donaldsc

Under normal circumstances I would say to call Azamara directly. But now maybe that is not a good idea. However in general your best way to get info on a specific cruise is to call them or use their chat line. DON

Venice is a wonderful city and it is even better if you are there in the late afternoon or evening after the boat tourists are gone and it is not wall to wall cruisers. Get there a few days early and enjoy the polace. DON

If you use USD anywhere outside of the US you may be ripped off on the exchange rate and will almost certainly get change in local currency. That means that if you buy something for $1 and give them a $10 bill you will get $9 back in local currency. If you plan to pay w USD bring a bunch of small denomination bills. Also make sure that the bills are in pretty decent shape as many vendors will not accept bills that are in bad shape. DON

Or how big your bank account is. This question is sort of meaningless.

The obvious answer in any bidding situation is to bid what the item you are bidding for is worth to you. Then stop looking so you will not be tempted to end up bidding too high. DON

My Antarctic sailing is more recent than the original Antarctica sails but I have been told that in the olden times doing Antarctica had to actual get into their life boats during muster drill. Can you imagine having to do that now. I agree with others that in the if a real emergency occurred people would be running around like headless chickens. I would not wish bad luck on anyone but perhaps a real emergency on a ship might be useful to bring us back to reality. DON

I do not understand why so many people use cruise line airplane flights. I may sometimes but not always pay a little more to book directly with the airline but when the inevitable problems or issues occur I can talk directly to the company that is actually providing the service. Makes life easier. DON

Have you ever booked airline tickets. There have been times when I looked at a flight and when I came back less than an hour later there was a significant price change both up and down. DON

Thanks for the good wishes. If I remember correctly it was on a cruise in Spain. We are still keeping busy cruising and visiting AK. Our most recent cruise was on the American Queen Voyages Ocean Victory - 150 passengers and Sitka to Vancouver. A great cruise. Got into lots of small towns and great fjords. We have 2 more AK cruises scheduled. We have a family tradition of taking our grandkids to AK when they turn 1 and w/o their parents. These cruises are a hoot. Covid delayed the last voyage but in 3 weeks we leave for AK with Leo on the Grand Princess. Also a month or so back Carole realized that we have never done an early season cruise to AK so we booked a very early season cruise. Should be a bit of a different AK experience. That should do it for AK for a while. We did have a Hurtigruten cruise from Vancouver to Nome booked but Covid messed up that one and when AK cruising restarted they got very expensive. Best to you and keep on cruising. Don and Carole

Good IT people do extensive and large scale testing before releasing a piece of software to the world. Even then there are sometimes problems. Considering the problems that the Azamara people are having, they must have missed that class when they attended IT school. DON

I know that Northern Aurora knows this but there is a good reason for the snow dumps. Valdez, Alaska Valdez can see as much as 325″ of snow annually and being surrounded by the Chugach Mountains definitely helps that snowfall total rise. The small town of 4,000 offers superb heli-skiing and deep-sea fishing that attracts tourists from all over the world. DON

Just got an e-mail from Viking telling us that. Why? We are not happy. Has Covid disappeared. DON

Do you have fun on your cruises with those self imposed restrictions? DON

There is a problem with this. You want to measure the inside temperature but you have the thermometer stuck to a piece of glass that is picking up heat or cool from the inside of the cabin. How accurate is it going to be. And before anyone say that you can hang a thermometer from something on your balcony if you have a balcony cabin - that also will not work because of the chilling effect of air movement or heat from sunlight if you are on the sunny side of the ship. Measuring outside temperature is trickier than you think. You might read this - https://weatherworksinc.com/news/temperature-measurement DON

I would love to know what the crew really thinks. What did you expect the crew members to say when you offered the chair to them. DON

The only difference might be whether you want the sun in your room in the morning or afternoon.I like sunsets and I am not up for sunrises so I would on the room and on the side of the ship to give me PM sun. DON

You can be sure that if you are in a previously infected room your room is now probably the cleanest room 0n the ship./ DON

This is the king crab season "Golden King Crab can usually be caught throughout the year from the middle of February to the middle of June, while Red Alaskan King Crab season opens for only short windows in the fall from November through January." Any king crab that buy in a restaurant will be frozen. DON

I don't drink bar drinks but mainly wine. This may sound like a dumb question but if the bartender does not make it to your taste can you return it and get a proper drink instead at no charge? DON

Assuming that they really get the construction camp finished by July which is probably unlikely, how many months would they have to work before they have to shut down for the winter. When they do get it finished and then get the road after Pretty Rocks back in shape there is the Eielson Visitor center and the lodge at the end of the road that will need fix up since I am sure that both have them have have had minimal if any maintenance since the road was closed. If I was a betting man as I must be since I live in Las Vegas I would pick some time in 2030 as when everything is completely done and restored. Perhaps we should start a CC pool where we pick the date for complete reopening of the full road and all the infrastructure. The problem is what sort of a prize can we offer for the winner - a lifetime free membership in CC. DON

https://fm.kuac.org/local-news/2023-05-30/pretty-rocks-bridge-project-to-get-underway-this-summer DON

There is a World Cruise board on CC. Try posting there. DON

I would suspect that there a lot of standard drinks that the bartender can make as mocktails by just leaving out the alcohol. Also although they probably will not have them but one can get standard "alcoholic" beverages that have the taste of the real thing but do not have any alcohol in them. DON

Sometimes the tour consolidator companies actually list the name of the company that is doing the tour. Also you can often do some detective work by comparing consolidator tour descriptions with the descriptions on the actual tour company sites. Consolidator sites are useful and most of the time they do work - until they don't. The biggest problem with the consolidator sites is the inability to contact the tour company directly. If you have a question about the tour and you have booked on Viator - you call or text Viator and then Viator contacts the tour company on your behalf. The tour company may or may not actually get back to Viator who then may or may not get back to you. Often the Viator operator who has never done any travel may misunderstand your question or problem so you have to go through this whole cycle again. If I book directly with the tour company not only does the tour company get to keep all my money but the communications are much easier. The exception to the tour consolidator problem is ToursbyLocals. The people who are doing the tours list their names and tour descriptions directly on ToursbyLocals and you communicate directly with then actual person who is doing the tour so you can easily fine tune your tour to do exactly what you want. I have never had a bad ToursbyLocals tour and I have done a lot of them. I believe that GetYourGuide operates in the same mode but I am not sure. Hope this helps. DON

There are no specific rules for Americans and also no specific rules for bringing booze or soda from American ports. The cruise contract is very clear on this point - "Guests are also prohibited from bringing water, sodas and other non-alcoholic beverages on board that are packaged in bottles. A small quantity of non-alcoholic beverages (i.e., sparkling water, sodas, juice, milk) packaged in cans or cartons may be brought on board on embarkation day, only if carried on in Guests’ hand luggage (not in checked luggage). A small quantity is considered a maximum of 12 sealed, unopened cans/cartons of 12 ounces each or less per person. " No mention of Americans or American ports. DON