donaldsc

Totally agree but based on the luggage that is available for sale now almost everyone seems fallen for the 4 wheel stuff. My wife has a 4 wheel suitcase and I have a 2 wheel bag. I hate her bag. I will add that soft sided luggage tends to be lighter in general but hard side luggage will protect your stuff better. There is very light hard sided luggage but it tends to be pricey. I will also add that I know people who buy cheap luggage as opposed to the better more expensive stuff. They assume that all luggage breaks eventually and if the cheap stuff lasts 4 or 5 trips they just throw it away and buy new cheap stuff. There is something to be said for that philosophy. DON

Way way way too much!!! It isn't the Caribbean so it won't be hot so you don't need to change every day. You don't need special dinner clothing. Lounge clothing - is that some special type of clothing that you think that you need? Leave it home. I suspect that you are also taking more shoes than you need although you have not mentioned that. Wear your largest pair when you board the ship. Then you only need to pack 1 or maybe 2 pair of shoes. As a side note - one pair of shoes should be waterproof. It probably will not be that cold in AK and you can check weather forecasts before you leave so you are probably taking too much cold weather clothing. Also if you have down clothing they pack down wonderfully. Do you really need 2 large backpacks since you will only be using them on day trips and how much do you need on a day trip. You can even eliminate the need for a day pack if you have a photo or fisherman vest w lots of pockets. Hoe that this helps. DON

I just came off a Viking cruise. It was great and one reason was that the pool area was very pleasant - no live bands; no loud or unlistenable music; no bad movies that you couldn't pay me enough to see; also almost no loungers with unread paperback books on them. Also no trivia or art sales or jewelry events. There are many of us who like that sort of atmosphere and who do a lot of cruising. There are other reasons besides those things that I wouldn't cruise on Princess or other ships of that type, The last time we cruised Princess was when we took our 10 year old granddaughter to AK and it work for us or else I wouldn't have done that cruise. I have booked a long Japan cruise on Princess this fall because of the itinerary and I sure hope that I will nol be subjected to the c**p described above. At least if they do have that stuff this cruise is a port intensive cruise so I will be off the ship for most of the day. If that makes me an old grouch so be it. I also have to admit that when we did our recent cruise on one of the Clipper Lines sailboats the Conquest of Paradise" a 1992 song recorded by Greek composer Vangelis that they played when they raised the sails was pretty cool but they also played it ONLY when they were raising the sails and not all the time. Really cool sail setting music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ufkMTshjz8 DON

I know that we are not supposed to criticize writing style but here goes. The moderator is free to remove this post. Your post is very hard to read and I suspect that some people who might get useful information from it would say "forget it". I would suggest shorter paragraphs and double spacing between paragraphs. It would make your post much more readable. DON

A restaurant that the locals don't want to go into must be a really great place. There is one in Vegas about 14 miles from my home so I could go there anytime and see how bad it is. I looked at the menu and it did not seem any different from any of the other many locally owned Mexican places. DON

I can't help you w this problem but I do have a suggestion for anyone who asks any cruise line any question - get the answer in writing. If they will not give it to you in writing consider it a none answer. I sure hope that you sort it out. We did a bunch of cruises on Azamara before but I have not cruised w them post Covid. Sounds like the new owners are having some issues. DON

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