janerbg

I cancelled a cruise Sunday (90 days out, booked in January) with MSC USA and they said we would be getting a credit card refund.   Of course, time will tell.   We had only paid the deposit ($200).

Thanks!  The booking conditions said that cancellations had to be by email but I called today, di did not wait on hold and was able to cancel the cruise and receive both a refund processing numbers and a confirmation.     I was prepared to wait on hold a long time but it was a completely painless process.

If someone knows how to do this, can you let me know?

I am 91 days out and should get a refunded deposit.   When I log in, all I see is a way to make the final payment.

When I try to contact us email form it fails.

My documents say I need to contact by sending an email.   I can't figure out where we are supposed to send an email. 

Any help is greatly appreciated!   Tomorrow it will be calling but if I can do it online I will be happy.

Thanks in advance!

The Costa Fortuna has a very appealing itinerary for the Norwegian Fjords during the dates that we can travel.   The other options are MSC.   There is one potential cruise from Southhampton on Princess, but it is a couple of days earlier than we would prefer to travel.   We have taken on New England Cruise on Princess (Carribean Princess) and one Alaska cruise on NCL (Norwegian Sun).  

I have been trying to research Costa and figure out if we would enjoy the cruise or be frustrated by Costa giving the number of poor reviews.

a)  Is the buffet open for dinner? We would want another option other than assigned fixed seating if we have a late port time or want to watch a scenic sailaway rather than sit for a long dinner.
b)   We don't drink alcohol so buying a drink package that includes alcohol is unappealing.   It appears that as US passengers we would get water for dinner in the MDR and might be able to get water in the buffet?  Can we just fill our water bottles in the sink in our cabin?

c)   It appears that there is outdoor space on each side on deck 4 (do both sides allow for smoking?) and forward and aft viewing on the upper decks.  Do you think there is sufficient deck space for scenic viewing?  (I know it might be cold :))
d)   Is Costa worse for the nickel and diming for everything than other cruise lines?   We did feel like Norwegian was always selling something but our onboard accounts for the first cruise were only the daily service charge and we purchased on excursion through Norwegian.   I think this is why I am concerned about the water!
e)   If your idea of a good meal is pasta (my husband and son) will you be able to get decent food or Costa?

Not concerned about multilingual announcements, that it has a European clientele on a European line, etc but do want to enjoy the Fjords and not go hungry!

THANKS!

I can't comment on the ferries from Naples because that is not where we were coming from.

However, on August 10th, we waited 1 hour to get a bus from Capri to Anacapri...as mentioned the buses are quite small. There is a dedicated corral to control the line, but a bus would come, the people in front of us would get on and then we wait for the next bus and the same thing would happen. It was quite organized, but it did take almost an hour in line to get to Anacapri. We did not have trouble in Anacapri getting a bus because we went back to Capri and followed the advice to walk back two bus stops to get on. But when the busses hit the stop at the chairlift they were full, so it was difficult for anyone who was waiting there (lots of people) to get on.

We did the trip around the island/blue grotto first followed by the chairlift, but when we were wandering around waiting for the boat the lines to the funicular and the Anacapri bus were also quite long.

In Ketchikan you can walk from the port to the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center (http://www.alaskacenters.gov/ketchikan.cfm). They have many activities geared toward children. If they like receiving junior ranger badges you can pick up the booklet in Ketchikan and return at Mendenhall in Juneau (or vice versa).

In Juneau you can go to Mendenhall (I am thinking a car would be best but we took the bus with 3) and enjoy the visitor center (again, kids activities) and ranger program, walk to Nugget falls etc. If it is a nice day it is nice to go up the tramway. My son was 8 and enjoyed the bald eagle, nature center, and watching a totem pole carving as well as a perfomance that they were having, and a little hiking, while daddy took a much longer hike.

If you are going to Skagway (not on your list) the NPS has a very nice junior ranger activity building set up.

We did cruise first, self planned land tour second.

There were two reasons for that:

-The NCL trip fit our schedule, and the northbound NCL itinerary was superior to the southbound (included Glacier bay).

-There is little flexibility to rearrange things if the weather changes your cruising plans. We prebooked cruise excursions (on our own, not through the ship) and then had a little more flexibility based on what we were really enjoying on the land portion.

Is Kayaking appealing?

We really enjoyed our day kayaking in Orca's cove with southeast sea kayaks...but that may not be the type of "adventure" that you are looking for...but we were able to get away from the port to an island and kayak around the island...we saw various marine wildlife...but ours were more of the jellyfish type.

We really enjoyed our walk on Matanuska Glacier...we really learned a lot about the features of the Glaciers while walking. We went out to the Glaciers with other and two guides, but in the end it was just us (husband, me and 8 year old with a guide on the Glacier)...probably our favorite experience of the trip. But you do need to book in advance.

We stayed at the Tundra Rose Cabins and ate at their restaurant...we really enjoyed both and thought the scenery on the drive to Matanuska was also really impressive.

I think that a lot of it depends on your travel style and why you want to see Alaska.

We took our son a couple of years ago when he was 8, and did Northbound Cruise and self-guided land, and we would not have wanted to do it any other way.

I looked up the itinerary and the shortcoming of the itinerary is the relative lack of Glaciers. We are coming from the East coast, so the travel to get there is greater, and glaciers are one of the things that are pretty unique to Alaska that we really wanted to see.

On our Northbound cruise we were able to see Glacier Bay and Hubbard as well as Mendenhall in Juneau. Following on that theme, we took a great hike near Girdwood to near Raven Glacier, Walked on Matanuska Glacier (https://micaguides.com/activities/alaska-glacier-tour/) (the highlight of the trip for my son) and saw the receding on Exit Glacier (and Samuel was able to actually pick up a ice ball in the stream/river that was flowing away from the Glacier. The weather was too bad for the Resurection Bay cruise out of Girdwood.

We felt the same way about Denali, although we did go and we did take the bus to Eilson (spelled incorrectly) (the mountain was out!) and we saw the dogs and the visitor center. While we like seeing Denali, I personally prefer the wildlife conservation center and getting close to the animals than the bus, but I know many people really like the bus. We did spend quite a bit of time at the visitor center and take the hike up to the ridge and we did enjoy the Alpenglow on the mountains in the evening. WE had a about 10 days land, and in retrospect if we had to cut something it would have been Denali. The bus trip in the park was not bad, but it is a long way there and back (and that scenery is not always very exciting) We also liked exploring in the old mine ruins up in Hatcher Pass State Park, and liked staying in the Tundra (although that Hatcher Pass cabins are not for everyone).

We flew rountrip to Seattle, drove to Vancouver (one way rental) and then flew Anchorage to Seattle, spent the night and flew home (we don't like red-eyes). We actually enjoyed the Anchorage to Seattle flight; the weather was finally clear and we had gorgeous views into Prince William Sound.

There are many things I like about cruises, but I would personally prefer the activities and flexibility of a land tour to that many sea days; we had some pretty bad weather from Hubbard Glacier to Whittier and so we could not see much (and my son got sea sick, which does not add to the trip :)).

The only other cruise we had done with my son is New England; he liked that one too. We like to cruise because we can get a feel of different places and see a lot a different places without packing/unpacking. We also like letting our son be silly in the kids club and being able to have an "adult" dinner while on vacation, but we were happy with only a week of cruise. But we also like to hike and explore without the constraint of getting back to the ship on time! I would personally never do a cruise land tour but other people love them.

Do your son's know what they want to to do? It is sometimes a little hard to get that out of boys, but if I ask carefully my son always has his priorities and those will probably affect the trip.

Another option for Juneau if you get good weather is to go up the Tramway...we went on the Norwegian Sun on the northbound itinerary. We took the tram up and at the top my son (just barely 9 at the time) and I looked at the totem poll carver, the eagles and watched a show on Alaskan culture, and did a short hike, while my husband did a long hike. He thought the hike from the top of the tramway was "one of the best he ever did", but he is partial to glacier carved U-shape valley. We had a longer time in Juneau so we were able to do both this and the bus to Mendenhall.

In Skagway we did the train up and my husband did the sockeye cycles cycle down and my son and I took the bus. I was very impressed with Frontier tours who coordinated with the Sockeye so that we could go in the same car with my husband on the way up (required for us because he was a minor and needed to be traveling with two parents). We also had time for some hiking and the historic sites.

In Ketchikan we had a lovely kayaking trip with southeast kayaks (Orcas Cove trip), but I don't think your MIL could do that.

My son was 8 when we went to Alaska, but getting to hike on the Matanuska Glacier was one of the highlights of our trip (look at MICA guides or another company).

We also hiked to Crow Pass near Girdwood, went to Seward (Exit Glacier) and liked the Hatcher Pass Area. We did go to Denali and took the bus to Eilson and did a little bit of hiking from there (the mountain was out). We were glad to have seen Denali, and we had 10 days. In retrospect if we had to cut something it would have been Denali; just a long drive there and a long time on the bus.

Adding to those we staid at the Tundra Rose Cabins. It was a lovely location from which you could see Matanuska Glacier with a small but delicious restaurant. We would highly recommend this as well.

Getting to walk on Matanuska Glacier was the highlight for my 8 year old son. Truly a unique Alaskan experience! The tundra rose guest cottages nearby were very nice...we had a two bedroom cottage.

We ate dinner at the Grandview Cafe and liked it so much we went back for lunch after our Glacier trek (we stayed in their cabins as well, which were very nice).

There are native hieroglyphics written in a native red ink on one of the rocky outcroppings we went by. We did not seem to take any pictures of them, though.

I think that the trips vary a little bit depending on the tide, but we explored a cove, kayaked around the island and explored another cove and went back. In the cove the kayaking was easy...it was stiller than a lake with other boats on it. When going around the island you did need to paddle reasonably hard. I think that this is a bit of a matter of personality...my son can be very lazy, but for the sections that paddling was important he understood that and contributed. The wildlife we saw...salmon jumping to relief their eggs, several bald eagles and their nests, jellyfish, were not large marine mammals but also gave you the sense of being totally "in nature". My son also liked looking at the various jellyfish and similar creatures.

It is also a 4 hour trip, but it is not 4 hours of paddling, because you have to get to the cove, kayak, have a delicious salmon snack and then get back to Ketchikan.

We did Orcas cove with our just barely 9 year old and he loved it. We were in a three person boat with the three of us in one boat and another couple in a second and a guide. There is something really special about getting away from the cruise ships and the feeling of really being out in the middle of islands. I would not hesitate to take an 11 year old to Orcas cove as his first kayak...my son really liked the hieroglyphics (misspelled) and there are a lot of little coves that are easy to kayak in if he gets nervous. (Southeast Sea kayaks was phenomenal and one owner was out on the boat in the cove and the other took us back in the speed boat.).

We did the NCL northbound cruise last summer when my son had just turned 9 a few days earlier! He loved it! He recommends that you spend lots of time enjoying being out on deck enjoying the scenery with the kids in the kid's club.

We had an inside room for the 3 of us, and choose NCL because we could have a 3 person inside without a bunk. It worked well for us. The times I missed the balcony was when one of us was holed up in the inside room with a kid who needed to sleep (it is cold, but it stays light late) or early in the morning when we wanted to know if the scenery (we had a lot of rainy/foggy weather) was worth jumping out of bed for. But while there might have been a few times a balcony would have been nice, it would not have been worth the money for us. There were lots of things that we enjoyed spending our money on in Alaska (in the same way, we were not impressed with the included food, but when we looked at the cost of the speciality dining that was not how we wanted to spend our money). Tracy's crab shack in Juneau, however, was a very well enjoyed but expensive meal.

For transportation: We flew round trip to Seattle because we could get a nonstop (from BWI) for a reasonable price. If you want to do the southwest option you want to book as soon as it opens...there airfares only go up (we did not and we paid more). We rented a car for the trip to Vancouver...we spent the night with a friend in Seattle and did not think the times for the train were going to work well with our schedule. With our car we were able to go to the Brittania Mine Museum and the Sea to Sky Gondola at the end of the sea to sky highway (past Vancouver). I highly recommend the mine museum...admissions includes panning for gold so we got that activity out of the way early and a ride into the mine on the mine train. My son even got to demonstrate the use of the portable commode! It is very well done. On the way back we flew one way from Anchorage to Seattle. When we were booking Delta flights were much cheaper than Alaska. We had a clear day and therefore a beautiful ariel view of college fjord. We took a later afternoon flight and booked a hotel with an airport shuttle and flew back during the next day. We had to do it when we flew to China, but our family does best if we sleep in beds rather than fail to sleep on airplanes.

Excursions: Be sure to check out the Junior Ranger activities in the National Parks! In Ketchikan we had a wonderful kayaking trip to Orcas cover, but your little boys are probably too young to enjoy kayaking. My son liked the Southwest Discovery Center, and we were able to pick up a junior ranger book and turn it back in at Mendenhall (also part of the Tongass National Forest). In Juneau we did bus to Mendenhall. The ship came in at the far pier, and we would have splurged on a cab but the only cab there was only doing a city tour and not a trip to Mendenhall. My son likes visitor center, and the one at Mendenhall was well done. We were in early August and thought the salmon swimming upstream were prettier at Mendenhall than at Ketchikan. The short hike to Nugget Falls is very nice. In the afternoon we went up Mount Roberts Tramway because it was clear. Dad did a longer hike which he really enjoyed but my son and I enjoyed the hike to the cross, looking at the eagles, watching a totem pole carver (he became fascinated with them after declining to go to the totem parks in Ketchikan during the planning) and a show that they had up their.

Skagway has a very nice junior range station as part of the national historical park. We did the train up bus down because dad wanted to do train up bike down. We also were able to do some hiking.

We landed in Whittier rather than Seward, but we enjoyed our later drive to Seward. The Sea Life center is very well done, and is especially good if you have a rainy day, and we liked visiting Exit Glacier as well. If you have a car the kids might like the wildlife conservation center on the way back to Anchorage. We also did a longer land tour, but these are the cruise highlights.

Writing this brings back fun memories!

Jane

We took our 9 year old last year on the Norwegian Sun (one way Vancouver to Whittier) and he had a great time. We thought that there was a nice amount of children...it was not really an issue...there were other kids but the ship was not overrun with them.

We were choosing between Princess and NCL because we wanted to do Glacier Bay (it looked to me like the Holland American one way itineraries did not include a second Glacier day). We have been on Princess when he was 4 before but the NCL itinerary fit our vacation dates better.

We were happy with the kids club...I thought they had some great activities (he loved the circus) and that they did a good job planning them around the scenic parts. And he takes getting his junior ranger badges seriously, which the rangers did in the kids club for Glacier Bay (I am pretty sure they do that on all lines that sail Glacier bay). So he was able to do excursions and some scenery watching with us but then go to the kids club for some "down" time.

We did kayaking in Ketchikan (great fun), Mendenhall/Mt Roberts in Juneau and the Railroad up/bus down (dad did bike down) in Skagway, with plenty of time for hiking. We then did a land tour in which walking on the Glacier was his favorite part...so the dogsledding on the glacier sounds like fun (but a little higher than the budget that we are going for)

Compared to Princess several years early the kids club was better on NCL but the included food had been much better on Princess, especially the main dining room.

Kayaking in Ketchikan with southeast sea kayaks was one of our favorite experiences of the trip.

It seems like your son needs to decide if he would rather fish instead of the major marine tour or the kayaking.

Budget Queen provided a nice itinerary that included Denali.

I think the big decision that you need to make is whether or not you want to go to Denali, and after that the rest of the trip can start to fall into place.

We spent 9 days on land after our northbound cruise, and in retrospect what we would have given up is Denali. We did have a great day in Denali...we did see great views of Denali from Eilson. But driving to Glitter Gulch, taking the shuttle for a full day and then driving somewhere the next day was a lot of driving...and we just did not get as much out of the wildlife viewing from the bus as some people did. The advantage of going to Denali is that the southern viewpoints were blocked both times we drove past. We also enjoyed the sled dogs in Denali...but again that was not worth the drive.

We have a 9 year old, so we were looking at float trips rather than white water...we investigated trips from talketna (that have occasional views of Denali) and down the Mendenhall river. In the end we kayaked, but that was all that we did on the water.

Our favorite experience on land was the glacier trek on the Matanuska Glacier. I would highly recommend this as a uniquely Alaskan experience. Of course that is not very helpful.

And I am not sure about the meaning of your hotel choices...there are many smaller hotels that are very nice...so I am not sure what you are looking for in a hotel room.

Jane

If you are looking for Kayaking, we had an absolutely fabulous time kayaking with Southeast sea kayaks in Ketchikan. I don't know how much time you have in Ketchikan, but we went on the Orcas Cove trip...they take you on a fast boat to their "base boat" anchored near islands near Ketchikan. As we kayaked we saw salmon jumping to release their eggs, tide pools, hieroglyphics left by native settlers, and a variety of interesting sea creatures as well as bald eagles.

Personally, we thought the hiking in Juneau either to the falls near the Mendenhall visitor center or on Mount Roberts was fantastic.

We also hiked around Skagway and enjoyed that...there are historical interpretive visits as part of skagway historical park. (We also did the railway in Skagway)

When we we

I posted more information about the winner creek hand tram on the other thread...we did the 1 mile walk each way from Crow Creek Rd.

We actually found more lodging choices (for the price) in Girdwood because it is built up for the ski area.

We did the shorter hike from the Crow Creek Road. I believe it was about 1 mile of level walking to the hand tram (and one mile back). Older reports state that you have to park at Crow Creek Mine (and possibly pay) for this way, but their a Chugach National Forest parking lot and the trailhead. I can't remember if there was a fee.

We went to Alaska last summer when my son had just turned 9. We did not make it to the aviation museum but we really enjoyed driving around lake hood. There is a small park where you can get really nice views of the float planes taking off and landing.

We did the Butte Hike that you mentioned in your other thread, but not flattop. We did enjoy the Butte.

The highlight of the entire trip (land + cruise) for my son was hiking on Matanuska Glacier with MICA guides. I know that is not on your itinerary, but it is a beautiful area and could be done as a day trip from Anchorage and was a very special "Alaska only" excursion.

He also really liked the mining ruins at the Hatcher Pass Historical Park. And the Hatcher pass area is really beautiful as well.

We wanted to go on the Kenai Fjords tour, but the weather was horrible so we spent the day in the SeaLife center instead. It was very nicely done. He also did his junior ranger badge at Exit Glacier because we did not take the cruise. If you are going to go to Seward, I would recommend making the trip up to Exit Glacier..you can get very close (but not onto) and see the river (and ice) flowing out of the glacier.

Mapleleaves put together very nice suggestions.

We also spent time in Girdwood, where we did a major hike but also the hand tram over the Gorge, which is fun, and the Wildlife conservation center was on our transfer to Whittier...we also enjoyed the tidal bore, which may or may not be happening on your dates. We did not go to Crow Creek Mine...we did our gold panning at the copper mine north of Vancouver before we started on the cruise.

We were at this dock on the NCL sun last summer. We had a long day in Juneau, and docked at 10:00 am. We were enjoying the view from the decks and assumed we would wait until the lines were shorter to get off...and then we saw the line to the shuttle. We were going to walk to buy tickets for the bus to Mendenhall, but there were three of us. There was one taxi at the pier but he was not willing to do a taxi ride to Mendenhall, he was only looking for customers for a city tour. We walked the mile and then took the bus to Mendenhall.

Coming back it was not a problem to get the shuttle.