jeromep

I don't do cabs at all when traveling. Most of my usage of Uber and Lyft have been when traveling for business, but when we cruise we always need to get from the airport to the hotel, and from the hotel to the port and back again, same as everyone else. I also use Uber or Lyft for personal travel needs. We've never had a bad experience with Uber or Lyft. The cars are cleaner, the drivers are more personable, and at the end of the ride the driver isn't impatiently waiting for me to pay, or glaring at me because I want to use plastic, or plain outright telling me I must pay in cash. A party of 4, with no checked luggage, just hand baggage, can fit in a typical regular Uber or Lyft, which is typically a Prius. The middle passenger in the back seat will be in pretty tight, but you'll get there just fine. If you want more space, a Uber XL will likely be a Suburban or maybe an Expedition Max or other long full size SUV. More than enough room for 4 passengers plus all their luggage, even though you won't have all the checked bags with you. I wouldn't even waste your time worrying about yellow cabs. They do exist, and hotel front desks will be happy to hail you a cab ride, but things are just so much cleaner and easier to do through an app. The rideshare driver gets a ride request from the service when you request one through the app. You have already specified in the app where you are going. The app shows you the driver's info, the car they are driving and license plate number. The driver has a bit of information about you to help them identify you from the curb. You can see where your driver is before they arrive, the app will tell you when they are approaching, and you can follow the ride on the app when in the vehicle. You already know the price of the ride when you book it, and you tip inside the app, so the entire cost of the ride goes to your card. I'll do rideshare every day over taking cabs and paying the old fashioned way.

Downtown Seattle hotels are the most expensive in the area. Better hotel value can be found by staying around the airport or south King County. If you do sufficient hotel research you will save on your hotel stay many times the cost of a rideshare from the SeaTac area to Pier 91. A regular Uber will run you $45-55 from the SeaTac hotel area to Pier 91. An UberXL will be closer to $75. I avoid shuttles because there is a lot of "hurry up and wait". I have stories about shuttles. I think I've recently expounded about my shuttle experience on the boards. I think your choice of location all has to do with what your plans are. Have you built in time in Seattle to explore? If so, it will be easier to do if you have a Seattle city hotel, but you pay the in-city prices, and you'll still probably have to spend money on Uber or Lyft to get to some attractions. I don't consider public transit in Seattle to be tourist friendly. While cost effective, it is not for the faint of heart and its connections to what you will want to do as a tourist are marginal. If Seattle is merely an embarkation port and you are flying in the day before and flying out immediately after the cruise, then there is not much reason to pay the downtown hotel premium and focus on hotel properties down near SeaTac.

Well, that is good to know. Might try that. That is certainly better than me sitting there looking pretty while my wife shovels food into her mouth.

Ok, so, is this an actual situation where a couple goes into a fee dining venue, one eats and the other just sits there looking pretty? The situation doesn't seem very plausible, but I suppose it is possible. I can definitely state that I've never been out to dinner with my wife and sat there and watched her eat while I told the wait staff, "no I'm not going to eat, I'm economizing."

The transfer, like anything that uses a motorcoach, is going to be a lot of hurry up and wait. And depending on your flight times, may not actually work out. You'll have no issue with using Uber/Lyft for your ground transportation. At Pier 91 there is a dedicated ride share pickup area and a dedicated shuttle that makes the 2 minute drive out of the pick-up/drop-off lanes out to the rideshare waiting area. It is all very organized. You can walk to the rideshare area, no problem, but that is a bit slower. On our last cruise, from the time we picked up our luggage in the baggage hall till we were in the Uber headded toward SeaTac, maybe 15 minutes. I booked the Uber while in transit on the shuttle.

I'm fine with the real menus. They are more than clear enough to read.

As we will be on the Majestic later on this summer for an Alaska cruise, I was thinking the same. We were on Discovery and really liked Take 5, but the Double Down isn't really like Take 5. Plus Discovery also has a Crooners. Does the Crown Grill Bar, since it has a piano, act like Crooners, with a piano singer in the evening?

1. You do have to sign up. I've done so through their web site for all my cruises with children. Once we get on board we visit the kids club with our daughter. There is some obligatory checking of boxes and ensuring that our chosen check in/out choices are correct and we are on our way. The kids club puts a numbered sticker on the bottom of your child's medallion. This is their number that links to the records in the kids club. At our daughter's age, our policy is that she can check her self into the kids club, but we have to check her out. The idea is that if she gets lost or looses track of us on board, she can go to the kids club, check in, be someplace safe, ask the staff to try to contact us or locate us. When she is older we might allow both check in and out privileges, but not yet. I'm not aware of any limits. Princess knows how many children are on board. They seem to be able to staff accordingly. In fact they know the age and sex of everyone that is on the manifest that boards the ship. I'm not aware of their child to adult ratio, but from what I could tell they have plenty of staff to handle however many children are on board. 2. I'm not aware of anything preventing you from being with your child during club open hours. When our daughter was super young, we cruised with her when she was 22 months and at that time the cut off for children that young was 3 years and toilet trained, and anything younger than that they did not have any drop off services for those ages. So, we never used the kids club. The next cruise with our daughter, she was 8 and the kids club was drop off for her. We'd drop her off, and she would have fun and then we'd pick her up after dinner or otherwise. 3. The fee schedule is for after hours group babysitting, not for the kids club. The kids club is included in your cruise fare. The after hours babysitting is from 10pm to 1am and the kids clubs are closed at that time, but the fee based group babysitting occurs in the kids clubs. It is the same staff that offers the babysitting that runs the kids clubs.

We rode the light rail from the King Street Station area back to SeaTac when we were in Seattle for our cruise last July. Public transit isn't quick. The back story is that we were staying at a SeaTac area hotel. We got tickets for a Mariner's game, so we took an Uber from the hotel to the stadium. That was like $50 including tip, and it was surge pricing. After the game we walked to 13 Coins for dinner. The whole stadium area of SODO and the edge of Pioneer Square were full of people on account of the Mariner's game getting out and a Sounders Game going on at the same time. After dinner we debated about how to get back to the hotel. More Uber surge pricing, it was like $65 to get back to the hotel. However the light rail station was near the restaurant and it was like $6/person for a ticket. So we opted for the light rail and then a short walk from the SeaTac station to the hotel. Well, we encountered the requisite homeless or possibly just addicted persons near the light rail station. Got our tickets at the kiosk, in which the general area of the upper level had a strong smell of urine. We then went downstairs to the southbound platform. There were a few "curious" people on the platform, but more of us were normal passengers or commuters so it wasn't too uncomfortable. The train finally arrived and we did "eenie meenie miney mo" to pick a train car to be on. Well, the particular train car we gambled on seemed dirtier than usual, and on top of that for about half our ride there was some dude bopping around and talking to himself, but he got off a few stops before SeaTac and we all breathed a sigh of relief. At the SeaTac station you had a mix of air travelers coming and going and some more seriously odd folks hanging about. It is a long way down to street level from the SeaTac station, so we took the elevator. Again, another place with a funky smell that shouldn't smell that way, and we were dumped out near a couple of International Blvd. hotels. Then the walk home. I'm not convinced I'd do the light rail again. I think I'll stick with Uber/Lyft.

All Uber/Lyft pick up in an area a rather short distance from the load/load turnaround, that is directly in front of the terminal. If you are hailing Uber/Lyft, you go to the rideshare sign in the normal load/unload area, and a shuttle van will take you and your luggage for about a 2 minute ride down to the Uber/Lyft area. It is also walkable to get to the rideshare pickup area. You are not a second class citizen if you are getting to and from the port by rideshare. We did black SUV from our hotel in the SeaTac area to pier 91 for a cruise last July. The front desk at the Ceaderbrook Lodge arranged it for us. Normally I would have gone with UberXL. It was $100 including tip and the driver wanted to be paid in cash, so I was grateful to have my cruise wad with me. On the trip back to Ceaderbrook to get our car I chose UberXL, and had an equally good large SUV pick us up, and the total cost including tip was $75. My experience on a number of trips using both Uber and Lyft has always been excellent and competitively priced, along with not having to whip out cash. I'll stick with those services. There is no reason for me to book black car the old fashioned way.

I kind of like visiting the IC late at night. The ship is so quiet and the service there is so quick.

Hmm, still listed on the web site, as of today. Ok, well I stand corrected. Princess needs to do some web site maintenance.

Island Princess has La Patisserie, basically a tiny version of International Cafe. It's better than nothing.

A full entertainment schedule is only fully available when on board. Music and entertainment is everywhere throughout the day. Music and activities in the Piazza most of the day and into the evening. You'll have music in Take 5 in the evening. Also piano singer in Crooners. There will be at least a couple of shows each evening in the Vista Lounge, along with a couple of production shows or larger band and singer acts in the theater, also every evening. Game shows and television productions will be done in Princes Live a number of times each day. Up on Lido at the central pool you have both live band entertainment along with music videos and Moves Under The Stars in the evening. I'm sure I missed something. There is activity going on all the time on board. You will not be without entertainment options.

I stated this in another thread; what is old is new again. This isn't all that different from the old differentiation between Anytime Dining and Traditional Dining. I don't think it was more than 5 years ago that they transitioned away from the two dining systems to Dine Your Way. Be prepared for the return of folks bemoaning not being able to get a Traditional Dining time slot when they try to reserve a seating and how they can finagle getting one when they get on board. So many of those threads are in the archives, just go look for them, they are there. I'm just guessing, but the difference is now that your Trad Dining time isn't set when you book, but when you go on the app and try to book one after you have booked the cruise. This will be something that bothers the anti-app cruisers, for sure. So, basically Anytime Dining, like it used to be, but with separate dining rooms focusing on first come seating or reservations. I think this should be an improvement on the Anytime side. I'm just not sure I see the big deal here. I suspect my misguided viewpoint will be dealt with swiftly.

What's old is new again. That is all.

That has to be a wild ride, right now.

I'm glad you asked this question. I am no expert. Last year in Juneau we booked a Jeep through Princess. We literally walked off the dock to the booth they were at, handed them our excursion pass, and were handed a Jeep, its key, and a booster seat for my daughter and we were off. Their iPad with their custom routing and audio program was mounted to the dash and tethered to the audio system and we followed that all the way out to Eagle Beach, as our first stop. I think it was about a 45 minute drive out to Eagle Beach, about 20 minutes from Eagle Beach back to St. Therese, another 30 minutes from St. Therese to Mendenhall. Of course, you get out and spend time at these locations. Travel times to places around Juneau aren't excessive and Google maps is going to give you pretty good time in transit estimates since traffic doesn't seem to be a big deal. I hope somebody else will answer your question, too. I'd add to your questions, this year I'd like to just rent a car and navigate around on my own. Where can I rent a car that is within a short walking distance from the dock (that Majestic Princess will likely be at)?

Ron Goodman was the Cruise Director on one of the cruises we took about 12 years ago. We liked him. I shouldn't say this... he's aged. Well, so have I.

We also have travel clothing which needs to be cleaned when we arrive on board. We usually fill a laundry bag on embarkation day and provide it to our steward, sometimes before the ship has even left port. We tend to get this laundry bag ready to go while we are unpacking. There is no limit to the amount of clothing you can have laundered, and their dry cleaning services are very good, too. If you have both regular cleaning and dry cleaning, you'll want to fill out two slips for two separate laundry bags. If you are in a suite, don't accumulate your laundry. Send out a bag every morning so that you always have clean clothing coming back, clothing in your closet, and some clothing that is out being cleaned.

I'm not an Alaska expert, but this is about the best list of things in Juneau to do which are not related to Mendenhall. We got a self-guided Jeep rental excursion that went out to Eagle Beach, but we knew the Shrine of St. Therese from a previous visit to Juneau and wanted to return. The road to Eagle Beach goes right by the Shrine, so it was easy to spend some time there. Plus we used our own GPS to meander around Juneau and explore a bit. On our next visit we'll probably just rent a car for the day and explore on our own. As for the current condition of Mendenhall, I still like going out there to visit. The visitors center is pretty typical NPS, it does its job. I've never been overwhelmed with NPS visitors centers, and I've been to quite a few. They are utilitarian and provide basic interpretation for the NPS site, they aren't meant to outshine the natural environment they are set up to serve. I'm not sure on our next cruise if we will go out there, but we'll keep our minds open to it.

I think the strongest and most well rounded of the cruise lines in terms of their overall Alaska offering are Princess and Holland America. Both have permits to access Glacier Bay. Both have good on board entertainment and production shows. Between the two, I think that Princess has the edge in terms of production show quality and complexity. On Princess they do two shows per evening in the theater. They interleave different shows through the cruise. So, if you want to eat early and see the late show, you have the opportunity to see all that is offered on board... and vice versa. The theater schedule toward the beginning of a cruise leans toward the production musicals and toward the end of the cruise is a mix of production shows and comedians, vocalists and musical groups. I don't have an old Patter in front of me to reference, but that is how I recall it working out. And the above isn't a 100% or totally accurate representation of how they schedule shows, but a pretty good representation. Shows sometimes get canceled or changed depending on cast availability, availability of other entertainers, etc. Additional shows will be put on in different lounges. Most Princess ships have an aft show lounge, the Vista Lounge. A much smaller space than the theater, but everything is loud enough, and there is a bar in the lounge. Some princess ships have a midships show lounge, Explorer's Lounge, with similar capabilities as the Vista Lounge. These spaces usually host bands and vocalists, and during the day game shows and presentations. Some ships have the Princess Live space, which effectively replaced the Explorer's Lounge, different concept, think TV studio with live audience. Most of the "game shows" are held in Princess Live or Explorer's Lounge. Game show style of entertainment is a rather small part of what is on board. Most ships have a Crooner's Lounge, which is a piano bar and is very popular with Princess cruisers. They dispensed with it on some ships, like the Majestic Princess, which is sad, but other lounges and bars have filled the gap. I hope you enjoy Alaska. It is a great place to visit.

The piece from Alaska Public Media was more positive. They interviewed a couple of passengers and some of the local vendors and didn't get much in terms of negative feedback about the season starting this early. https://alaskapublic.org/2024/04/10/cruise-ship-season-begins-in-juneau/ https://alaskapublic.org/2024/04/08/juneau-had-a-record-breaking-cruise-season-last-year-this-year-should-be-about-the-same/ But apparently there are forces that want to flatten or reduce the number of passengers that get off ships on any given day. https://www.juneauempire.com/news/first-cruise-ship-of-the-season-arrives-to-welcomes-planned-protest/

And be sure to use the SEA Spot Saver to book a time through security. https://www.portseattle.org/SEAspotsaver

I have an 8 y.o. So I do understand the difficulty you are facing. The choices we have made are that we cruise less and we only vacation when she is out of school. If a cruise, trip across the U.S. to see the other side of the family in Georgia or another vacation option doesn't line up, well, we don't do it. We either find something else to do, or we don't do anything. Such is the cost of having school aged children. Seeing family is difficult because we loose a whole day to air travel, even when we can get direct flights from SEA to ATL, we have one commuter flight from home to SEA, a layover there of at least 1.5 hours, but sometimes as long as 3, then 5+ hours in the air from SEA to ATL, along with the time it takes to retrieve luggage, get the rental car, and then drive north to where the in-laws are. And we loose a whole day coming home with flights and layovers that are similar. I don't consider visiting family much of a vacation. They aren't as curious or historically excited as I am. When we visit Atlanta and Georgia I want to visit historical landmarks, Civil War sites and such. I still haven't gotten to the MLK Jr. Memorial, and it is near the MARTA line to Buckhead (right?). They just aren't into that. We end up visiting a lot of malls and chain restaurants. I can do that at home. I am glad that you are not willing to pull your kids out of school to vacation. My mom taught 3rd grade for many years in a low performing and low income school district, and the kids that need to be in school the most were the most likely to be pulled out of school for a week or more just to visit family. The kids that wouldn't be impacted by being out of school for a couple of days were always in school. The irony of it all. We all make our own decisions and have our own tolerances for "risk" when traveling.