donaldsc

Some people are very allergic to dogs. Some people are deathly afraid of dogs for either rational or irrational reasons. Another thing. If you have these medical issues with dogs dander etc and you are placed in a cabin that was occupied by a dog you may suffer with allergy issues for the rest of the cruise. If there are no available cabins or if the only available cabin is a downgrade your entire cruise will be ruined by a selfish individual who insisted that they had to bring their dog with them. I have never seen the option of selecting a dog free cabin on a cruise ship. You can select a dog fee room in any hotel. What right do the dog owners who can't bear to be separated from their dogs have to impose their animals on people who have serious reasons for not wanting to be near a dog. If the people have a case of dog separation anxiety they should either board the dog or stay home. DON

Not quite right. When we took our 2 granddaughters on an AK cruise we booked Grandpa and one granddaughter in cabin A and Grandma and 2nd grandaughter in cabin B. When we got on board we switched so both granddaughters were in one cabin and both grandparents were in the other cabin. Nobody had any objections and the grandkids had a great time sharing their own cabin. DON

This is not an Azamara issue but it is relevant. I am doing a Princess cruise to Japan. About 4 or 5 years ago I booked an Azamara Japan cruise and I had lots of options from ToursbyLocals and other private guides. The private tour options for this cruise are awful. It is hard to find anything and at some ports there are only 2 or 3 private options available. DON

I am a big time Disney hater so my reply would be why would anyone go on a line that is more expensive than other lines and it overrun with children. A fate worse than death! DON

How about a sailboat - Clipper Cruises DON

I come back to my standard emotional support response. Can I bring my large emotional support snake? What about an emotional support rat - people do keep them as pets. Also at one time I believe that they also allowed emotional support miniature horses on airplanes. Or are dogs the only animals that are allowed to be emotional support species? DON

Opinions vary but I totally disagree. The OP asked about seeing AK and specifgcally said that this one was for the destination. The destination is AK and not the coast of California. The OP could take the time wasted cruising from SF to Vancouver where most good AK cruises start and then add a few more days and have some land time in AK. Also recommend a 1 way AK cruise as opposed to a NS 2 way cruise. DON

As far as I am concerned this is a big mistake. A bunch of people come off the ships and over run the town and the passengers spend very little money. My message to the cruise lines which they will obviously ignore because they just don't care is - if the towns don't want you then stay the he** out. DON

Apparently <18 year old kids can not use the Youth and Teen Program if their parents guardians are not on board. We are taking our grandson w/o parents on an AK cruise. Has anyone encountered this problem. Can the parents sign some sort of form that authorizes us to act as a parent in absentia so he can go to the club if he wants. We already have notarized Permission to Treat and Permission to Take Him Out of the Country forms for him. DON

How did we ever unlock our cabin doors before they invented and foisted the medallion card upon us? Using my cell phone to fill out my medallion login stuff was such a pain that I gave up. If I can't do at easily at embarkation they can take the medallion and put it you know where and I will use the old fashioned pass card. To me it is just a bad solution looking for a nonexistent problem. DON

We were recently on a Viking Ocean ship and there was a person on board who had a seeing eye dog. The dog was perfectly behaved. When he was in the restaurant the dog lay on the floor in front of the man's feet. We saw him around the ship and you would hardly know that he was there. There was also a dog relief box on one of the upper decks. The dog was better behaved than some of the people we have seen on ships. In addition he did not try to dress inappropriately in the MDR and he definitely did not wear a baseball cap either forward or backward. DON

We have coyotes who wander throughout neighborhood in the morning eating small dogs. The coyotes were in our neighborhood before they built our houses so I guess that they have a right to eat a few dogs but people do get a bit miffed when their chihuahua goes missing. I am not a dog person but if I were a chihuahua would be the last breed that I would get. DON

I disagree w this one. Passenger led services are usually held in a private room and they don't bother anyone. We sometimes attend Shabbat services on the ship. We don't bother anyone as we are in a private room and people of any faith are welcome to attend if they wish. I do agree that ANY public display of religious stuff is a no-no including saying a blessing before the meal. DON

If the ports and the port times were totally identical, then I agree with you. Otherwise I would completely disagree. What is outside completely overrides what is inside. Alaska is not the Caribbean. DON

We usually take shared transfers (bur or van) to and from airports instead of reserved private transfers. Private transfers in Japan seem very expensive. I have been having trouble find these in Japan. We need 3 transfers: Narita to Tokyo; Tokyo to Yokohama cruise port: and Yokohama to Narita. Does anyone have any shared transfer services that they like? DON

Different strokes for different folks. I would not want to be on a bus tour and not in control of where I am going and where I am stopping and what tours shops I am not going to. As far as driving - navigating is easy as I let Miz Garmin do the navigating and I enjoy driving more than sitting on the wrong side of the bus as we pass w/o stopping at a particularly interesting place or there is a moose or bear on the side of the road. Also some of the really interesting visits we have made on a trip were when we were driving and we saw a sign pointing to a place or event that we didn't even was there until we turned off our planned route and went to it. DON

It will be a problem forever - just like noro. Learn to live w it. DON

Getting discounts from a TA is good. Have a good TA who looks out for your and who takes care of problems is a better reason to have a good TA. One of the people on this post said that they do not get that sort of service from their TA. Then change your TA. I have told this story on CC several times but here it goes again. We were booked to fly from Las Vegas to Athens with a flight change in Atlanta. We had 2 hours to make the change but we had a very long ground hold in Vegas and could not take off. It looked as if we might miss our flight in Atlanta. We called our TA from the plane while we were waiting and asked her to have a backup way of getting to Athens just in case. She was monitoring our progress and she called us in Atlanta as soon as we landed to check in and to tell us that she did a have backup flight identified and had a short hold on the alternative flight and would book it if we didn't make our flight. As it happened we did make out flight with a short time to spare but that is the reason why you should have a good TA. As an aside I can't tell you how many times a cruise company tried to sc**w us out of something that we should have gotten and managed to get it for us. DON

Are you suggesting that only old people know that they are having a bad cruise experience and that younger ones don't know or don't care. DON

If she did not book a cabin w access she should not be allowed in. I do not see what her age should have to do w it. No exceptions. I can't figure out why this is so hard to understand. DON

Polar Class 2 The 270-passenger vessel, capable of breaking up to 2.5 metres (8 ft) thick multi-year ice and taking passengers to the North Pole, was delivered in 2021. The United States Coast Guard has ordered two out of three planned PC 2 rated heavy polar icebreakers referred to as Polar Security Cutters. Polar Class 2 The 270-passenger vessel, capable of breaking up to 2.5 metres (8 ft) thick multi-year ice and taking passengers to the North Pole, was delivered in 2021. The United States Coast Guard has ordered two out of three planned PC 2 rated heavy polar icebreakers referred to as Polar Security Cutters. DON

Everything is personal experience but 1) I have not done a drive by but I would say "no". 2) No. You have to set foot to count. As an example if you drove through Rhode Island going from one place to another in the US would you say that you have visited Rhode Island. 3) The answer depends upon where you have been in Greenland. I have been to both places but only on the western side of Greenland around Nanortalik and Qukoratok and there is no doubt in my mind that Antarctica is much much better. My brother has been to the other side of Greenland where almost nobody lives and where very few ships visit and based on his photographs I am not sure which is better DON

We had sort of the reverse on our last Falklands visit. When we got off the ship the sea conditions were not great but manageable. Halfway through our penguin tour our guide got a call telling him to get back really quickly or they might have to leave us behind. It was interesting getting off the tenders going back to the ship. I heard that not surprisingly there were some people who complained on the ship that their tours were cut short and the ship owed them compensation. There actually have been a few instances in the Falklands where ships have had to leave so quickly that they had to leave people behind. The islanders just put up the stranded travelers in their homes overnight. Our guide said that he had to do that one time. I thank that an experience like that would be a real hoot. DON

I may have this wrong but here goes. We are w AT&T. They have a $10 per 24 hour overseas plan. My understanding is that your 24 hour usage period starts when you 1st use it and ends 24 hours later. This may sound like a lot of money but you can turn it on only on days that you need it. In addition your maximum charge for the plan is $100 so if you are on a cruise that is more than 10 days long and you use the phone every day your bill will be $10. This would certainly be useful for an extended cruise. As I said - I could be wrong about the plan. We have it but have never used it. Basically my attitude on the whole question about smart phones on trip is that the best way it to leave the phone in your room and don't use it. DON

We live in Las Vegas where it can be very sunny a lot of the time. My wife asked about transition type lenses. The optician said that they do not get very dark. DON