donaldsc

I doubt if you will be allowed to bring them on the plane w you and maybe not even on the ship but chemical hand warmers can be used to keep your hands and feet warm. You can even put them into your pockets. Used them all the time on my February aurora photography trip in Fairbanks. DON

Type "pay to use the washers and dryers on the princess Discovery" into Google. DON

We are going to be in Athens for several free pre- and post-cruise days. We will be in Athens in late September and early October. I want to be free to wander around Athens and I also want to be able to visit several archaeological sites. However I don't want to book anything in advance because that ties me down. I also know that I will get a lot more from visiting an archaeological site if I see it with a private guide. Am I likely to be able to hire one on site or should I make arrangements in advance. DON

I am very picky about my flight arrangements. I always book my own flights. DON

Thanks for the detailed reply. You are are telling me in detail what I guess I sort of figured out by myself. I was just hoping that someone would tell me that I was wrong. As you said - I guess that I have to figure out what the private tours are worth to me. As an aside. As these will be my 1st Clipper cruises, is there anything special beside the fact that I will have a wonderful time that I should know about the ships or cruises that might not be obvious. DON

https://chenahotsprings.com/ DON

If you go onto the WEB there are independently produced ship models that you can purchase. DON

You don't actually have to go into Denali to see Mt Denali (BTW - the name for the mountain is now Mt Denali and not Mt McKinley). There are good viewpoints on the Parks Highway. Check them out on the WEB. DON

The other consideration besides whether you will see them at is is how intense they will be. I saw them once on a cruise and they were so faint that they were hardly worth looking at. As Northern Aurora and CruiserYC have rightly suggested if you really want to see them take a trip up north in the winter time. I did exactly what Northern Aurora suggested - I spent a week in Fairbanks and almost a week in Chena Hot Springs in February. The aurora were wonderful. One of the coldest time in my life but also one of the high points in my life. DON

I use Google Flights as my go to app for checking out flight options. Take a look at it. Google ITA is also a good one but it is a bit more complicated to use. DON

I realize that this question is probably unanswerable but I am looking for opinions as well as answers. We are doing a B2B Greek Island cruise this fall off the Star Flyer. I have been looking to book some private tours during the cruise. I also have 2 days pre-cruise included with the cruise and 2 days post-cruise included w the cruise as part of the package so I am assuming that at least some of the people doing the same B2B as I am doing will be staying in the same hotels as we are. In addition we also have the full day in Athens between cruise #1 and cruise #2. I have posted the fact that I have tours to share on this trip on CC. To nobody's surprise I have not received any interested replies. I already have 1 tour on the 2nd cruise to Ephesus out of Kusadasi and a good post-cruise tour out of the hotel that Clipper has booked that are shareable although I will be happy do do these tours even if I can't get anyone to share with me. Now for my problem. I am looking at doing a pricy full day private tour to Corinth and then onto the Nemea for wine tasting. However if I could add 2 or 4 people to the group it would become a very affordable great sounding tour. So my question is have any of you done a Clipper cruise where ad hoc tours have been put together on board or is my hope of doing this ridiculous. Remember that the Corinth tour would be between the 2 cruises so I could pick up people doing the B2B and also people are already in Athens. So what do you all think. Is my idea reasonable or ridiculous? DON

I basically agree with everything that you say about binocs but I sort of disagree w this part of your post. If you are buying the binoculars only for cruising and even more if only for AK it is probably correct since most of the stuff you will be looking at will be within the depth of field of the binoculars. If you plan to use them for close up stuff like maybe birding or other nature stuff your recommendation is not so good as stuff that is close will be out of focus. I have a pair of pretty good binoculars that I bought many years ago that don't focus any closer than maybe 10 or 15 feet. Good binoculars but not good for what I want to do w them so I had to go out and buy new ones a few years ago. I am also glad that you added the adjective "good" to the recommendation for Perma-Focus binoculars as we both know that there a lot of really cheap really lousy fixed focus binoculars out there. I did a quick search on one of the WEB binocular store sites and I found fixed focus binocs ranging in price from $35 to $1200. Want to bet that there is a difference between them. DON

If you are worried there is a solution. Go onto your cruise roll call and see if there are any private tours set up Or else set up your own private tours and go onto the roll calls and share. Your tour - your rules. That is what we are doing on our Greek Island and Athens trip. This will be a bit more expensive if you can't get people to share but you will have exactly the tours that you want. We do this all the time. DON

Don't. I never see the point of people trying to convince friends that friend #2 should join friend #1 in some activity even though friend #2 doesn't want to. Suppose friend # 1 loves camping so she convinces friend #2 to go camping w her with the expected results. I personally hate Disney and everything to do w it. No reason for me to explain why. If one of my friends offered to take me on a free Disney cruise I wouldn't go and I would tell the friend to stop bothering me. Perhaps this is the situation here. PatandSue should just drop it and stop bugging their friend about cruising. DON

They have them at the pier. No worry. DON

Were they are really requiring and not suggesting that you wear a mask. If this is true and people were ignoring the order were there any negative consequences to the people who ignored the order? If there were not any negative consequences why did they even make the announcement. It is sort of like when they make a mandatory evacuation order when a wild fire (btw - has anyone ever seen a tame fire in a wilderness area - just asking) occurs and half the peopple ignore the order but cry to be rescued when bad things happen in their area. DON

Although it is not totally relevant, my granddaughter just returned from a trip to Dublin through Heathrow with 3 flights going and 2 coming home. Every one of her flights was delayed. You better have a good plan B and maybe also a plan C and D, DON

I have not cruised on Azamara since Covid so my info may be out of date. However the main reasons that we cruised on Azamara were: the itineraries (I pick my cruises mainly on this point); the attitudes of the captains; the authority of the captains to make minor changes in ship route when it would give a better cruise; the friendliness of the crews; the free laundry; the no limit all day drink (alcoholic and otherwise) policy; and the overall friendliness of the ship Yes the cabins are small and the showers are even smaller but both my wife and not large people so this does not present a problem. Now if I was 6"3" or weighed 250# it might be. I just like the R class ships and the fact that you can walk from one end of the ship to the other end in maybe 3 minutes. DON

Wouldn't these be illegal on most also ships and also illegal in many countries? DON

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-5-Port-Charger-PowerPort-iPhone/dp/B00VH8ZW02/ref=sr_1_6?crid=WGRHI0K8G38H&keywords=anker+multiport+phone+charger+station&qid=1661795242&refinements=p_89%3AAnker&rnid=2528832011&s=wireless&sprefix=anker+multiport+phone+charger+station%2Caps%2C112&sr=1-6. 5 ports for 5 devices. 45 W. Plugs into the wall socket. $30. Much better than plugging into the lamp socket. DON

All of this talk about aurora excursions ignores the fact that if you REALLY want to see aurora and not just see them as part of a cruise you have to design a land trip specifically to see them - northern Alaska, Iceland or northern Norway. Pick a season where the probability of seeing them is good. Pick a time of the month when there is little or no moon. Then book a stay at spot with dark skies for a week to hopefully get at least a few days with no cloud cover. If you want to be totally nuts about it don't book your trip without checking the aurora forecast sites. When you find a time and place where all the omens align immediately book your trip. There is still a chance that you will have bad luck but you have done all you can do to maximize your chances of seeing them. That is what I did except that I booked in advance and did not wait until a favorable aurora forecast - Fairbanks, February, no moon and a week booked at Chena Hot Springs which is ~60 miles away from the lights of Fairbanks. I did luck out. I got 4 or 5 days of wonderful aurora. That was one of my bucket list trips. DON

Totally agree except that you might be cited by crew for discarding worthless rubbish overboard. It isn't allowed even if it is a walkie talkie and deserves it. DON

One thing that should be noted is that unlike most of the Christian religions, a Rabbi is not necessary to conduct services. A Rabbi is basically a learned man or woman who has the knowledge to conduct services. There is not overriding leadership that authorizes him or her to conduct them. In our synagogue we have several lay members who conduct the services when the Rabbi is not available. DON

Yet Longterm saw all 3 museums plus maybe the Eifel Tower in the short time he had on his day trip to Paris. I rest my case. That by the way is the problem with visiting almost any city as part of a cruise. Not enough time in any city and trying to cram too much stuff in too little time. I remember visiting the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The ship tour of Stockholm visited the museum plus a bunch of other places in the typical short ship tour time period. We spent almost half a day at the Vasa Museum and did not see everything. Another thing. One of the great things about visiting any city is sitting in a typical café (whatever that means) and have a drink or coffee and doing people watching. You sure can't do that on a 1 day ship Paris trip. DON

How much time did you have in each museum? DON