donaldsc

Not accessible by cruise ship but Root Glacier in Wrangell-Elias National Park near Kennicott is neat and you can hike on it. https://www.nps.gov/places/root-glacier.htm. The glacier is easily accessible by land and Kennicott is well worth a visit. The problem with most people who visit AK is that if it isn't close to or on a ship tour they don't know anything about it. DON

I was on a trip in Mexico once and women in the village were selling very small woven baskets for $5 to $10 and people who had gladly spent that much money at the hotel we were staying at for a drink were trying to haggle them down a few bucks. At that point I was ashamed to be an American. DON

This is sort of a response to the OP although he may not have this attitude. Many cruising and traveling Americans feel that just because they are Americans they are protected by American law or regulations outside of the country. Marijuana is one example. Handicapped access is another. Gun rights are still another. When you leave the country you are covered by the laws of whatever country you are in. I am not sure exactly which country's law cover you when you are on a cruise ship but I am reasonably certain that it is not American laws. With regard to the OP's effort to bring and use marijuana on the cruise ship and perhaps off the cruise ship he does this at his own risk. I do think that he realizes this. I do think that his comment that "it seems that almost everyone in the U.S. is high on cannabis these days." is just a little bit of an exaggeration. DON

https://www.sekonda.com/ DON

Then also used the cover on my cruise when it rained for an extended period. DON

Even worse are the men who wear their baseball caps backwards. I realize that it is totally stupid but I have an irrational hatred of seeing people who wear baseball caps backwards. If you have to wear a baseball cap at least wear it in the manner that it was designed for. DON

How hard would it be for Princess to give him a fake or inactive medallion just to make a 2 year old happy. That would have been good customer relations. DON

2017 and 10 years ago in the initial post. What does this have w the situation today? DON

You need to define your selection parameters before you can expect to get a useful answer. DON

Some of them are sort of old. The Prada movie had been on TV about a 1000 times. DON

Why don't you both take a one way trip with whatever land time your friends can manage, Then they go home and you stay on for more land time. DON

At least it isn't Florida "lobster". DON

Actually regardless of the price shown for the jewelry it was not over priced but it was free because you used OBC for it. Anything you buy w nonrefundable OBC is free. DON

The problem w this approach is that the 1st tour may get the good guide and the makeup trip may get the leftover guide. DON

The only way that I would do a 3 yr cruise is if I was living but not really living in a coffin. DON

This is an extremely wise answer especially your comment about luxury except that I would very slightly disagree w you. Try to do the Falklands, S. Georgia AND Antarctica just does not work in my opinion because you do not get enough time in any of the 3 places. You should have at least 3 days in the Falkland and 5 or 6 days in South Georgia to have enough time to see the places properly. On my last trip we had 3 days in the Falklands and I think 8 or 9 days in South Georgia. This means 9 days minimum and maybe even 12 days for these 2 islands. Most longer trips are say 21 or 22 days total and it is hard to find one that is longer than that because of costs so lets be optimistic and say 25 days total. You need 1 day to get from Ushuaia to the Falklands and 1 1/2 day to get from the Falklands to South Georgia so this means your trip total is almost 15 days before you even start heading for Antarctica. For a 25 day trip this will leave you only 10 days to get from South Georgia (2 days), gety back from Antarctica (1 1/2 days) and just 7 days in Antarctica. You just don't get enough time in any location. My suggestion is not to try to see all three places in 1 trip. Do Antarctica in one trip and the Falklands / South Georgia in another trip although it will be hard to find a trip that will do just these 2 islands. One more thing to add although you implied it but did not say it explicitly. You do EVER want a trip with more than 200 people on it and you really want one that has less than 100 people. This is because of the 100 people on the continent rule. If you have 100 people you can be on land for as long as you want. If you have more than 100 people you will have 100 on the continent and the rest of them waiting to do something. Hope that this helps. DON

Good point although my attitude is that if the lobster does not come from New England it isn't lobster. In addition although it is obviously not possible on board a ship is that if I did not see it swimming before they popped it into the boiling water it still isn't real lobster. I am fussy about my lobster although on my recent Viking Ocean cruise on the surf and turf dinner I had 5 or 6 of the pseudo lobsters. I compromised my principles. The fact that it was a no limit and no cost as many as you could eat dinner helped a bit. Funny story here. I come from Las Vegas which is the home of the all you can eat buffet. For a short time and many years ago one of the casinos had a surf and turf buffet which did have live maine lobster as as part of the buffet. I went several times and enjoyed it and I did not make a pig of myself. I understand that the record for lobster consumption at the buffet was more than 20 lobsters which might have been one of the reasons that the lobster buffet did not last long. DON

Is the 6 oz lobster really lobster or something else? A lobster so small is ridiculous. There are regulations in some New England states to taking small lobsters and I would bet that a lobster of this size falls under the limit. DON

I see your point. I experienced the same very warm conditions on a previous AK trip compounded by the problem that the B&Bs that we stayed in did not have air conditioning because you just don't need AC in AK - until you do. I see that you are from Florida where you don't have cold. One year I spent a week in Fairbank and points north to do aurora photography. If you really want cold try one of those trips. I took every bit of cold weather clothing that I owned and bought more and I also went through a bunch of those chemical hand warmers. Try -20 w/o the wind chill. LOL!!! Great photos though. DON

I would hope that you have a TA who handles large groups. If you do - that is their job to take care of. DON

According to a very famous British playwriter - "A Rose by any other name is still a rose" although I am slightly misquoting the text. DON

Check out Amazon Pill Packs. https://pharmacy.amazon.com/pillpack. Took me ~ 5 minutes to find them on Amazon. DON

One thing that worries me is how long are you really in Denali. I would like to know the arrival time on day 1 in Denali and the departure time on day 2. In many cases you get into Denali around 12:00 noon on day 1 and leave Denali around 2 PM on day 2. In my book this means that you really have 1 day in Denali - a short end of the day on day 1 and a short beginning of the day on day 2. This is not enough time in Denali. Another thing to consider is that first of all with that schedule you don't have enough time to get into the really good parts of Denali. Even if you theoretically had the time the only road into the park is closed at mile 43 so you can't get to the good parts anyway. IMHO going to Denali under the circumstances that I have described may not be worth doing. Is it possible for you to find a cruisetour that does not go into Denali and makes better use of your time. One final thing. You really need to look closely at the port times for all the places that you will visit. The cruise lines can be really sneaky about port times. DON

In my opinion Haines is a better port than Skagway. However this is based on being in Haines off a small ship and being the only ship in town. Not sure how it would be if Haines was hit with several larger ships although I doubt if a Genormous of the Seas type ship would dock there. I really like the place, DON

It is a Clipper Cruise tradition. DON