300dtc

We always bring a small self made first aid kit with band aids antibiotic ointment etc., small bottle of hand sanitizer, travel wipes, I use them to wipe off the tv changer and all knobs and light switches in the room, a small candle like battery light for the bathroom, bonine for motion sickness, any type of medicine you are accustomed to taking, bar of soap for the shower, water bottles to fill, travel coffee mugs..good for coffee or other drinks[emoji4]

Booked for April, 2016 in January of this year, got the UBP with no additional gratuties...checked today, the same room is now around $600.00 more! Really glad we booked when we did.

Hi! You are welcome[emoji4] we used anytime dining and ate in the main dining room every evening but 1 and on the night we went to the specialty Italian restaurant. We usually ate after 6:30 or 7 and never really had much of a wait maybe 5 or 10 minutes on 2 nights. We always got a table for 2 but lots of times ended up talking to the people at the table next to us anyway. The food in Sabatinis was really good and we really enjoyed it. We had a reservation for 8 but went at 7:30 and had no problem being seated. The food in the main dining room was sometimes great sometimes ok but always better than if I had to cook[emoji6]

May I ask what shuttle goes directly from Ft Lauderdale airport to the Port of Miami? NCL doesn't sail out of Pt Everglades so I'm puzzled why you are flying into Ft Lauderdale. Just curious.

We wanted to fly southwest so that's where they go:) and the shuttle service is MJS transportation. Haven't used them, but found their name in one of the blogs.

Thanks everyone!:)

We are considering a 4 day Sky cruise in mid November. We have a function the day before so were looking at a direct flight leaving at 6:30 a.m. and arriving in Ft. Lauderdale at 9:20 a.m. With a shuttle directly to the port from the airport. Has anyone done the "day of" successfully? I know all the horror stories about late planes and cancelled flights, but this looks completely doable...what do you all think?

We used Viber to text with our family from Europe and it worked great, you just have to be on wi-fi when you use it and the person you are trying to contact has to have Viber also, and it's free.

Thanks! Question for you...My dad can not walk far so the mile hike to Medenhaull Glacier is a no go for him. Would I be able to use his wheelchair on this trail?

We were just there at the end of May, there was a man on the trail in a motorized wheelchair and seemed to be having no problem. Hope you all have fun!

We were on a whale watch in Juneau and had already seen a bunch of hump back whales when our captain got a radio call that a pod of orca's had been sighted, we raced across the water and got to see that amazing sight, they were so close to the boat you could almost touch them. Truly a great day!

I thought they bred them tougher than that in PA :)

 

I made a miscalculation myself when I forgot that the "parkas" they give you don't have sleeves, so the short-sleeve golf shirt I had on was woefully under prepared to save the skin from my wrist to mid-arm where my sleeve ended.

Haha, we are a tough breed here in the great northern wilderness, but we were in the Med in July and our bodies had gotten accustomed to the 100 degree heat so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :)

We went in on the Epic with 2 other couples..it was extremely COLD! Am I glad i tried it? Yes...would I do it again? No way! By the way, my hands shook so bad, i spilled a lot of my first drink and got the second one "to go". Four out of the six of our group didn't even make it for longer than 10 minutes.

We were just in Alaska too and also tried to go to the Red Onion, but it was so hot that day and it was packed! We also stumbled across the Lucky Lady and had the same experience that it was much more of a locals kind of place. Everyone was really nice there and it was an enjoyable time. The place that really excited me was in Ketchikan, we were headed back to the ship and saw the Ketchikan Moose Lodge...now i am a member and had my card with me and it was really fun, we were treated like honored guests and given a Moose lodge pen with the lodge number and address and compared to all the tourist spots to have a cold one, the member prices are great! I only wish the DH had remembered to take his Elk membership card, since we saw one of those in the other 2 ports! Oh well, maybe next time :)

We recently mailed a birthday card and 4 postcards from the ship while docked in Skagway, AK. The birthday card made it to Texas in a few days, 3 of the 4 postcards beat us home and one came a day or 2 after we got back. There seemed to be no plan in the whole thing.

Thanks for the replies, one query I have is my only other cruise experience is on princess, they offered drinks packages and as far as I could see lol food was free, is this the case on Norwegian?

 

Thanks for the advice on Barcelona, we will only be flying in on the Saturday morning due to work commitments

They have the same set up with NCL, drink package if you want to purchase it..you can take wine onboard and pay a $15.00 corkage fee per bottle. However, we took 3 bottles onboard from Barcelona (really good, cheap wine!) fully prepared to pay and no one ever said anything, the bottles went through the scanner, the guy handed them to my DH, said have a nice cruise and that was it!

The food onboard is free, except for the upcharge restaurants, the food served at the Cirque show and room service after a certain hour I believe the other food is free..if anyone has a different opinion...

Barcelona is a wonderful city! We stayed there 3 days prior to our cruise on the Epic and had a blast. We consider ourselves sangria testers...yep, we tested as many different kinds as we could:rolleyes: But the public transportation is easy to use and there is so much to see we only scratched the surface and I can't wait to return! We had a mini suite with a balcony on the Epic so i don't have any opinion of the stateroom, sorry, but if you need any other info about Barcelona or the ship in general....

307 days till the Escape... That seems like forever, and we even just got back June 3 from Alaska.. Never enough cruising time

I either put it in my pocket if i have jeans or shorts on or i have a tiny crossbody that i keep my card in if i have no pockets, you do need to have it with you all the time. Have fun on your first cruise!

Absolutely! We often got a drink at the bar outside of the MDR and when our table was ready just took it in with us..have fun!

We were on our very first Princess cruise on May 27th and had booked an oceanview Plaza deck cabin. At check in we found out we had been upgraded to a balcony Emerald deck cabin. I danced all the way to my room!

Never went to aft viewing areas I think a 8x10 was $39 didn't really check further although there was a really nice pic that would have been great but couldn't make myself spend the money.. Forgot to mention one of the best things about the whole cruise. We booked a ocean view and were upgraded at check in to a balcony, I couldn't believe it!! It was great for enjoying the scenery!

Thank you for your review! Your advice on clothes is very much appreciated especially since we are leaving this Friday.

 

I've read that there is very little snow in AK this year because of the unusually warm spring - is this true and how did it affect the scenery?

 

If you could do the trip again, now that it is behind you, what changes would you have made? Is there anything you wish you hadn't done or anything that you wish you had?

The mountains still had caps of snow, it was very green though, hiking to Nugget Falls at the Mendenhall Glacier, I really wished i had worn shorts, it was hot! But that was the day we were on a whale watch with Juneau Whale Watch (they did a great job), and it would have been a little too cool on the water with shorts. When you get to glacier bay, there is more snow, but the lower elevations are green. Since it was our first time to Alaska, we thought it was all very beautiful, and really had nothing to compare it to...

Now what changes...in Skagway, the trip to Emerald Lake was ok...the lake is very interesting to see and we saw some very cool glaciers and waterfalls on the way. But to me, Carcross was a terrible rip off. We had to eat lunch there, or starve and got some sandwiches from a local bakery, 7.25 for a turkey and swiss that was mostly lettuce on white bread. They were charging Canadian dollars but wouldn't convert from US dollars and gave canadian dollars as change, even though lots of people in front of us also paid in US dollars. That place and the gelato store also said that their credit card machines weren't working...so we had no choice but to pay with cash. I didn't have any more CAN dollars left because we tried to use it all in Vancouver before we left, and I never thought to save some for our short trip back into the Yukon. We spent about 1 and 1/2 hours there sitting on a bench, there really was nothing to see. So i would probably change that tour, although when we got back our guide took us to a waterfall right outside of town and we did get to see the graveyard where "soapy" smith is buried.

But that is probably the only thing i would do differently...have a great time!

A paperweight of a Pelican and Otter that we got on Holland Westerdam last year. Sits on my desk and makes me happy.

 

Leaving for Vancouver in 2 hours and board the Coral tomorrow.

Lucky!! We left the Coral on June 3, hope you have great weather like we did! Have a great time :)

If you see a souvenier Alaska t-shirt in a store bag in your cabin, I seem to have left it behind:mad:

Oh and I wore dressy sandals every nite onboard and either tennis shoes or my Merrills while in port

Hi SMLpair.. We had unbelievable weather. It was warm in all 3 ports I had on boyfriend jeans that roll at the bottom in Ketchican and short sleeve t shirt and was a little warm.. In Juneau wore jeans and a t shirt and has a jacket for the whale watch we were on.. DH never even put his jacket on that day we went back to the ship and dropped off our jackets and ate a late lunch and went back to town and it was pretty warm. In Skagway we went up to the Yukon Territory and again jeans and t shirt.. Drizzled a little bit but then the sun came out it was a beautiful day. Glacier bay and college fjord were cold outside.. If you are sitting outside you would definitely need a coat and long pants but I saw people bundled up like they were going to the artic circle! Onboard the ship I wore capris 2 evenings and dressy 3/4 length sleeves tops and was fine.. Of course if you were spending time outside you would have needed a coat. Took a pair of shorts but never wore them. Hope this helps and of course you never know what the weather will do..

We had Libby riddles and the Lumberjacks .. Didn't see either but we enjoyed the naturalist Mark Harris on board.