webzila

We are staying in Houston overnight before we take the Carnival shuttle Sunday to Galveston. Would love to tour NASA as well. Anyone know how we could do this? We are staying at La Quinta by the Bush Int airport.

Drive from IAH to NASA would be about an hour. If you don't have a car then you would have to take a taxi or Uber. Roundtrip cost for the drive may not be worth it.

Are you able to fly to/from HOU Hobby instead of IAH? Its a lot more convenient and closer to Galveston.

Has anyone done this and would you advise it? We are looking at a cruise Feb 13 to 20 and for some reason Feb 12 / 20 are way more expensive than other weekends for flying there from HOU. Not sure why...

Flying back there are more lower cost flights but going there it's not cheap at the moment and there are four of us so we were considering driving leaving sometime on Feb 12

I drove from Houston to Orlando before but there was no pressure to make it by certain time or risk missing the ship.

I work in global tech support for Verizon, the plan you have is for roaming in a lot of countries. If you look at http://www.Verizonwireless.com/tripplanner you can put in all the countries you are traveling to as well as the ship you will be on and confirm that all your locations are included in the global feature you have added. Also, as long as your ship comes up (I haven't seen a Carnival ship that doesn't) your plan does work on the ship. Please keep in mind the data is a very small amount (think email, not streaming data) and it will most likely be very slow when out to sea. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks for replying with correct info and facts...some people just seem to reply for the sake of replying and provide incorrect info like it's land only and not for ships...

If I was making a decision I would go with the Dream.

Having been on the Triumph several times (after the repairs / refurb) I would not say that we were too impressed with the ship.

Valor's drydock is scheduled for late April. You'll be fine.

Thanks for the reply and the info.

We never been on the Valor so hopefully it is good. Sure it would be nice to go on a newly refurbished ship but then again we mostly going for the ports of call and not the boat :)

Why is it if you go to the Carnival website and lookup excursions by destination they don't even list Grand Turk? I am trying to see what they offer at that stop.

Looking for some opinions and info. Is it safe to book Carnival Valor mid / end of Feb 2016? I want to make sure that the cruise wont be cancelled due to dry dock. It is unclear when exactly the Valor dry dock will be. I have seen March 2016 in some places then others says April 2016 and some May 2016.

Searching Valor cruises looks like there is a break from April 24 - May 7 2016 so probably that's when Carnival has the dry dock scheduled for?

I think you have plenty of time. Last week we were on the Jewel and got off the ship around 7:40 AM and by 8:30 AM we were at the airport and bags checked in (using Seattle Express)

If you are doing the White Pass Railway. Sit on the left side of the train, You want the mountain on your right as you leave the station. When you get to the top. The seats you sit in will just reverse. The train doesn't turn around.

They had everyone switch sides, so it doesn't really matter what side you start off on...on the way back you will be on the other side.

We also read that the White Pass train excursion is a "must do" so we did it and it was not bad. You get to see a lot of mountains and nice scenery but personally if I could go back in time I would probably pick another excursion.

We did zip line in Cozumel. It wasn't bad but it's all from man made towers...not natural mountains / hills

As the ship approaches the Saywer Glacier turn, the Capt evaluates the amount of ice flows up the finger of water leading to it. Unfortunately, frequently that route to Saywer cannot be navigated because of the amount of ice in the way. The later the season, the better chance of going there. However, we loved the trip up to Dawes. I am so impressed how the ship can navigate between cliffs and turns that are only short yards from the edge of the ship.

Thanks for the reply. You are absolutely correct.

I emailed the company that does the tours and got the same reply:

Tracy Arm fjord had a large, large amount of ice fall.....in a short time.....and that created navigational difficulties for ships large & small for about 6-7 days. Happens 2-3 times a summer typically.

They checked off names from a list and did not scan any keys on our cruise last week.

If you did check in and leave you probably wouldn't get far before staff would see you and send you back.

To tell you the truth, we didn't care what glacier it went to. What we saw was amazing either way and at that time we were just impressed with whatever glacier we were at. I thought it was Sawyer since that's what was on the itinerary. It wasn't until the very last night that we overheard someone that they were disappointed that the ship didn't go to Sawyer glacier. It was too late to ask shore excursion team and like I said, I don't really care but just wondering.

I am not going to call NCL about it now and ask so that's why I am asking here in case someone on the same trip knows why (or from previous trips with same experience). Not a big deal...

Just back from Alaska / NCL Jewel and just wondering why the ship did not go to the Sawyer glacier (July 1) even though it was on the itinerary. It was perfect weather that day. We weren't on the ship so not sure if the captain made any announcements.

We actually took the Tracy Arm excursion where you get on the boat that goes ahead of the ship and they went to Dawes glacier and the Jewel ended up there as well.

Just did this a few days ago and it is not a waste of money even though the cruise ship goes the same route. The little boat can get much closer to the scenery, circle around, point out things, explain stuff, etc...At the end we got much much closer to the glacier (I believe it was Dawes) than the ship.

Just off the Jewel and there are absolutely no perks to booking another cruise onboard. You do not get any additional credit. The only "perk" is when you buy the future cruise credits. Its $100 back for $250 and I think $250 for $500

Just off the Jewel and there was no priority excursion disembarkation but 2 out of 4 excursions we had they had us meet in the theater first but after your excursion is called you still go to the same line as everyone else to get off the ship.

We saw bears in Ketchikan today on a rainforest tour. They were just hanging out in the field near the salmon farm. It was a mother and a baby and they were going back and forth and even went into the water. They must have been there for over 15 min. I guess we're getting lucky...just first stop and we already saw whales, bears, and eagles.

On the NCL Jewel now and we saw a ton of whales the day before getting to Ketchikan. They were all around the ship virtually all day long and we could see them well even without our binaculars

In Ketchikan right now and it is warm now. Its about 71 degrees but sunny so it feels hot...like Caribbean. Lots of people in the pool. In the morning though it was cool and rainy...so you never know

I got an upsell email today and upgraded.

Our cruise is in 2 days and the upsell was for balcony room for just $100 pp

That was a really good deal - the current price difference between what we paid and what the new booking price for balcony is $270 pp

Has anyone tried calling Seattle Express? I am trying to call but keep getting voice mail or busy signal. Anyone know what their hours of operation are?

Here's the first 5 days that were posted a few weeks ago

Thanks! This is what I was looking for.

Anyone know where I can find the daily activity schedules for Jewel Alaska 2015 season?

Thanks