CCJack

We did this in June 2022. Our GPS took us on Alex's blue route, and I don't recall stairs. There is an outdoor elevator by the big stairway by the tracks (elevator is in the top red circle). I don't recall stairs on the pedestrian bridge across the water, but I may be mistaken. I recall it was an easy walk with luggage. Either way, I would walk without luggage the night before for practice! It is an easy and safe walk, but it is not real intuitive (ie, you can't see the ship as you walk there) and a bit off the beaten path. The doubletree is an excellent choice. We had lots of cruisers there when we stayed. 5 min walk to train, 15 min walk to ship and much closer to city sites than the movenpick is. Just be careful of the pedestrian intersection in front of the hotel coffee shop (it was a starbucks last year, now it is a different coffee shop). That intersection has pedestrians, bicycles (fast) and cars (fast) all in a tight space.

Awesome photo of the humpback.

I agree a Fjords cruise would be a good choice. Ports are small cities / towns - all walkable usually with your ship in sight. Bergen, a bit larger but still very walkable. Most of your time will be outdoors. You won't be spending time on subways, or waiting in lines with the kids. Highlight of the cruise may be the fjords themselves which you will enjoy from the ship - while the kids do their thing on the ship.

I agree that ISP is a made up stop and the port area is fabricated for the cruise. However, it is quite nice. The building and displays are new, clean and you can spend an hour or so walking through. The nature trail next to the port buildings was very nice as well. Whale watching is the thing to do in ISP. We had outstanding whale watching there...

We were on the Viking Var Danube cruise a couple years ago. We loved the cruise. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of locks you go through (more than 20) - boring for some folks, but I thought those were really interesting..... As far as excursions typically we did the included viking tour, which usually was only 1.5 hours or so, but that gave us enough introduction to do the remainder of the afternoon on our own. A couple excursions we did take - Nuremburg WWII tour - outstanding... our tour guide had a Masters in WWII history and it was really good. Not sure if you go to Nuremburg or not. We also did the Viking Mozart concert in Vienna. We were underwhelmed, although a lot of people liked it. I was expecting a big concert hall. This was a concert just for Viking in a smaller room of the concert hall. It was a bit of a variety / comedy show mixed with the music - almost like a big cruise ship variety show. I think we would pass on this next time.

Since you will be seeing another glacier on your trip, I would skip Mendenhall. I agree it can be a bit underwhelming... I vote whale watching and since you don't go to ISP, Juneau would be a good place to whale watch. You will also see beautiful scenery from your whale watching boat, so it is almost like an excursion in itself (in addition to whale watching.) Juneau is not far from ISP, so I think people have had good whale watching experiences from both ISP and Juneau. Of course, it is a matter of luck on whale watching but we had a great time on our whale watching trip out of ISP.

It is a little hard to fully decifer the cruise line descriptions sometimes... but it sounds like option 1 is two villages, with transportation by coach and train. Option 2 is 1 village with transportation by ferry, train and coach. It is probably personal preference if you want the ferry ride, it is a nice way to travel in that area. I am thinking for option 2 the guided tour plus more than 2 hours on your own might be too much time on your own for my liking as these are not large villages. Plus they may be very crowded. I likely would opt for option 1 to get 2 villages with a little less time at each.

Also, sometimes I download a marine GPS app. Although the GPS positioning is the same as you have for land GPS, the marine apps sometimes have better coastline / island maps - so you can track where you are relative to Fjords. Download the pertinent maps/charts ahead of time (while on wifi). GPS may not work when inside the ship but on deck or on balcony I have had good luck.

Also, note the 4 am Fjord viewing may actually be 5:00 or 5:30 am depending on your ship's schedule. You may need to figure it out yourself. On our cruise (Cunard) there was no mention or suggestion by the ship about any Fjord viewing / sail in time.

A private tour seems like a good option here. Plus, you don't need to worry about returning in time to the ship, which is one of the selling points of a Ship's excursion.

I agree with all the responses... A couple thoughts... I would think a Norway cruise would be pretty appealing to most people, however, just make sure your group understands that it is vastly different then a Med cruise, mostly because Med cruises go to large cities and a Norway cruise does not. As far as viewing the sail in at 4 am.... on our cruise there was exactly one person on the top deck (me) for over 1.5 hours. The other 3000 people, including my wife, was sleeping. The one time in my life that I was the smartest person on the boat, and probably the one time in my life that I was the smartest person in my marriage. Don't miss it, at least for the long Fjords. For our cruise, the morning sailing was much more serene than the evening sail out due to wind, clouds, etc. in the evening. You will have time to view from your balcony, plus the top deck, plus get a refill of coffee, etc... I would be curious if Celebrity is generous with their freebies for you. If not, consider other cruiselines. I personally really like Celebrity, but I think they owe you something besides a token discount. It sounds like this was a business decision and not a weather related decision, and they should be considerate of their customers in this case.

We enjoyed the Wilderness Tour on the park bus. They stop for wildlife, while I noticed the transit buses did not, or maybe just slow down a bit but did not stop. We really did not have a problem with inconsiderate passengers. The bus was not luxury but certainly adequate enough, I thought. For our day off we hiked on our own on a trail that started near our lodge. It was fun.

Is there less time whale watching on the lighthouse + whale tour as opposed to Jayleen's whale watching? I would not want to short change the time spent whale watching. Whale watching is, of course, a bit of a chance experience, but our whale watching in Alaska (ISP) was fantastic - much better than whale watching excursions we have been on elsewhere in the world. I would emphasize the whale watching and likely go with Jayleen as well.

I seem to recall there was not one. I remember a line of taxi's (we took one) and then the excursion buses. It could be cruiseline specific, however. We were on Celebrity.

For me, a 7 night cruise with only 2 opportunities to get off the ship would be a dealbreaker, so I would go with #1. However, it seems like there may be other cruises to consider....

It is is unclear what two excursions you are referring to. Positano is on the Amalfi coast, so you would have to drive on the coast to get there. Does the excursion that concentrates on the coast stop anywhere? I would think it would. If it stops at Positano, skips Sorrento and spends more time driving on the coast then the other, then I would chose that one.

I have not been on an NCL cruisetour, but we did take an RCCL cruisetour. They told us practically nothing ahead of time but once we were on the land tour I thought it was well organized and we enjoyed it a lot. Both the bus driver and the guide added a lot to our experience. In terms of times, not sure how accurate the brochure is, but I do know that others in our group did what you are planning... booking some things on your own. Our guide on the bus was very helpful.. made a lot of phone calls on behalf of the guests confirming times, answering questions, etc... even for those that booked on their own. I got the sense he knew all the tour operators by name. Keep in mind this is not a ship with 3000 people but a bus with 30. Your guide will get to know you and likely will know roughly your plans and have your phone number. As others have said if you want full control, you could drive yourself and schedule everything that meets your needs - and you don't need to worry about departure times. However, for us, there were benefits to taking the tour and we had a great time.

Book the 14 day and keep checking to see if an ocean view opens up. Even though it is past final payment, I would find it hard to believe there would not be at least a few cancellations..

That is definately doable. Train ride easy and a pleasant ride. We used hilton points for the double tree, we get our points from the hilton CC, which is a far better deal than airline frequent flyer credit cards, etc. In my opinion.

That is a good question, i would inquire at the rental place for a phone number. A couple thoughts... the bike path does cross a couple of roadways, and passes by a couple farms, which would have to have road access to the farms. Also, you will see other bikers/ hikers on the bike trail. It was not crowded but definately there will be others on the path who could help, i would think....

Another option is to hire a private local tour guide to meet you in Rome (you get there on your own from ship) - and escort you for the day. It will be pricey but if this is your only visit to Rome, then time is your enemy and you don't want to waste time. A local could get you efficiently to both locations. It is especially valuable to have a guide inside the Vatican Museum, they would be able to get you to the things in the Museum that interest you, and bypassing the rest (It is massive). I would think you could also swing by the Pantheon which is (roughly) between the two. Perhaps find another couple people on your ship to join you via roll calls and share the expense?

I probably vote for number 1 just because inside the colosseum would be top priority for me. Also, #2 appears to miss St. Peters altogether and it would be a shame to not at least see it from the outside. However #1 has some "excursion speak" relative to St. Peters...."with St. Peters as a backdrop"... does that mean you will see it from 1 mile away? perhaps, but hopefully not, I would think they will get you to St. Peters square. You may not know unless you can find someone who has been on that specific excursion.

I tend to agree.... My kids are older now, but we cruised a lot when they were that age. It took me a couple cruises to figure out that my kids really didn't care if there were lots of other kids and lots of kid's programs. The basic kid's programs on most mainstream lines was fine for them, and some but not a lot of other kids was fine (actually preferable to them). They sometimes ended up fascinated with something else.... billiard table, shuffleboard or the self serve ice cream machine ! You can never predict that stuff. I would not compromise itinerary or the ship that the parents want to get a better kid's program. That said, we usually ended up on RCCL with kids. Now that we are empty nesters, we like Celebrity. However, I would not hesitate to take kids on Celebrity as well.

I tend to agree that a ship's tour may be a good option here. This is a wonderful excursion (Amalfi coast is beautiful) but there are a lot of timing things that could go off the rails here - more so than other excursions - mostly due to traffic. Also, on our last couple of cruises, we have had a couple ports were there were issues with ship docking for various reasons.... everyone was 2+ hours late getting off of the ship. In both of these cases the cruise line allowed only ship's excursion passengers to debark first, and it was enforced. (everyone else was even later than 2 hours late). This probably doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

They both look great.... Ship is personal preference, but we were on the Apex last summer and it is my favorite ship of 20+ that we have been on... really beautiful ship and food was excellent. .... We have not been on the RCCL Anthem but have been on Oasis class a few times, etc. I am sure Anthem is nice too. Considering you have 2 sea days to and from Southampton, I would vote for the 8 day cruise and getting one more port stop in, even though you are giving up Bergen which is a nice stop.