cruisingrob21

Good point - you need to be more limber with your luggage to use Skytrain given the escalators and slightly further walking distance.

sky train - probably as fast or faster than a car, less expensive, and leaves from only a block away from canada to place to across the drive at the Airport. It runs very frequently so you are never late for a train, just early for the next. VERY EASY. Since the station near the cruise terminal is the start of the line, you will basically have your pick of seats. Just move towards either end of a car with your luggage.

I'm appreciative of this thread - after doing some research, we changed a voyage due to a group listed on our cruise and one of the group's guest speakers who has a controversial public reputation. I have no idea how big the group is but given the speaker's reputation, I worry it would be big enough to restrict use of some of the larger venues on board (such as the crows nest).

I've walked between several in town breweries - all have their own style and tasting rooms (need to check hours as some are only open certain days or times). I don't think there is need to do a tour if you've got a grasp on searching for breweries on a smart phone.

We had rough weather on the Eurodam 2 summers ago in Alaska. We were the 2nd cabin from the front on deck 5 and felt every wave. Only a few cabins back would have been much better. We also sailed the cape horn route on the old Star Princess (2002) back in 2012. We had "Lake Drake" which still was a bit choppy but not bad. The captain mentioned it could be much worse. We were in a cabin on the 11th deck near the aft elevators and hardly noticed it. We actually had worse weather in the straight of magellan and were told by the captain to sleep in and avoid the worst of the swells. If you are concerned about it and medications work well for you, take them proactively and enjoy your cruise. If medications don't work well, consider something further back.

You will get more responses in the West Coast departures forum

You're welcome and that's a good tip. I think she goes to drydock later this year and the tumor is that it will be extensive - it's also showing as longer than typical for a vista class ship. At a minimum, it seems like the northern lights night club will be turned into the gallery bar as has happened on the other vistas and signature vessels. Perhaps more?

I almost booked one of these cabins on the Noordam. I can only speculate that while you'll get more light, it will be windier. Not as windy as forward facing cabin due to the lifeboats nearby, but not as wind free as a "normal" verandah cabin. Not sure how else to characterize it.

It used to be a smoking/cigar lounge. Now its just a closed off room thats presumably quiet most of the time. It may be hosted for occasional functions or meetings I imagine it may get repurposed during the next drydock to increase the crows nest area. Some photos: https://halfacts.com/vista-class/noordam-observation-deck/ I'm heading out on the Noordam later this month if you want more photos.

Thats a good question. Satellite images show nothing there but this article says it just received its first ship this January. https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/01/port-of-cabo-rojo-welcomes-its-first-ship/#google_vignette

HAL won't let you, so not likely a fine has been paid. I've read that if the ships allow this to happen they can be barred from entering that port or nation again. Waivers have been granted for extenuating circumstances (during COVID) or localized emergencies (weather, health problem), but this is not something that anyone can just "pay the fine" to get around. The ship operator can get in trouble also.

Possibly related - the other day some sapphire and coral princess voyages at the end of 2025 were cancelled

I personally enjoy taking the Seabus to North Vancouver before embarking. Lots of great restaurants and you can get some great photos of the city and your ship:

To make it a legal Seattle to Whittier/Anchorage, you need to do the cruise between Vancouver and Anchorage, and you'd use the cruise line transfer service from Seattle to get to vancouver. It's about a 4-5 hour bus ride. There is a train you can take (Amtrak Cascades) also which takes about the same time, or less than driving if border traffic is bad for road traffic. Highly recommend the train routing, but I think there is only a 7am and evening train, so you are realistically looking at either a hotel in Seattle the night before, or a hotel in Vancouver.

Alaska 2025 was released in early December 2023. Seems to be kind of late - Princess released Alaska 2025 in July of 2023. So probably summer to late fall time. I will say that by and large, HAL itineraries and ships on specific runs have been the same since the restart. Eurodam and Westerdam out of Seattle, Koningsdam and Zaandam RT vancouver, and Noordam and Niuew Amsterdam doing the 1 way voyage between Seward and Vancouver. There are exceptions to the itineraries (with a few unique ones) as well as some ships doing a few oddball swaps, but generally that was the trend last year.