donaldsc

I may be misunderstanding your question but what is the point of looking at and taking pictures of villages as you cruise past them out at sea. What would you see? DON

The problem with Glacier versus Hubbard is that it is almost a 100% chance that you will get into Glacier. The odds of getting into Hubbard depend upon the season and your luck. This is a link to a good glacier comparison site - https://thepointsguy.com/guide/hubbard-glacier-vs-glacier-bay/ DON

While I would not personally take a cruisetour and I have taken a number of AK trips - I disagree with the OP's comments. If you read the many comments on CC about AK cruisetours many many people have taken them and most of the people seem to be satisfied by them. I suggest that the OP did not read the detailed description of what was promised and obviously expected something different from what he got. DON

Probably mostly true but not always. We did a HAL cruise a while back which stopped at several places in Greenland. I know that the fish we had that night was fresh as I was on the tender coming back to the ship w kitchen staff who were bringing the fresh fish back to the ship that we were going to have for dinner that night. Can't be more fresh than that. DON

How about a week on a sailboat - https://www.starclippers.com/us-dom/destinations/caribbean-sailing-cruises.html. We did 2 weeks on the Star Flyer, It was great. Absolutely no kids at all. https://www.starclippers.com/us-dom/our-fleet/tall-ships/star-flyer.html DON

I was one of the people who made that suggestion. As a follow up perhaps you could find the WEB sites business in Ushuaia and call them and ask them. Don't e-mail them but actually call them. Phone calls are cheap. DON

We did a Thanksgiving cruise with the family a few years back because that was when the grandkids were off school. Awful. My comment on the Thanksgiving turkey dinner that they served is that if you remember Swanson frozen TV dinners - they were better than what we got on the ship. DON

I would hope that you at least got more of that wet paint on your shoes and walked all over the ship leaving tracks as you went. DON

Better yet - never ever book Princess ever again. There are many other cruise lines out there. DON

Quark..https://www.quarkexpeditions.com/expeditions/gems-of-west-greenland-fjords-icebergs-and-culture#departures. DON

I sailed on the Ocean Adventurer a few years ago. A wonderful ship although I think that this is her last year w Quark. I will add this to the people who have spoken of the value of the years of experience and size of the expedition staff that Quark has over almost every other Antarctica outfit in the business. You also have to consider the backgrounds of the staff. On my Quark cruise one of the staff members was a Russian who served for several years as chief of Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica - look it up in Wikipedia. The stories he told and the experiences he had were great although he was not there and would not discuss the Vostok Station murder. Of it were me I would go with Quark. There are some very good travel agencies out there that do just Antarctica cruises. I worked w one of them when I picked my South Georgia Island trip. However according to CC rules you will have to find the right one yourself as we are not allowed to recommend any travel agencies. DON

As a side note - if your TA either can't or won't find out for you I would fire that TA and never use them again. DON

According to what I read recently they are going to actually measure the size of the scooter before people are allowed to board. If it is too big they will not be allowed to board. About time. Hope that they have the guts to continue the policy and ignore the outcries of the scooter lobby. DON

Definitely NOT 3K. You can do a lot of tours or DIY tours or even extend your visit w 3K. What is wrong w standing outside and seeing stuff. DON

Until you define your parameters for "best" responses to this question are totally subjective and thus somewhat meaningless. DON

I have not ploughed through the 80+ posts on this topic but considering how crowded the buffet often is I can't see why we should have to give up some of the limited seating to more crew members. DON

Perks can also include not quite complete finishings so you end up sharing your cruise w construction people up to having your cruise cancelled because it was not ready for sailing. The latter "perk" just recently actually happened for one line just recently. DON

There are TAs that specialize only in Antarctica cruises. You should talk to one of them. However according to CC rules we can not tell you who they are. You have to do your own research to find them. DON

Better yet try to change your TA. They are being inept. Just think what serious damage they could do to your travel plans. I would not trust that TA to try to have you buy a ticket on the Staten Island ferry. DON

One reason I use a TA and I have a very good one is that you get service when things have gone south either before the cruise or even worse when you are sitting on the runway waiting to take off and realizing that you might not make your connecting flight. Try calling your cruise company expecting them to solve that problem. DON

I would disagree with that. If the image is blurred and the field of view is minimal the Viking binocs would be worse than useless since it turns a clear but distant object to a blurry and hard to find object. Using the Viking binocs is like taping 2 toilet paper rolls together and putting some SaranWrap paper on the end to blur the image. I will add and it should be obvious from my binoc comments on CC is that I am a bit of a snob with regard to anything optics. DON

My question is why do you want to spend an extended time in Talkeetna or worse yet overnight. On our driving trip in AK we spend maybe 1 hour or so in town and then drive out. I might have been missing something there but I was not excited about the place. DON

If you just want to be able to hold the camera in 2 hands instead of one I have a suggestion. My S24 has a voice photo option - you say "capture" and it takes a picture. I suspect that you S22 has the same capability. DON

The question has been whether I should give up my spot or whether I will give it up when I am done looked. My attitude is that once I have a good spot I will keep it until I am done looking and then I will leave. Otherwise I will be there for the duration. My choice and not the choice of someone wants my spot. DON

That is what I figured. I actually went on an AK small ship cruise where they gave us good binocs which I priced at about $250 each. Each room got 2 pair which is even more amazing. They even had good quality spotting scopes scattered all over the ship. So while you gave me the answer that I expected there are a few cruises where you would not have to bring your own. DON