donaldsc

When I am blocked by multiple people in a hall way I get behind them and say in a loud annoying voice "excuse me - I want to get by you". They sometimes actually move. I have one great idea to handle the GREAT CELL PHONE CONTROVERSY . In addition to having designated smoking areas on the ship we should also have designated cell phone areas. We then install cell phone jammers in the rest of the ship. Before anyone jumps on me - I am not being serious about this idea. Or am I? DON

I will admit that I did exaggerate just a bit. OK - maybe more than a bit. However part of it was true. I do not like any bus tours because I want to be in control of where we go, when we stop to look at stuff and when we don't stop. Taking photos through the window of a bus always results in bad photos and the interesting stuff always seems to be on the other side of the bus. It also seems that every bus tour or bus trip I have ever taken has one couple on it who come back late.. Also I prefer to stay in B&Bs instead of large lodges. I have taken 2 guided tours in my travels One was the tour in Cuba and the story I told of having to sneak out to have a dinner w just my wife was true. The other was a Greek tour where the guide that we had for the entire week was so bad and so boring (he sounded like the stereotype pedantic university lecturer) that the tour company gave us a $1000 each refund on our tour cost. The only tour train trip I have taken anywhere was the train from Anchorage to Denali. The scenery was certainly very pretty except that the train would not stop when I wanted to look at something for a longer time. The mother bear and her cubs was really neat but it impossible to get photographs of them as we wizzed by them at 30 MPH. I should finally add that I do love AK and have been there maybe 10 or 15 times. We take our grandkids on a trip to AK w/o their parents when they turn 10. We have toured by ships ranging in size from Princess sized to ships that hold just 50 passengers. We just came back from a cruise on a ship that held 180 passengers. We have done a 2 1/2 month driving trip from Las Vegas to AK and back. We had booked a trip on a Hurtigrutin ship that was going to take us all the way to Nome which was an unfortunate victim of Covid. We have cruised if you want to call it that on Alaska Marine Highway ferries which were wonderful. I have done 3 photo trips to AK including one in Fairbanks in February to do aurora photography. The aurora were great and the photos were wonderful but I have never been so cold in my life. Think nighttime lows of -30. I guess the term "different strokes etc" applies. DON

My thoughts on what you are planning to do is that if you follow your plan the cruise is not going to be much fun. Why bother. DON

The question you should really be asking is whether they supply binoculars and more important are they any good. I always bring my own. I have been on cruises where they did supply binoculars and I almost always find that they were absolutely awful and had the optical quality of the bottom of a coke bottle. They were no-name $20 Walmart specials. A bad pair of binoculars is worse than no binoculars at all. Unless they can tell you exactly what brand and model binoculars they have and of course the won't even know to tell you, bring your own. Also if there are 2 of you - you need 2 pair. I just came back from an AK cruises and they supplied binoculars for every passenger and they were pretty decent Nikon binoculars that sold on Amazon for about $200. I was really surprised. We still used the ones we brought because mine were much better but I would have been happy with the supplied ones. One other thing. If there is any sporting foods store near you try to buy them there. You shouldn't buy binoculars that you haven't tried yet. This is especially true for low end binoculars where the QC is really marginal. Hope this helps. DON

I have been to both places and I would disagree. Skagway is a one street town filled with touristy stores that is totally overrun with tourists. The only positive thing about Skagway is either the railroad or the drive into the Yukon and I believe that right now you can't drive into the Yukon. Sitka is a hidden gem. I just returned from a cruise that started in Sitka and we spent 3 days pre-cruise in Sitka. It has great scenery. It has some great places to visit. Real people live there. Most important it doesn't get overrun w tourists although this may change w Skagway being shut down. DON

I have been to AK many times and I have never taken a cruise line tour. I look at the itineraries of the land tours and I feel sorry for the people who take them. After all they do speak English in AK. That said it basically depends upon how much hand holding you need and how much effort you are willing to do to set up your trip. A perceived advantage of the cruise tour is that Princess knows best (they really know what is best for their bottom line) and all I want to appear at the place and time that Princess wants me to be. Or else you can do a DIY w/o any planning and go into the figure-it-out-as-you-do-it mode. That said Princess does lots of cruisetours so some people must like them. In my opinion if my only choices were to do a escorted tour or staying home I would pick staying home. Another thing about doing a cruisetour is that you are stuck on a bus with 40 of your new best friends for the entire length of the tour which to me is a fate worse than death - both the fact that you are stuck on a bus and are in a group of 40 people. I hate bus tours. I did a Road Scholar trip to Cuba once since an escorted trip was my only option at the time. Eating dinner with the same group every night was excruciating. The first time I wanted to go out to dinner alone with my wife a couple of the group heard us talking about it and unwantedly invited themselves to go with us. In the end we had to sneak out when we wanted dinner alone. I guess you now know what I think. DON

We don't know your life style, how often you change your clothes (there are some people on CC who change clothes every day), your tolerance for basically clean but once or twice worn clothes and how big a suitcase you want to take so we really can't answer your question. Also does the ship have a self service laundry and will you use it. Basically both options work, You have to decide for yourself. DON

Has anyone done a tour with this company on Hydra? Looks interesting. DON

I know that I am going to be flamed for this but here goes. How well behaved and how fussy is your 8 month old. Babies sometimes act up because that is what babies sometimes do. I have been on trips or in places where a baby was constantly crying regardless of what the parents tried to do. The rest of the people on an excursion would not appreciate that. DON

Just as a matter of interest - how much did you spend for them and what were the specs for the binoculars. DON

Have you ever been on a Clipper cruise before. We are doing our 1st Star Flyer cruise but in the Greek Islands. If you have done a Clipper Cruise before, do you have any thoughts you can pass on about the ship. DON

What nobody has specifically suggested is that each one of you should have their own binoculars so you don't have to share. Also don't buy really cheap ones and try them before you buy them. There are lots of good WEB binocular sites and I have recommended several of them on the Photography board on CC. DON

I believe that this is the article that Shipgeek is referring to - https://www.post-gazette.com/life/travel/2022/08/19/steamboat-american-queen-voyages-ohio-river-pittsburgh/stories/202208080088 DON

Adding to your question - would the person w the electronic device problem have a problem if I read my book on my Kindle instead of from an actual book? LOL!! DON

If you do not make it do you have a good plan B that has a chance of making it and will not coist you a lot of money. If you don't have a plan B and maybe even a plan C, I would not chance it. Also I assume that when you say that you are disembarking on 20 May, I assume that you mean that is 20 May 2023. If that is true you can assume that the flight times will be changed several times between now and 20 May 2023. What happens if they move up the flight time? DON

Can it hurt to call them. You are almost certainly OK but I would check. DON

One for each hand. DON

I have been to Italy w pills in a case in little plastic envelopes w/o problems. If you are really worried perhaps you can have your pharmacist or your physician(s) provide your with a list of the meds that you are taking. I have done that with my diabetes meds as that involves needles. DON

When we were in Spain we ate at Spanish hours. After all we were in Spain. I would assume that when someone from Spain visits the US they expect to eat at American hours unless they find a Spanish restaurant. DON

Do you mean nude?? Just wondering? DON

We were thinking of doing the mud baths at Dalyan. Sounds like a bit of a hoot. Any other thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks. DON

Have you done the Greek Island cruises? We are booked on the Southern and Northern Cyclades cruises B2B in October. These will be be our first Clipper cruises. Are there any tips or suggestions or thoughts that you might want to pass on. DON

If it doesn't you could open the Excel file and save it to your PC. Then modify the Excel files to do what you want it to do. That is what I did when I calculated the markup and then sorted the results by the retail price of the wine. Excel is a very versatile way of sorting or investigating data. I don't know exactly what the Plus or Premier is as I have not sailed on Princess for years but remember that if the cost of the Plus / Premier plans are a fixed cost you have to amortize the fixed costs over the number of bottles you plan to buy. This means that the apparently fixed cost will actually be a variable cost. DON

Are you interested??? DON

As a followup to your excellent spreadsheet - I calculated that the average markup was 1.52. I also sorted the list by the retail cost of the wine and it appears that there is a correlation between markup and the cost of the wine in that the more expensive wines appear to have a lower markup. This isn't surprising as the corkage fee is a fixed value and the dollar cost of the markup depends upon the cost of the wine. I have always believed on the basic of no hard evidence that based purely on value you should be buying expensive and not inexpensive wine on the ship. Your data appears to show that this is true. Thanks for the work. It is fascinating what you can do with a good data set. DON