LeeW

Goport does a great job. You can also book airport hotels through them and get a slight discount.

Go BEFORE the demo. During the demo they are too busy to schedule you and afterwards there can be a line in front of you. Missed sail-away waiting for them to finish the demo. Also, if you are doing something small, like dish or ornament, the onboard price can be less than the price booking in advance. So if you want something small, book onboard. If you are making a larger object book in the cruise planner. For example, on our Equinox cruise two people price was $220 but the items we actually made (ornament and tumbler) would have been around $180 if booked onboard. You pick up your items on the next day since they have to anneal at lower temperature overnight. They were packed very well in bubble wrap and we had no problems getting them home.

Yup, drinks and wifi only show up for that account. Everything else shows on either account.

Unless you have your heart set on Wonder, why pay a premium? And do you even need an Oasis class ship? Of your ports, Roatan has the best scuba/snorkeling by far.

We used ridesas.com for a transfer. Pickup is 7-8:45 and goes directly to FLL. You call them as you go into the customs hall and they will tell you where the vans are. Cost was $15pp.

On Allure you had to wash your hands and stand in sandwich line to get them. Radiance was at salad bar in Solarium and seldom had a line.

We sent ours in normal. Received by passport office on 7 Nov and we got ours exactly 7 weeks later with both Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in that timeframe. Tracking on website never showed anything but in process. Got old passports back about 3 weeks later.

Any shops still open will have lots of sales! When we cruised mid-September we got a lot of close-out deals. Land portion actually had hotels closing and winterizing after our stop.

Cruise line matters - for example Royal products don't have access to Glacier Bay. Princess/Carnival/Holland America do. Both may go to Hubbard Glacier. One way gets you farther north and more ports. You need to consider what you want to see and if you want to do Alaska interior (train or bus options). Interior is expensive but if you are only doing one trip.

Obviously visit North Pole. When we were there rode out to the pipeline (just north of the dredge). The drive east to the hot springs is very long but did see a fair amount of wildlife on it.

Price for shuttle only was $40 in September. I remember when it was $8. Partially because Park service charges these companies entry fee for each passenger even if you have a park pass.

We have been out on these boats 4 times, last time in September. A bit bigger than Harv and Marv and more comfortable. You can book with or without Mendenhall dropoff. Same company runs the blue shuttle bus from the Roberts Tram location. https://alaskashoretours.com/excursions/juneau/whale-watching-mendenhall-glacier-tour/

We have been on the whale watching only tours from these guys at least 4 times (jet boats are from Orca Enterprises) and they certainly drop off at the glacier if you want. Going north in September we just took the blue bus from the Roberts Tram but turned out when we came back south we were surprised to see that the whale watch bus driver was the same one we had ridden with a week earlier and she did drop some of our group up there. https://alaskashoretours.com/excursions/juneau/whale-watching-mendenhall-glacier-tour/

Kenai Fjords tour is great: https://www.alaskacollection.com/day-tours/kenai-fjords-tours/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Kenai-Fjords-Tours-Booking-Con&utm_source=Envoke-Envoke Note that this tour is 6 hours long - we took it between B2B cruises.

Juneau: Highly recommend this tour: https://alaskashoretours.com/excursions/juneau/whale-watching-tour/ They pick up at the bottom of the tram, take you to the harbor up north and put you on the jet boat. Boat is never crowded (usually 15-20 onboard) and enclosed, unlike packed boats booked through cruise line. They will also do a drop at Mendenhall Glacier if you want to stop there. Boats are former Orca Enterprises, and we have been out with them 4 times. Last time saw at least 10 humpback. In previous years were in the middle of a superpod of 50 or so orca. Son swears by Harv and Marv, a much smaller boat. I did try booking a helicopter glacier landing on one trip but that day had massive fog and was cancelled. Would have cost double the whale trip. Skagway: We've been on three floats through the Eagle Preserve in Haines. Fast ferry from Skagway, 20 minute bus ride and a few hours floating down a wide gentle river looking at eagles. Book through ship but is only offered if timing of ship and ferry work. Nice bagged lunch at end of float. We have also done the Dyea Dave tour to Emerald Lake. This can be combined with a one-way train if you wish (we have done train twice in past years so didn't this trip). Good view from other side of the canyon (including large rock on track that stopped all train trips that day). Not impressed with the suspension bridge (didn't pay to walk over and back on it) but the food in the cafe there is great. Can't find his web site so may not be operating any longer. Ketchikan: Ketchikan has a really nice totem museum back above Creek Street. Admission was around $7 when we went. Easily walkable slight uphill from town so you don't have to go out to the totem park. We have also taken the $400pp floatplane up to Neets Bay to see the hatchery and bears. Except for the floatplane, all of these are lower cost for Alaska and easily doable by someone in their 70s (like us). I couldn't justify the $1000 cost of the glacier landing tour in our last couple of trips to Alaska.

We use one D+ day on second day and second later in the day on third or fourth day. Then use second person's D+ to purchase package on 5th day. At that point can usually get stream for around $9 for the rest of cruise. A few gaps in coverage but usually are off on islands then anyway.

Have had cabins where fire zone had solid metal on the balcony. Depends on the ship and floor.

For 6:45 dining many cruises this year we have showed up around 6:30 and joined line. Usually at that time there were hosts checking to see if anyone wanted to be seated now in a different dining room (actually floor). Have seen this as early as 6:15 and it greatly reduced both lines. They would start regular processing of lines around 6:45 when the big surge of people leaving early dining was ending.

Usually they give you the option of picking up your new cruise cards before the turnaround meeting. This lets you get off in Miami whenever you want. The escort process can take a couple of hours to wait for people to get off, be escorted off, get new cards and be escorted back on. If you pick up your new cards before this you get an "In Transit" card that lets you bypass the checkin lines. Only downside of this is that you can't get back on until boarding starts but if you are touring town this doesn't matter. There is a free trolley that picks up near the piers and runs around the downtown area (actually more than one route). Download the app and you get real-time locations of the trolley.

For steak Daniels Steak House is excellent. Near the Barcelo Hotel in the tourist area on Palm Beach. City bus or cab from pier area.

Bus 10, although there are a couple of variants A/B. I think the A goes beyond the Marriott to Arashi. Look up Oranjestad-Arashi on this page: https://arubus.com/routes-schedules-new/l10a/

Been a few years. It is possible to book directly but then you need to meet their transportation somewhere. Basically the other end of the runway to a pier that has a tiny ferry to the barrier island. Chairs, food, drinks, small water park, snorkeling and some extra cost items like snuba and helmet dive. Snorkeling area is sea side of the island. They do have some wave protection but can be a bit rough. Lots of fairly large fish. Never tried going in water at "beach" since really was just sand on top of the coral island. Can be very crowded since they do a lot of cruise ship bookings. Beach and snorkeling are kind of mutually exclusive in Aruba. Good beaches like hotel area on Palm Beach have terrible snorkeling. Good snorkeling is mostly offshore and around some wrecks. We usually just take city bus 10 north to somewhere on Palm Beach, get off, walk the beach or swim and then take the bus back. Some places do rent chairs although many of those in the closer non-hotel Eagle Beach.

And you still might need to contact Captains Club to make sure the update was applied. And ship also might not get the data in time so you might need to bring evidence of status to ship LA (screen shot of C&A points should work. Best possibility is everything works fine! Our C&A usually takes a couple of days after cruise but no idea how Captains Club updates to a new status.

Higher C&A = more personal cash = higher bid = more likely to win

Unless you get RCCL to approve it, no chance of just showing up in San Juan and being allowed onboard. You are correct that the cruise lines are not allowing boarding after initial embarkation except in very rare circumstances. I suppose if they thought that you all missed embarkation they might, but pretty hard to prove that a large group accidently didn't make it. If you had flights through Air2Sea they would even arrange the flight for you. Any chance that family could postpone the funeral?