sherryf

I drank Painkillers on Nieuw Amsterdam last summer and they were good. Looking forward to trying them again at the end of the month on Westerdam. I'm just mad that they raised the price so that they now are no longer fully covered by HIA.

You don't pass the Shrine when traveling from Mendenhall and ship. The Shrine is way north of Mendenhall. Renting a car is probably your best option. Have you priced taxi/uber for what you are planning? A car rental is likely cheaper.

I've done a lot of reading about this online. Most sources say that it's the salt in the FOOD, not the water, that is the culprit. I have never read that they ADD salt to the water. The reverse osmosis system removes the salt. I always drink the ship water and have never had trouble with swelling.

You can look up average temperatures for the areas you will visit at the time you will be visiting to get an idea. Once you get closer to your sailing (1-2 weeks) you can check forecasts for more current information. It will be cooler when sailing near glaciers. The best way to dress in Alaska is LAYERS. No bulky coats. A waterproof rain jacket with a hood. I tend to take short and long sleeved shirts, a light jacket, a fleece/sweatshirt, and my rain jacket, which doubles as a windbreaker. I can wear any one or all at once, depending on the weather, and can add or remove as necessary if the weather changes throughout the day.

Or you can just drink the water from your tap. It's quite good, and no plastic waste! 😁

3 hours. We are scheduled to be there 9 pm to midnight. I never bother to get off the ship there anyway.

I've never found the MDR to be overwhelming on embarkation day. We never reserve anything, just walk into a dining room when we want to eat and get seated relatively quickly. I few times we've been handed a pager, but even so I don't think we ever waited more than 15-20 minutes.

I've been to Glacier Bay on Holland America and Princess, and the experience has been pretty much identical. I would not say that HAL does it any better than Princess... but not any worse either.

Skagway Brewing is our favorite!

Yes, there are glaciers around that you can see, but the ship does't necessarily "visit" them in a way that they are close enough to see. The glacier in Juneau (Mendenhall) is nowhere near the port and can't be seen from the ship. You have to take an excursion or find other transportation to get there. There are hanging glaciers that can be seen from the port in Skagway, but not all HAL ships go to Skagway. Some go to Sitka instead. When cruise lines talk about "visiting" glaciers, that should mean that they have a glacier sailing on their schedule and that they actually go there and get close enough to see it. It doesn't mean that they briefly passed by a distant hanging glacier that people might happen to see if they are looking. It doesn't mean that the ship stopped in a place where glaciers can be seen if you take excursions, but cannot be seen from the ship. "Visiting" a glacier should refer to actual scheduled glacier viewing, at Hubbard, College Fjord, Glacier Bay, Endicott Arm/Dawes Glacier, etc. My question is, what do they consider a "successful" glacier visit? If they sail into Endicott Arm but don't get in far enough to see the glacier, or barely get far enough to get a tiny distant glimpse, does it count?

I don't think you can count it as a "visit" if you are 50+ miles away and cannot see it. 🙄

LOL! There are glaciers on Mt Rainier, but you can hardly say that the ship "visited a glacier" because it was in Seattle. You can't even see Mt Rainier from Seattle a large percentage of the time.

I live in the Seattle area and I don't think I even own an umbrella. Even working outside (recess duty, etc.) for about 1.5 hours every day, I don't use an umbrella. I mainly sail to Alaska, where it also rains a lot, and don't use an umbrella. I have good, waterproof rain jackets with hoods, and wear a ball cap under the hood to keep the rain off my glasses and keep the hood from drooping over my eyes. Umbrellas are a hazard in crowded ports, and they don't work well in windy places, and especially don't work on moving ships. I've seen people try and it's hilarious!

I wonder what their definition is of not visiting a glacier. I would think that this would never happen on cruises visiting Glacier Bay, unless the whole day got cancelled due to bad weather or other emergency. Glaciers are more likely to be missed on the Endicott Arm/Dawes Glacier sailings. I've never been to Endicott Arm, but I've been to Tracy Arm a few times, and sometimes they barely get close enough to see a very slight, distant view of the glacier. So if they get close enough that you can barely see it in the distance, does that count as "visiting a glacier"? In all of my cruises to Alaska (13, with 2 more booked this summer) we have only completely missed our glacier once, and that was due to a very unfortunate major emergency.

There are plenty of other forms of ginger that work just fine. Candied ginger, ginger chews, ginger ale, ginger snaps, etc.

Exactly! I certainly don't know when I'll be hungry months in advance!

I don't get your logic. 🤔 Maybe it's just the time we choose to go, but there's never been a long line. We aren't causing anyone else to wait, and I've never seen a line that would cause anyone to wait half an hour.

We have never bothered to make reservations in the MDR, and have never waited more than about 5 minutes.

Ginger is a great preventative. I take ginger chews/candy from Trader Joe's, but also just drink ginger ale if I'm feeling a little "off". If you have HIA, it's easy to stop by a bar and ask for a can of ginger ale or two, and keep them in your fridge in case you need them later. I also bring generic meclazine, but only use it if I really need it. Luckily I'm not very prone to seasickness, just feel a little "off" on the first sea day. The rest of the week I'm fine.

Vancouver is a lovely city. If I had a choice of which city to visit, I'd choose Vancouver over Ft. Lauderdale any day!

Thanks, it's good to know in advanced so we know what to expect. We are scheduled to be at RR Foreward.

Does anyone have an update on this? I thought it was supposed to be fixed for this season. We don't go until mid-August, so I'm hoping things are back to normal by then.

I don't imagine that he'd be going in fully clothed. If he strips down to swim trunks, the rest of his clothes will be dry. Depending on the weather that day, his trunks might dry long before he heads back to the bus. There might even be a public restroom where he could change afterwards and put his wet suit into a plastic bag to take back to the ship.

Also, there are probably going to be very few children on board since they'll all be back in school. But personally, I probably wouldn't do it unless it was REALLY cheap. I've been to Alaska many times and wouldn't be devastated if the weather was really bad or if we ended up missing ports because of weather/rough seas. If this is likely to be your only trip to Alaska, you might end up being disappointed.

Maybe they have improved the process since last year. We waited over an HOUR just for US Customs, plus all the time for every other step of boarding. I think it was about 1.5 hours total from when we arrived until we set foot on the ship. This was on HAL, but both ships in port were going through the same customs line, so it didn't really matter what cruise line we were on. People told us that they were working on improvements for the process in Vancouver, so it sounds like it is better this year.