able to book airfare home from Vancouver for 54 per person. Vancouver to BWI. Incredible deal. This is for September. 🙂

We also were able to snag it for the Black Friday sale price of $88. We got there early and snagged a day bed by the pool. For that price I would do it again if it was just me and hubby. The lunch was fantastic and it was peaceful and not crowded at all despite Anthem and Indy both being there. I would not pay for the kids to go with us as I don’t think they would appreciate it. For over 100 per person, I don’t think I could justify the cost. 

I have a GTY balcony on Anthem on 12/11. It’s showed the cabin using the barcode trick for the past month but only yesterday did the cabin show on my set sail pass. Finally got my cruise docs with luggage tags today. I was wondering why the wait as well, but at least it finally updated. 🙂

i usually pick a cabin but this was a last minute decision and the balcony GTY was less than the insides and a crazy good deal so we decided it was worth it. 

Interesting. I got the most recent booster at Walgreens and they asked for my card and updated it. Same for my family. We all went to different Walgreens since the kids are at college. Maybe it’s a Walgreens thing?

i cruise in early December and all I needed was my passport for checkin. I’m waiting until I can answer the health questions to see if they ask for the vaccine card. I do have it electronically in case we need it at a port. 

We booked a balcony guarantee on Anthem for our upcoming December cruise.  While my cruise planner hasn't officially assigned us a cabin, my boarding pass has a muster station and using the trick I learned here on CC, it appears we have been assigned 6150.  I'm very happy with the location.  While I prefer higher decks, I'm just glad it is not an obstructed view as I had forgotten Anthem had those when I booked this cruise.  It really wouldn't have mattered as we got such a great deal booking the balcony GTY that I would have been happy anywhere.  🙂  This is our first cruise since COVID and it is our "empty nest" celebration cruise.  First vacation without children in 25 years.  We are super excited.  

We have done this on every cruise. Usually cruise with my parents and my sisters family. I book through a TA so she calls and links the reservations. I know the other party has to agree so my sister usually has to call and request to be linked as well (my parents use same TA as me so no issue). We sit together in MDR and have mad Chops reservations together no problem. 

We usually cruise RCL and my kids do like the activities (rock wall, water slides....).  We are about to take our 2nd Princess cruise.  I tend to select cruises based on the itinerary.  Our last Princess cruise was Alaska.  My kids (who were then 9, 9, and 15) had a blast.  My daughter actually liked the games like trivia better on Princess.  It does depend on what your kids like to do.  My younger son enjoyed the kids club on Princess.  My daughter tends to hang with us and likes doing the trivia and scavenger hunts.

Our upcoming cruise is Quebec to NYC.  The kids are now 15, 15, and 21.  My daughter claims she is going to the teen club to try to find a friend to hang out with.  She does enjoy meeting people from different places, so maybe.  My boys will likely hang with each other, though the younger one may end up in the teen club to see if they have any video games. 🤣  regardless of the cruise line, cruising is still one of my kids favorite vacations (that and Disney)  😁

I took my twins on a Canada/NE cruise  on RCCL when they were 9.  They absolutely loved the Citadel in Halifax and hiking in Bar Harbor.  We are an outdoorsy type family and do a lot of hiking so anywhere we can take them hiking, we usually do.  We did the Victorian mansion in Portland, which they also enjoyed, and the freedom trail in Boston.  My husband took them for a little hike around town in Saint John.  That is not my favorite port, but the others we really enjoy.  I wish we had gone to Newport as I love Newport, but our cruise didn't stop there.  

We are actually headed to Canada/NE again this year - Quebec to NYC.  Of course they are much older now (15), but still enjoy the cold weather cruises just as much as the Caribbean cruises.  They have been on 5 cruises including the Canada/NE cruise and one to Alaska.  Most of our cruises are to the Caribbean, but my husband prefers the Canada/NE route, so we try to do one every few cruises.  My daughter just told me the other day she has never been on a cruise she didn't love.  Cruising is her favorite vacation.  😁  

MARC will take you to Union Station in DC.  That is on the red line.  You would need to take the metro 3 stops on the red line to Metro Center where you can switch to the blue line which stops at the Smithsonian.  All the museums are on the mall at the Smithsonian stop.  Still a bunch of walking, but you can see the Washington monument at one end and the Capital at the other end of the mall area.  The metro stops in the middle of the mall area.  We can usually only do 1 or maybe 2 museums in a day as they are pretty huge.

There is a map of the DC metro here:

https://www.wmata.com/schedules/maps/upload/2017-System-Map.pdf

The key to the metro is getting on the train going the right direction.  All metros show the last stop on the line so you know which way you are going (from Union Station - you would go toward Shady Grove to get to Metro Center).  I think the metro in DC is relatively easy to use and most stations now have signs that tell you when the next train is coming.  They run every 10 minutes or so during the weekday (much closer during rush hours).  

I am looking into booking a GS on Liberty with several "at sea" days. Do they have reserved suite seating at the pool?

Yes - and we did use it. It was even shaded for parts of the day (which was good for us as some of us burn easily. :) ) The pool area definitely got crowded on the sea days.

Just curious- was Chops assigned to you for First Night Done Right? Or did you change it once on board?

I am actually not sure what was assigned to us. We knew we wanted Chops so when the concierge emailed us, we asked that he make sure our FNDR was Chops. He sent us back an email that it was taken care of and never mentioned what was assigned originally. :)

We just got off Liberty - same. One punch per drink, any size. On Anthem in May, it was 1 punch per shot of espresso. Definitely not much of a bargain doing it that way - especially if you get the iced drinks which are all 2 shots.