donaldsc

They don't have to be close. My TA is in Ohio and I live in Nevada. Calls and computers make all things possible. DON

I am now going through my Global Entry renewal process. I got approved really quickly but scheduling a required interview either in person or on Zoom is ridiculous. I can't get one for months either on site in Las Vegas or Denver or on a Zoom site. Luckily they are extending it for 24 months so my old one will work. What sort of delays are other people seeing. DON

I will suggest what I do for everyone else - find a good responsive TA and dump the problem in their lap. DON

I am 81 and my wife is 79. We did two train trips in Europe recently which were our first European train trips . One from Charles de Gaulle to Lyon (1st class) and one from Avignon to Charles de Gaulle (2nd class). Everything that everyone has said is true. It was frustrating. It was hard to figure out where your car was going to stop. The train was crowded. The luggage issues that have been mentioned are true. We had to argue with someone who was in our reserved seat. Also since we were in France where nobody will admit that they speak some English (at least some of the French people must speak some English) so we couldn't ask anyone a question. I guess that the last sentence is a bit of an exaggeration since we always eventually found someone who would help us. That said - we did get on our trains. The trains were fast and comfortable. We got to our destinations. Our bags were not stolen. Our pickup points and drop-off points were in a city center and not far away at an airport. In fact since we were leaving from Charles de Gaulle and returning to the same airport the train station was actually at the airport. No security checks and we did not have to get to the train station 1 1/2 hours before the train left. It was an interesting experience. Would I do it again - maybe depending upon the circumstances. Who knows. BTW - Cruisemom42 made a comment about 2 wheel bags versus 4 wheel rollers. I agree w her completely. I have a 2 wheel bag. My wife has a 4 wheeler which I hate. The problem is that most of the bags they sell today are 4 wheelers as they have convinced people that they are better than the 2 wheelers. DON

Although this will not help your current problem but this is one more reason to book with a good TA. We have been using our really good TA for years now. I would only have had to call her with the question you are posing and she would have sorted it out. This is an example of what a good TA can do for you. We had a recent trip that started in Athens so we had to fly from Las Vegas to Athens. We had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Atlanta which should have been plenty of time but for reasons that are unimportant it looked as if we might not make it. We called her while we were waiting on the plane and asked her if she could find some alternative flights just in case. She did and had the new flights held if we had to use them. Turned out that we did make it to Atlanta in time so the new flights were cancelled. But if we had not made our scheduled flight we would have gotten to Athens in time to make our cruise with the new flights. Most of the time this problem would never occur but when you travel or when you are making arrangements to travel stuff sometimes happens. To me this is more important than the few bucks or the few perks that you can save by either doing it yourself or using a discount agency.

There is a real advantage that most people do not think about in going on a private tour of Israel that is much longer than 2 days with a maximum group size of 10 - 15 people and of mixed faith. That is that you get to experience how people who are not of your faith view and appreciate Israel. We are Jewish. We did a small group tour with maybe 12 people of different faiths using a minivan for transportation so we could get into places that a large tour bus could not. This was not planned as a mixed faith tour but that was how it turned out. It was fascinating how people of faiths other than your own reacted to visiting sites that you would never think of as important and seeing it from their viewpoint. There was one woman who really wanted to visit a place that we had not planned in advance to visit. It was really important to her and the guide said that she could make it happen if the rest of the group agreed which we did. It was an interesting place to visit but the most interesting part was how ecstatic the woman was to be there. It was probably the high point in her life. They also slightly modified the tour for us. We wanted to buy a specific piece of Judaica and asked the guide if she could take us to place where we could get it. She took us to a small shop where we got exactly what we wanted. We also got to tour the owner's workshop and have coffee and cake with the owner. One more thing. For almost every meal that we had we were the only tour group in the restaurant. We were eating with the locals and not with other tour groups. We also did not have to plan in advance for exactly where we stopped for meals. The guide would just have the van stop and she would check out the restaurant and ask if they could handle a group of 15 people. How much of this would you get on a 2 day tour on a 40 passenger bus? DON

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You might want to repost on the Antarctica board. DON

Libraries do not generate any revenue. Would you really expect them to have them. Azamara used to have a wonderful library on board w comfy chairs to sit in and also jig saw puzzle tables. When they did the renovation of their latest ship they replaced the library w yet another bar. I guess that a ship can never have enough bars. Thank god for Kindles. DON

Any time you book your pre-cruise stay with the cruise line you are being royally sc**ed. I checked that rate by logging onto the hotel WEB site. It took me all of 5 minutes to make a test reservation. You are being overcharged by $584. You might being robbed by Princess but I wouldn't. DON

https://weatherspark.com/ DON

https://weatherspark.com/ DON

I suspect that they really don't know. However if they were told who has cancelled tips they could do the bare required minimum for those rooms and spend more time in the rooms and be more responsive to the reasonable requests of the people who reward them for their hard work. It is certainly true that tips should be included as part of fare and not cancellable. However the tipping culture is what it is on most mass market cruise lines and people who do not tip appropriately for whatever reason (cultural or just being cheap) should reap what they sew. In reality I do almost all of my cruising on upscale lines that include the tips in the cruise fare because I prefer to pay one fee for the cruise instead of being nickeled and dimed to death for everything extra that I want. DON

What they should do it is to put your tipping status in code on your Medallion account. Then when crew members see that on the account they will give the passengers the service that they deserve. DON

Just think. If we did not have tipping and maybe also chair hogs there would be no posts on CC. DON

Funny story on Moscato. We have a friend who loves the stuff. They are also cruise nuts who regularly do 120 - 150 day cruises and also B2B2B2B2B cruises. In other words she is a very good customer for the lines she cruises on. On one cruise she mentioned to her waiter that there was no Moscato on board. The wine manager sent someone to a liquor store at the next port to get some Moscato especially for her. Whenever she cruises on that line which is often they make sure that they have Moscato. That is good customer support. DON

If the saving is enough and you feel fairly certain that you really want to do the cruise, could you pay the balance when you book. That would remove the danger of a major change in exchange rate. However it would also remove the possibility of a big saving if the exchange rate goes the other way. DON

I have seen several replies on this thread and other threads about which ship has more food venues. You are on the ship for 7 days. If you assume that the food venue is important only for dinner, how many food venue choices do you need? DON

Not true. Skagway was not closed. They just closed one of the docks and some of the ships did not make it in. I believe that some of them went to Haines instead which in my opinion is a better stop anyway. I have been to Haines several times and it is a great place to visit. Haines is a real Alaska town w real people as opposed to a tourist town that would disappear if the ships stopped coming. The problem with that scenario is that if the big ships started visiting Haines they would destroy what is unique about Haines. Maybe the big ships should stay away. DON

You could rent a car and drive the haul road. Just don't rent from a standard rental place such as Hertz. There are places in Fairbanks that rent cars that let you drive the haul road. https://www.travelalaska.com/Explore-Alaska/Itineraries/Dalton_Highway_Road_Trip_from_Fairbanks https://www.arcticgetaway.com/travel/dalton-highway/ It is a great drive and you will have great bragging rights over your AK-visiting friends who are scared to do the drive. You can even stay overnight there. When we did it a few years ago we stayed in a B&B in Wiseman. Don't know if it is still open - https://www.google.com/search?q=wiseman+alaska+lodging&oq=wiseman+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i67j46i67j0i67j0i131i433i512j0i512j0i3j0i512j46i512j0i131i433.4355j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 DON

I love heavy seas and big waves. Wish that I was on board. DON

The excursions for our Jan 30 Viking Sea cruise opened today at 12:00 Pacific time. I logged on precisely at 12:00 and maybe 3 seconds and I got everything that I wanted. However some of the tours sold out very rapidly and if you had waited until even 12:05 you would missed some tours. I guess that the early bird gets the worm. We will see what happens when dinner reservations open up. DON

Are the itineraries exactly the same. in AK it is all about the itinerary. DON

We had a friend who went on one of the last Crystal Antarctica who had a very severe leg injury getting onto one of the Crystal versions of the zodiac. Stuff happens. DON

Not quite right. Note this from the NPS Glacier Bay site - Cruise Ships Viking Cunard Holland America Line Norwegian Cruise Lines Princess Cruise Lines Seabourn Cruise Line Limited Tour Vessels Alaska Dream Cruises American Cruise Lines, Inc Aramark Sports and Entertainment Services, LLC Lindblad Expeditions, Inc. Un-Cruise Adventures DON