donaldsc

I am perhaps incorrectly that all cruise line tour sites work the same but Princess has the option of looking at detailed excursion details for every cruise including the time spent at every location. Have you looked for the same info on NCL. I will bet that it is there. DON

Excellent post!!! A lot of what you say can also apply to AK cruises although not as badly. Half day in port itineraries where you are in port from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM or from 2:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Don't even get me started at half day stays in many of the AK ports while you get from 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM in Skagway which in my opinion is the worse port on the AK port list. The saving grace for AK is that you are almost never far from the ship. The other thing that I wonder about is when people on an AK cruise who have done all of their cruising in the Caribbean get all up tight about what the entertainment and other features are on the ship. I always reply that in AK the entertainment is what is outside of your window and not what is going on aboard the ship. DON

Just relax. On our last on thus far only Viking Ocean cruise we had problems with booking the restaurants early. I called Viking directly and they made my 2 allowed bookings over the phone although not at the times that we really wanted. Once we got on board everything sorted itself out. On the days that we had prebooked we got to the restaurant when we really wanted to eat and were seated with only a short wait. It was also very easy to book additional seatings as they had a table set up outside of the buffet to make dinner reservations. We ate at Manfridies once and also at 3 of the 4 chef's table restaurants. DON

Is this conclusion based on a sample size of 1 cruise, a couple of cruises or many cruises. If the sample size is one cruise the conclusion drawn from the data is dubious. As many of the respondents have said - it depends. DON

Unless I am wrong my understanding is that if you remove the "suggested" automatic gratuity the tips you pay to individuals have to be put into the general tip pool and be split between everyone in the pool as per the formula. So what you are doing is an wasted exercise in futility. DON

I thought that TSA pre was available only when flying from a US airport. Is it also available when flying from a European airport to the US? DON

You might just get a Kindle and check out a bunch of books from your local library. I always check out a bunch of them as I don't know what I will want to read on the cruise. Lots easier than lugging heavy "real" books. DON

My question and I have not bothered to check it out is whether the cruise companies are telling customers about the road closure or do they let them find out when they get to Denali. We all know based on some of the posts on CC that some people do not bother to do any research and they believe everything that the cruise companies or other travel related companies tell them. DON

This is an interesting read. Consider this before you decide to visit Denali or take a CruiseTour that visits Denali. https://www.earthtrekkers.com/denali-road-closure-things-to-do/ DON

Under normal circumstances the answer would be a definite "yes". However considering that the road is closed at mile 43 it is now a definite "no". I am surprised although I probably should not be that Princess has not told you about the closure. See this post - https://www.earthtrekkers.com/denali-road-closure-things-to-do/. Consider what you will not see in Denali if you go now. DON

Sometimes the best part of being impressive is being impressive in a subtle way. I own an old manual wind Omega wrist watch with the original stainless steel band which is the same model that was worn by Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon. I wear it because I like it and because manual wind watches should be worn. It just looks like any ordinary not-very-fancy watch (https://www.chrono24.com/omega/omega-speedmaster-moonwatch-vintage-1969--id25381660.htm) but it worth maybe $10,000. Most people wouldn't give it a 2nd look. I was on a cruise once and someone at the same dining table as me looked at it and asked me if the watch was what he thought it was. I was impressed that he knew watches and we enjoyed our dinner conversation. The fact that he was British and was into British sports cars (we both owned 1959 Austin Healey Sprites but his was close to original and mine was significantly race modified) made the dinner conversation even better. Life can be interesting at times. DON

You missed the point of buying a dead elite medallion. You wear it around the ship to impress people so they will give you the respect that you feel you deserve while you hide the functional plebeian medallion in your pocket. Sort of like the people who buy counterfeit high end watches, BTW on our recent Caribbean cruise we passed a shop that openly sold fake high end watches. As duplicates they looked pretty good. I did not check on the prices. DON

We are going to be in these cities on a Viking Northern Lights cruise in March 2023. Looking for suggestions for good non-ship tours in these cities and especially tours that would give us the best chance of seeing aurora. DON

Inquiring or maybe nosy minds have to ask - why April? DON

Don't know where you live but is there some way that you can take a local helicopter tour. An alternative would be to go to your local small airport and explain to them why you would like to take and pay for a short helicopter check ride. I will bet that you might even get it for free or at least by just paying for the gas. DON

I will be doing my first medallion cruise this summer. Are they actually going to charge me shipping for me to get something that Princess is going to force me to use and that I do not want? DON

What difference does it make what color it is? I would assume that the electronics knows what level you are as well as your entire life history since you were 2. DON

If I were stuck outside of town away from everywhere on a cruise port stop - that would give me a reason to never cruise on that line again. Out of town and w a short port time is not a good situation for me. DON

Where? When? Interests? Budget? DON

I would like to get the details but this would do. I can't figure out except that Princess does not give a damn why you have to jump through hoops to do something that should be easy. I have cruised with other lines including Viking where you can click on a "Print to PDF" button and everything prints. DON

Actually I do want Japan!!! We will be on the 18 day Japan cruise leave on Oct 31 2023. Any help would be appreciated. DON donald.schoengold41@gmail.com

I am trying to print the full list of shore excursions for a port so I can compare excursions off line. it should be easy to create a PDF files of the excursions but there does not seem to be any way to do it. I even tried several of my screen capture programs which also do not work. Am I missing somethong obvious> DON

Viking - small ship w ~ 900 passengers. Excellent cabin. Good food. Wonderful service. No kids allowed. Clipper Cruises - a sailboat (you can't beat a sailboat in the Caribbean). Interesting international clientele. Even smaller w ~ 200 passengers. Visits small ports that other lines do not visit. Very casual. DON

I load 25 or 30 books from my library onto my Kindle or from Hoopla onto my tablet or phone as I never know what I will want to read once I get on the ship. How much would that many books weigh if they were "real" books. DON

We are doing AK on the Grand this summer not because we particularly like the ship or any other Princess ship but because we are taking our 11 year old grandson on his coming-of-age AK cruise. We take each of our grandchildren on an AK cruise w/o their parents when they turn 10 and he is the last one. We don't think that he would enjoy AK as much on one of the small ships. I even believe that the 400 passenger Seabourn is too large. Our 3 best AK cruises were on a 50 passenger catamaran, the 186 passenger Ocean Victory and on one or actually several of the Marine Highway ferries.