LeeW

Very much doubt you can hop in any bus from a different tour. Lots of info on getting to Brugge on the board: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/148-british-isleswestern-europe/ Basically if you don't want to buy a tour you can hire a cab, take the train, or take the Cruise Express bus. The train requires you to get to the station either by a bus that leaves directly from the ship or a trolley that leaves just outside the port. Train only runs on the hour, so you have to plan carefully. We took Cruise Express, which leaves from diagonally across from the port entrance building (take the free shuttle bus to the port entrance). Even for Cruise Express we got our return ticket when we checked in outside the port entrance. Cruise ship buses and Cruise Express cannot drop you off in town. They use a bus park on the south edge of the old city (around a 20 minute walk into the center). The town is a maze of cobble streets. Use a map or your smart phone to get around (download a map you can use without phone/wifi connectivity). Restrooms near the bus park - very hard to find one inside the city that is not in a sitdown restaurant. Cruise Express does offer an optional walking tour of the downtown as well as transfers: https://www.cruise-express.be/en/services/bruges

Last time we took the train they had us out there before 7.

In Alaska they need to zero out the ship before new passengers can board, so they won't offer the Extended Stay.

On your profile page "select a different cruise" then "Lets add it now" then "browse our ships" then "Celebrity Apex" then the current cruise (top of the list). You will see everything for the current cruise of that ship. If your cruise is more than a week or two out the Daily Planner may not populate until you connect onboard. Generally I can see Daily Activities a few weeks out but the My Calendar doesn't populate until I get onboard.

No - we normally share a 1 device package. But for this cruise two single device packages are cheaper than one two device package. When you exceed the device limit it will ask if you want to kick someone off, so it is good practice when switching devices to logout.com before logging the new device on. If you have a two device package and try to log a third device on you can't tell which of the two existing connections will be dropped.

When the soda package was $6/day it worked great for us. Now they are pushing the Nonalcohol package and even the soda package has become overprices. As Elite we get 22 diet cokes for our minibar. We may or may not bring sodas onboard, but on last 14 day trip we bought three of their 6 soda packages precruise. Works out to about $2/can, which is cheaper than ordering a single can onboard. OP likes the mocktails, so NA package sounds good for them. Or the alcohol packages if they use a lot of internet.

The login process onboard is impossible on my Kindle Keyboard and difficult on our paperwhite, and sometimes even on Fire. Plus trying to connect just runs down the batteries. Turn off wifi while onboard.

There are a couple of flyboard operators in the Palm Beach area if you want to try that. Granddaughter liked it although her dad did a lot of crashing. Fun to watch, though. Those concessions also do stuff like towed floats, parasailing and wave riders.

Unless you are a long way out of town it is trivially easy to get a bus. Arubus along the beach routes run every 20 minutes and costs around $5.50 even if you buy on the bus. There are also a bunch of vans running the same route with red license tags that will try to pick you up at bus stops. Same US price, but they are not allowed in the main bus terminal so drop you adjacent to it. They pack in as many people as will fit. Locals do this a lot. Even at DePalm Island there will be cabs. If none there, they will call one. The only issue on getting back to the ship is traffic. If you are coming from the south it can back up a bit, but you can easily walk the last couple of blocks back to the port entrance. We generally assume it will take an hour to get back from the north beach area and it has never taken that long. Assume 15 minutes to walk from port entrance to ship. All the tour operators are very reliable and WILL get you back on time.

DePalm Island is 3/4 of the way around the airport to the south. They do sell walkup tickets at a stall as you walk toward the port entrance from the original dock, but not sure if they sell with transportation. Web site would tell you. The have transportation from hotels but think they had you use a cab if you were on a cruise. You might be able to get their bus from the Renaissance Hotel at the marina. Depends on timing of those buses. https://depalm.com/ Now that larger ships dock at the old freight port you walk south from that to the entrance. Cabs are just before you exit the port on your left. Smaller ships dock at the original dock by the harbor and you walk back north a bit to the new consolidated entrance. Taxis for that pier are adjacent to the port shop building exit on left. DePalm pier is up on Palm Beach, where the big hotels are. City bus is the way to go for that for snorkeling and sunset dinner cruise. Near Barcello hotel but driver will let you off at right place. The UTV facility is a couple blocks north of the pier entrance pretty much opposite where larger ships dock, on the main road. Easiest just to walk there.

Yup, port side midship elevators for Suite/Crown lounges - see the deck plan. Conference Center is any of the forward elevators on deck 2.

Used to be in chronological order but after looking at other cruises it can be in any order. Only happens on app, not on web. Started when they updated the app to only show one cruise when you "select other cruises" and have to "see all cruises" to see the others. Otherwise it shows the one you looked at last.

I don't recall any US home ports that don't let you bring flowers on. Some foreign ports won't, but mostly the restriction is taking plant/animal stuff onto shore.

The plus side is that both adults don't have to buy a drink package if only one wants one.

With a multiple device package you can't control which device it boots off. So it is good practice to log one device off before trying to connect another.

We like to eat between 6:30 and 7:15 and even with the "MTD doesn't start until 6:45" we have had 30 cruises with the same wait staff. Occasionally they will put us at a different table in the same area. In one case they put us in an adjacent area and our wait staff swapped tables with that staff to serve us.

Our granddaughters (now 16 and 9) have been on Oasis and Freedom and two large Disney ships. For onboard stuff, Oasis class is best (although Anthem has bumper cars and iFly, no diving show). But some ships like Navigator have escape rooms (not sure of age limit, though). They are also going on Radiance to Alaska this year. Girls wanted to see more of Alaska despite lack of activities on Radiance. Ask what he is interested in and look at the options on the various ships with him. And find out what kind of things he wants to do in port - we pick our cruises solely for the ports. Remember that the very large ships can only go to certain places. Maybe he would like Grand Cayman (snorkeling, stingrays and turtles), or the Panama Canal locks or ziplines/tubing in Jamaica or Amazing Race in St Maarten. By the way, for Orlando you can't beat a day at Discovery Cove. Dolphin and snorkeling pools were a bit chilly on January 1, but the lazy river, animals and food were great. Spring for a cabana for really top experience. Nine year old in movie. DSCN2754.MOV

Read this other post for good recommendations starting around post 5: We typically avoid Viator, although have used them a few times.

I wouldn't try both the glacier and skylift - not enough time. We were anchored at Loen and people getting off early could go right up the lift - but it was badly fogged in. We had around 45 minute wait for first Olden Adventures bus to glacier and by the time we got back the lift line was well over an hour long and we had maybe two hours to sailing. Line was visible from the ship and didn't get any shorter. They do run a free shuttle between the Olden dock and the lift - maybe a 10 minute trip if you time it right.

Except that it took forever to get down a couple of flights of stairs from theater (some took elevator) and get the whole group onto shore. Then a couple hundred yards with wheelchairs to the boarding area. Then wait for the arriving train to unload and independent people to get around our group to the boarding area. Tight, yes, but doable. Just avoid that forward gangway to bypass the excursion crowd. We didn't try getting tickets on our own but I think I would take the later train at 10 or so if I had a choice. The trains run constantly and unless you want to take one up and a different one down (for waffle stop) it shouldn't be tough to book direct. The up and back trains stop for 10 minutes halfway up/down at the waterfall and around 20 minutes at the top. Really nothing at the top station except a platform. All the gift shops are between the train and the ship.

They did load the non-cruise passengers first and then put all of us in a couple of cars at the far end of the train afterwards (tours had reserved areas in various cars). The two problems as mentioned above are getting off the ship and if you need to pick up tickets. If the ship gets in on time and you don't need to pick up tickets you can make it. Meeting time for our tour was 730 onboard and we got to the train around 815. Our docking time was 700. Herding a bunch of people in a group does take a while, especially when we had a few wheelchairs in the group. Our ship used multiple gangways to get off - avoid the forward one coming from the theater where the tours are leaving the ship! Keep an eye on the ship tours - sold out ones do become available. For example the cheaper "train on your own" was sold out months before so I bought the "train and waffles" tour for around $40pp more. A month or so before sailing the "train on your own" became available and I cancelled the more expensive tour. By the way, there is a beach right across the stream from the cruise ship and people were using it in August. Other stops: In Honningsvag book with North Cape Tours (bookfinnmark). Cheaper than ship tour and you get as much as 1 1/2 hours at North Cape. Waffles there are great, and great exhibits and gift shop. In Olden some ships tender to the base of the Loen lift and some dock in Olden. But if you want to see the glacier and take the troll cars, book with oldenadventure, who meet both locations. While you can just get a ride up to the visitor center the troll cars tend to be booked up in advance. We had reservations, so got off bus and almost immediately got our troll car ride to the glacier. We would NOT have wanted to walk that couple of kilometers up the steep hills. Last 200 yards from troll car dropoff is steep but doable. If you want to do the Loen lift, the line can be over an hour long so you must do that early.

We never put more than one item in the cart at a time. For one thing if you buy several items and then cancel one it can be difficult to figure out which item has been reimbursed on credit card.

Once you cancel refresh the order page and the page you are doing the new booking on (I use different tabs when rebooking the same excursion at a different price). If OBC is used this immediately handles the credit. Won't speed up a refund to a credit card, though.

Small providers Boost Mobile and MetroPCS both have great coverage in Alaska. In many cases the ship tower isn't turned on because ship is close to shore, so phone works well. Only place we have had problems is Vancouver, since these providers are US only.

Did Luggage Valet off of Equinox in Fort Everglades last April. No issues and did not get special customs selection. Biggest advantage is that the airport doesn't accept luggage until 4 hours before a flight.